Caracas Chronicles

There are two ways to approach C4 Trío, if you haven’t already.

One is listening to their 11 albums. The first, 2006’s C4 Trío, already contains what the band was meant to be from the start: the three cuatro players, Héctor Molina, Jorge Glem, and Edward Ramírez, plus several illustrious collaborators such as Aquiles Báez. The cuatro is Venezuela’s traditional 4 string instrument. There are traditional songs from various regions of Venezuela, played with the band’s careful audacity; a classic of Onda Nueva, “Carretera;” and jazz: “A Night in Tunisia,” the Dizzie Gillespie standard, turned into a Caracas merengue mixed with a San Benito golpe, and the “Mambo Influenciado” from Cuban maestro Chucho Valdés. The list of pieces is designed to disorient you with every track. But it’s, above all, a manifesto, which says “this is the range of what we can do, and there’s more to come.” In the following album, Entre Manos, also produced by Báez, you can already sense the leap in maturity, they are no longer kids who need to prove how good they are. They have an album with the Sucrense singer Gualberto Ibarreto, one with the ska band Desorden Público, one with singer Rafael “el Pollo” Brito, one with the Brazilian mandolinist Hamilton de Holanda, and one with the Nicaraguan salsa singer Luis Enrique, Tiempo al tiempo, which won a Latin Grammy as best folk album, while the band’s fourth member, bassist Rodner Padilla, who is now the fourth member of this trio that is actually a quartet, won another for his arrangement of the song “Sirena.” They also have compilations and a 2023 Christmas album. This extensive discography also offers many opportunities to explore the same universe, for different audiences, not necessarily Venezuelans.

Another approach is to see them live, to understand why the allusion to an explosive, C4, is in the play of words in their name. To witness their most famous trick: interlacing their arms to play three cuatros between three, accompanied by Padilla. To direct that youthful energy, that joy they display on stage, to the curiosity of our children who didn’t grow up in Venezuela or witness the power of a pajarillo.

They’re currently on tour. In 2025, they have at least nine concerts left in the US and Canada; with their most ambitious show to date on November 13 at the Miami Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. It’s a demanding schedule, but the occasion is worth it: C4 Trío is turning 20. Time to review their history and understand what this project has done for the cuatro and for Venezuelan music, precisely in the years in which the nation has been subjected to all the factors you can imagine to hinder cultural expression.

Something Different

Like many great bands, the story of C4 Trío began with a handful of young, talented, and ambitious musicians who became friends and discovered they had common goals. Glem came from Cumaná, Molina de Mérida, and in Caracas, they met other musicians who were adding more years to a lifetime of music. “Héctor and I had an ensemble with Rafael Ramirez at the IUDEM,” Jorge Glem recalls. “Héctor played cuatro, I played mandolin, and Rafael played double bass. We made an arrangement of ‘Zumba que zumba’ that later appeared on the album with Gualberto Ibarreto, and we started playing together.” “C4 Trío was a project that was born spontaneously; it wasn’t something we planned,” says Héctor Molina. “We were invited to play at a concert on November 24, 2005, at CELARG, organized by our friend Edwin Arellano with the Multifonía Foundation. Jorge Glem, Edward Ramírez, Rafael Martínez, and I were going to play there, just songs for cuatro. We decided it would be good to do some duets and then some songs together at the end, as a quartet. What happened there that day was so chevere that we decided to continue with that format. That’s why we chose November 24th as our founding date.” Soon after, Rafael Martínez moved to San Cristóbal, and the quartet became a trio: Edward, Jorge, and Héctor. When the time to record their first album came, on Ernesto Rangel’s Guataca Records label, Edward resolved a long discussion about the group’s name with the idea of ​​”C4 Trío.”

A Confluence of Worlds

“We all were cuatro students, coming from different worlds, that merged into similar searches,” says Edward Ramírez, defining the project’s three components: openness to the world, knowledge of traditional heritage, and world-class quality on stage: “We wanted to immerse ourselves in other styles of music, while understanding our roots as much as possible, and elevate our performance and productions.” Molina points out that Venezuelan instrumental music ensembles were on the rise at the time. “Groups like Ensamble Gurrufío, El Cuarteto, Raíces, and Onkora were an inspiration. But we also agreed that we liked all kinds of music and that we are music lovers. So, in addition to traditional or Venezuelan roots music, we liked other types of music like jazz, rock, pop, and salsa. And all of that would somehow be reflected in our approach to the cuatro.”

Glem wanted to take advantage of the cuatro’s potential for percussion, exploring the instrument’s full range with an ensemble of cuatros that complemented each other and gave themselves permission to invent. Ramírez wanted to continue the work of his maestros and unleash the instrument within and outside of Venezuelan music. “That is one of C4’s greatest pursuits, and we have been gradually achieving it, although there is still much to be done.”

“C4 Trío has been a group that hasn’t set limits. And that’s why it’s sometimes difficult to classify. I think part of our contribution has been this vision that there are no limits to music or to the instrument.”

