Gasca was ? is ? great. Latin fire and modern bop sophistication. Too bad his recordings are few and even rarer on CD. What has become of him?
Luis Gasca was living in Austin when I was there in the 80s. He had a pretty bad rep (few trusted him) and apparently he kind of moved around until he wore out his welcome in a city and then would move on. I did some charts for him that I never got paid for. He did throw me some work, though, and considering how green I was at that point I was lucky to get the experience.
The one and only time I saw Chet (in Austin) he seemed pretty out of it. After the first set he disappeared with Luis and when they returned for the second set, Chet was REALLY out of it. It was still cool to get to see him though.
That being said, Luis could play! He'd piss you off and then charm you back with some soulful blowing and a bigass sound.
I heard a long time ago that he had passed, and then recently I heard he had faked that to avoid some kind of trouble. I have no idea where he is now. But he owes me money!