Eduardo Alquinta

Eduardo Fernando Alquinta Espinoza (January 22, 1945 – January 15, 2003), more commonly known by his friends and followers as "Gato" Alquinta, was a Chilean guitarist and vocalist from the folk/progressive rock group Los Jaivas, Chile's longest-surviving group. He died of a heart attack while on vacation in Coquimbo, Chile.

Biography

Early years Son of Carlos Alquinta and Aurora Espinoza Rojas, he began to devote time to music at the age of 12. He learned the songs of Atahualpa Yupanqui without his father noticing him. He met Claudio Parra at the Guillermo Rivera high school in Viña del Mar, with whom he shared his love of cinema. This closeness turned into friendship with the entire family of Claudio and Mario Mutis, another friend of the clan.

Beginnings in Music By 1963, the year he began studying engineering at the Federico Santa María Technical University, along with Mario Mutis and the Parra members, they formed a tropical combo called The High & Bass that animated parties. In the group, he was the guitarist and one of the vocalists in the band. Later, he dropped out of engineering to study architecture, a career that he would share with Mario, and that he would not finish either. In 1968, he began to believe that the tropical music that the band performed was incompatible with the ideals that they were trying to convey to the public. For this reason, he traveled to several countries in America together with his wife, to search for new ideas and inspirations to establish a new musical component. Later, when he returned to Chile, he suggested to the band that they should be more original and be able to break with the established schemes to make their ideals known. The idea was well received, so they adopted the name of Los Jaivas in 1970. Before the appearance of their first official work, the studio album El volantín, from 1971, made the recordings that were later released in 2004 in a five-disc set called La Vorágine. From there, Los Jaivas experimented with music, through the use of imagination and inspirations. Alquinta declared on one occasion that the song Mira Niñita, was inspired while traveling by bus on Viana Street, so when they got to the Parra members, they made the song, being one of the most popular of the band.