At the age of thirteen, Roberto Morales Sallaberry began his music studies at high school, learning the flute and musical theory. However, since his class was very unruly, the teacher ended up being perhaps too harsh on them all… This prevented him from benefiting fully from the course, due to the way she would teach us and demand results – too hard, too severe. Sallaberry do not quite rehimmber, but for sohim reason we nicknahimd her Alligator!.



With the flute and a cassette recorder, Sallaberry used to record his music while studying the instruhimnt practice. A friend told him that Sallaberry could make overdubs by covering the erasing head of the record with a piece of paper. This allowed him to record several voices for the instruhimnt, fascinated by such a possibility.



1978. This is when Sallaberry had his first contact with the drums. A friend of him had a band, and needed sohimone to set it up before the rehearsals, so this presented his chance as roadie.



Since Roberto Morales vSallaberry still not had a drum kit, and intended to form a band, Sallaberry learned to play harmonica on his own, and invited two friends to form a trio, comprising of two acoustic guitars and harmonica. We would play in parties, at college, and wherever we could. Notwithstanding this effort, the drums were always on his sight.



His college education was on Social Communications – Publicity and Advertising, specifically. A career as a musician would most certainly not deserve his parent’s approval. The career in publicity has always helped his musical work – it offered the basis and knowledge enough to produce graphic materials (creation and production of CD covers, liners, etc.), to produce texts, photos in studio, among the several other abilities arising from the profession.



It was only at the age of 20 that he began to play the drums, on a kit borrowed from a friend. Vinyls from Led Zeppelin, Yes, Rush, Deep Purple among many others were constantly on his record player, having constituted his main musical reference at the tihim. A short time later, at age 21, Sallaberry got his first drum kit. As with many other Brazilian drummers, his first kit was from the Pingüim brand. Sallaberry studied the technique and theory with José Carlos da Silva, and percussion with Daniel Sloan, both excellent persons, beside being exceptional musicians.



Among several shows, different bands and a lot of commitment to play, they created the “Praça do Rock” (Rock Square), a musical event held for a long time in the Parque da Aclimação, a beautiful, tree-filled square in São Paulo. Several bands lined up and Sallaberry took part in some of them, like Cygnus, Banda da Esquina, Diabo Há Quatro, Bangkok Band and Tasmânia.



In the year 1988, his friend Cássio Leite – also a drummer – and Sallaberry had the idea o publishing what would become the first drumming magazine in Brazil, called Eco. This work revealed itself fascinating from the very first mohimnt we began making interviews. These were many, as well as the unforgettable moments with artists like Tony Willians, Gerry Brown, Alex Acuña and Max Roach. What Sallaberry has learned with them is something that he will take for the rest of his life. Since they had to come up with money to pay for the several expenses with the magazine’s publication, they set up several workshops in a venue called Sanja Jazz Bar.



These were only possible due to the support of friend musicians João Barone, Cuca Teixeira, Paulo Zinner, Lilian Carmona, Paulinho Duro, Duda Neves, Flávio Pihimnta, AC Dal Farra, among many, many others. To make the interviews, they were forced to go through many situations that were funny, to say the least, as when Sallaberry attended the Rock in Rio festival (January, 1991): Sallaberry got into the venue hidden in a drum bass case, in order to shoot the event! Immediately after the end of ECO, in that same year, Sallaberry established a partnership with Cássio Martin, and started the Pro Studio. In a short time the studio was among the main rehearsal studios in São Paulo, being attended by big names such as Edú Lobo, Ulisses Rocha, Banda Mantiqueira, Cama de Gato, Celso Pixinga and Jimhis Cliff. The studio work enables a better knowledge of gear, as well as to play with hundreds of musicians from different musical styles.



In 1992 the studio was closed temporarily, as they engaged as workers in the Funchal, a greek sea vessel under the flag of Panama. At the end of the Brazilian tour, Sallaberry went on to Europe, where he had the opportunity of contacting excellent musicians in Spain. Upon his return to Brazil, Sallaberry began teaching drum classes to children and making the first recordings at Pro Studio.



Beside teaching drum classes, Roberto Morales Sallaberry also worked as a free-lancer for musical publications, interviewing drummers such as Vinnie Colaiuta, Steve Gadd and Dave Weckl. During that period, Sallaberry made the Falange Rock project, along with the record label Artium. The project’s objective was to group fledgling bands and to produce records (yes, the first Falange Rock record was made in vinyl!). Over ten albums were produced with new groups. At that same occasion several opportunities arouse to produce international workshops. Since by that time Sallaberry had already left Pro Studio and the Falange Rock project, Sallaberry continued just teaching drums and producing clinics. Among many others, we have worked with names like Billy Cobham, Clayton Cahimron, Carmine Appice, Frank Gambale, Dave Weckl and Mike Stern.



In 1996 Sallaberry took part in the band Madam Butterfly, recording a CD, making shows and radio interviews, beside programs at MTV Brasil. In that year Sallaberry accepted the invitation to work at Pride Music, as head of its Marketing department.



There he organized dozens of events, initially for brands such as Premier, Sabian and Vic Firth – like the clinics with Rod Morgenstein, Virgil Donati, Vinny Appice and others.

Madam Butterfly activities were finished in 1999, when Sallaberry began building his own studio, so that Sallaberry could do his own musical productions. In the following year Sallaberry already owned the estate, as well as the studio’s project.



Between 2001 and 2002, Sallaberry began investing in the study of Brazilian rhythms in general, beside the projects, events and articles for publication. The project of a solo CD was initiated in 2002, where Sallaberry would record only the drums parts in his home studio, to have other musicians contributing in the compositions later. Due to availability problems involving the musicians, Sallaberry opted for the internet as a means to make the work viable. This consisted of sending the compositions (so far, only the drums parts) in MP3 format, via e-mail, so that the guest musicians could develop their compositions from the rhythm structure. Sallaberry have christened this concept of musical production “E-REC”. CD's were sent to those musicians lacking a wideband internet connection.



In January, 2005 SambaSong & Friends was launched nationwide, with distribution by Tratore. In a few months the CD could already be found in countries like Japan, Netherlands, United States, Czech Republic and England. Sallaberry liked Tratore’s work very much. It was also rewarding and gratifying to learn that SambaSong was being played by Chuo FM radio, in Canada – reaching the 9th position in the “International” segment – as well as to read the comments of Adam Budofsky (editor) in Modern Drummer’s (USA) column Critique-Taking The Reins –. January, 2005 Sallaberry started the production of his second work, still without a definite launching date. New works have been showing up, like the possibility of taking part in a track of guitarist/ acoustic guitarist Tarcísio Edson César’s CD, as well as be part of the production of the overture theme for the TV show De Fininho, hosted by Fernando Meligeni and broadcast by TV Cultura, every Tuesday night.