Federico Arístides Soto Alejo (June 30, 1930 – February 4, 2008), better known as Tata Güines, was a Cuban percussionist, bandleader and arranger. He was widely regarded as a master of the conga drum, and alongside Carlos “Patato” Valdés, influential in the development of contemporary Afro-Cuban music, including Afro-Cuban jazz. He specialized in a form of improvisation known as descarga, a format in which he recorded numerous albums throughout the years with Cachao, Frank Emilio Flynn, Estrellas de Areito, Alfredo Rodríguez and Jane Bunnett, among others. In the 1990s he released two critically acclaimed albums as a leader: Pasaporte and Aniversario. His composition “Pa’ gozar” has become a standard of the descarga genre.

Arístides Soto was born in Güines, a town east of Havana in the former province of Havana in Cuba, on June 30, 1930. He made his first drums out of milk cartons and sausages. He started working professionally in the 1950s as a percussionist in various popular Cuban ensembles, making his first recordings in 1951 as part of Estrellas Juveniles, a group founded by Arsenio Rodríguez. He later joined Fajardo y sus Estrellas, with whom he traveled to Venezuela in 1956. The next year he took part in the recording of Cachao‘s Cuban Jam Sessions in Miniature; he even doubled on bass on one track with Cachao on piano. He then moved to New York City for two years, performing at the Waldorf Astoria and various nightclubs including Birdland, where he shared the stage with jazz musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, Maynard Ferguson and Miles Davis. He also played with Josephine Baker and Frank Sinatra.