Alberto «Ringo» Martínez is a Dominican pianist, arranger, composer and producer, co-founder with Jossie Esteban of the merengue orchestra Jossie Esteban y La Patrulla 15 and one of the architects of the genre’s sound through the 1980s and 1990s.

«La Patrulla 15»

In 1979, in La Vega, he and his childhood friend Jossie Esteban formed the orchestra that carried both their names, mixing Dominican and Puerto Rican musicians — among them the bassist and arranger Henry Hierro — over a run of some twenty-five albums and decades of steady touring.

Beyond the Patrulla

Alongside that career he founded and produced his own groups: «Caña Brava», whose 1996 album «Quieren mi caña» gave the band its best-known song and whose 1992 record carried «No me faltes nunca», written by Vivian Martínez and Víctor García; «Las Nenas de R&J»; and «Fuego 440».

A recovery

In January 2021 he was hospitalized in intensive care with COVID-19; a month later, on 8 February, he was discharged after a steady recovery, a story Dominican press covered as one of merengue’s own close calls with the pandemic.

Legacy

Four decades after two young friends from La Vega put together an orchestra, Martínez remains one of the genre’s working architects, still credited on the arrangements and productions that keep merengue’s older sound alive.