Eduardo Mateo

Eduardo Mateo (1940–1990) was a Uruguayan singer, songwriter, guitarist, and arranger. He played an important role in the development of modern Uruguayan music that combines beat, jazz, bossa nova and local rhythms like candombe in a way similar to Brazilian Tropicalismo. By the final years of 1960s the musical and cultural movement he developed was called "Candombe beat", despite afterwards other terms have been used to replace that one. Bandmates who also revealed as important pieces in this developement were Ruben Rada and Urbano Moraes. In similar direction Hugo and Osvaldo Fattoruso worked candombe influences. Along with Eduardo Mateo, they influenced more than one generation which was about to come in Uruguayan music (songwriter Jaime Roos, drummer José Luis Pérez, songwriter Fernando Cabrera, instumentalists Nicolás, Martín and Andrés Ibarburu, etc.). Mateo's life and enigmatic personality (even his politic or a-political position) have been object of many studies and debates which resulted in the creation of a mythic personality.