The great drummer Antonio Sánchez doesn’t just play the beat—he builds the framework in which the music lives. On John Finbury’s Quatro, Antonio’s drumming acts as a living architecture, shaping the space for melodies to move and breathe. Whether driving the intensity of “Llegará El Día” or adding lift to more intimate moments, Sánchez has a unique way of guiding the music without ever dominating, giving each track its own sense of place and character.
Recorded in New York in 2019 and released in 2020, Quatro brought Sánchez together with Magos Herrera, Chano Domínguez, and John Patitucci under the co-production of Emilio D. Miler and Finbury. The album blends vocal and instrumental tracks that reflect a tapestry of Latin American, Spanish, and jazz influences, with Sánchez’s rhythmic choices often steering the emotional direction of a piece.
The music of Quatro gives Sánchez room to showcase his enormous range. On “Independence Day,” his crisp articulation interacts playfully with Domínguez’s flamenco-jazz piano, weaving percussive textures that alternate between light-footed conversation and emphatic punctuation. Then there’s “Romp,” where he shifts into a celebratory groove infused with a New Orleans Second Line spirit, adding unexpected color to the album’s rhythmic palette.
In “Llegará El Día,” his playing mirrors the song’s narrative arc. Each accent and dynamic swell seems to respond to the lyrical message of resilience and hope, creating a sense of forward motion that carries both the band and the listener. When paired with the track’s animated video, the drumming is cinematic, like the undercurrent of a powerful film score.
That is not surprising, as Antonio’s interest in structuring long-form musical stories entirely through rhythm is well-recognized in Hollywood. He famously scored the Oscar-winning film “Birdman” with his solo drumming and should probably have won an Oscar for that scoring excellence but was snubbed because Oscar didn’t know how to regard a singular drums-only film score and unjustly left him off the ballot.
Antonio’s body of work is legion, with solo projects as a band leader and collaborations with many great musicians, including Pat Metheny. On Quatro, his is one of four unique voices, and his contribution to the music in ways both subtle and striking is superb.