Gerardo Guarache, author of the book C4 Trío y la leyenda de los cuatros explosivos, notes that “C4 Trío showed that the traditional ensemble format can be altered with three cuatro players, not just one, and that Venezuelan music can also be a good show. The very birth of the group was a daring undertaking, but they gradually showed they were more than just a traditional group, but performers of music in general.” Soraya Rojas, their first manager —whose early death is one of the losses in the history of C4 Trío, along with that of their first bassist, Gustavo Márquez, and their first producer, the legendary Aquiles Báez—, induced them to change customs in the score and on stage. “Ever since they appeared on the scene,” Guarache continues, “they were already studying Pat Metheny, Bela Fleck, and Djavan; they would get together to watch them play on DVD. From their first album, they have had that cosmopolitan restlessness. Back to 4 is one of my favorite albums of theirs because it shows how far their freedom has taken them. But they will always sound Venezuelan; the fabric of the group is made of that. That breadth allows them to play at a Venezuelan party or at a jazz or world music festival, or in an alternative or academic music environments, and it manifests itself in all the collaborations they have done with people ranging from Gualberto Ibarreto and Oscar D’León to Desorden Público, and the work they do as soloists.” H

Because they all have careers outside of C4 Trío. Edward Ramírez formed El Tuyero Ilustrado with Rafa Pino (a project to reinvent the very specific genre of joropo central) and an album with jazzmen Roberto Koch and Carlos “Nené” Quintero. Héctor Molina has a solo album, Giros, and collaborates regularly with traditional and symphonic musicians such as Pacho Flores and Rafael Payare, the conductor of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Jorge Glem recorded Gonzalo Grau’s Odyssey with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gustavo Dudamel; he has a solo album, En El Cerrito; and two jazz duo albums, Stringwise, with pianist César Orozco, and Brooklyn-Cumaná, with American accordionist Sam Reider. And Rodner Padilla is a highly sought-after bassist and arranger, who, among many other albums, recorded his concerto for electric bass and orchestra with the Miami Symphony, conducted by Eduardo Marturet.

“Héctor studied classical guitar in Mérida, and Jorge studied classical mandolin, as a native of Sucre studying in Caracas”, says Guarache. “Gonzalo Teppa, a double bassist who has played with them, called Edward ‘the Bill Evans of Venezuelan music’ because he trained as a master of harmony. Rodner is the most versatile of the group, like any good bassist, and he doesn’t stick to the parameters of folklore.”

Now the Cuatro Is Cool

For Héctor Molina, “C4 Trío has been a group that hasn’t set limits. And that’s why it’s sometimes difficult to classify. I think part of our contribution has been this vision that there are no limits to music or to the instrument. And now we’re pleased to see that many kids are immersed in the cuatro, making any kind of music. Always starting from folklore, which is the original realm of the cuatro, but without setting limits on musical styles.” Jorge Glem defends the effort to view the cuatro as a universal instrument, a path already followed by Cheo Hurtado and “Pollo” Brito. “To show that the cuatro can play any genre, to not be afraid of other genres or other ideas a little removed from traditional Venezuelan music.” Edward Ramírez emphasizes that “all the music we make has one foot in the roots of Venezuelan music, no matter what style we’re working on. Living abroad gives us the opportunity to share time with different musicians who have a different vision, and that feeds our music. And that’s evident in the projects we’ve been able to complete, like Tiempo al tiempo. It speaks volumes about how important those connections are. But it’s also evident in the music on Back to 4, produced by an incredible musician from American band Snarky Puppy. We toured with them on a bus a couple of years ago in the US. Those experiences are huge for feeding our music.”

For Glem, emigration has meant learning that a Venezuelan musician shouldn’t arrive somewhere “with the idea that we’re coming from the best country in the world and have the best instrument, because that immediately hinders the possibility of collaborating with other musicians who see their country and their instruments in the same way.” Molina agrees: “When you share time with local musicians, you begin to learn about their culture and incorporate those elements, those other perspectives, and tools into your background. This gives you a broader perception of what music means, increases your ability to adapt, and allows you to better integrate into other worlds. It’s a great way to become a musician with a broader spectrum and less of a local identity.”

Molina understands the guardians of tradition but defends the right to innovate. “Music is a dynamic art that is constantly changing, and there will always be disruptions to the norm. A cuatro that was built 50 or 60 years ago didn’t sound like the ones that are made today. And the same goes for all the instruments and the people who play them. Of course, especially in the beginning, we received some criticism. But over the years, as the project became more established, many people began to understand that, although we use folklore as our foundation, we are not a folk music group. Today, there is much more openness to innovation. In Venezuela, the incorporation of popular music into the national orchestra system’s training programs has led to a generation of players of popular instruments like the cuatro, the maracas, the bandola, and the Venezuelan harp, who already have formal musical training. What’s happening with the cuatro is amazing: kids as young as 13 or 14 are playing it, something unthinkable just a few years ago. The evolution the cuatro is undergoing seems endless.”“C4 Trío helped young people become interested in the cuatro, making it cool,” says Guarache. “When they travel to Venezuela and open workshops, they gather 300 kids who see them as idols. Not even Ensamble Gurrufío, an incredible group, generated that kind of enthusiasm.”