Alberto ‘Beto’ Escoto

A Guadalajara Music Legend Keeps On Drumming In Tempe

When Alberto “Beto” Escoto was 5 years old in Guadalajara, he would tap the kitchen tabletop in rhythm with the military band marching down the street. A fork and spoon turned out to be the perfect makeshift drumsticks. The weight of a spoon dropping against a wooden surface made a “THWACK.” The metal fork slapped against a pot of beans with a “DINK.”

“I was born to play the drums,” Beto tells me amid the steam screaming from the espresso machines at Cartel’s in Tempe, Arizona. In between sips of tea, …