Guillo Carias was a simple man who happened to be extraordinary. Many people knew him simply as Gio, because that is how his name sounds in English, and it fit him perfectly. He grew up in Santo Domingo, the son of a pianist, and music was in his blood from the very beginning. He studied at the Music Conservatory of Santo Domingo and later earned a degree in orchestral arranging from the University of Chicago Conservatory Extension.

In Puerto Rico he studied under Maestro Harry Glantz, principal trumpet of the New York Symphony Orchestra, and Jack Holland of the New York Metropolitan Orchestra. He was personally chosen by Maestro Pablo Casals to perform the Haydn Trumpet Concerto with the Casals Festival Orchestra at the Puerto Rico Conservatory graduation ceremony. That is the kind of musician he was.

His career took him from San Juan de la Maguana across the Caribbean and up to New York, where in 1963 he joined the Tito Rodríguez Orchestra. His musical world was wide open. He played jazz, Bossa Nova, Merengue, Pambiche, and standards. His influences ranged from Chet Baker and Bill Evans to Dave Brubeck, and his sound reflected all of it. Along the way he crossed paths with some of the great names of that era including Celia Cruz, Dave Brubeck, Sammy Davis Jr., Paul Anka, Phyllis Diller, Chuck Mangione, Errol Flynn and Sugar Ray Robinson.

Back in the Dominican Republic he conducted the first ever jazz symphonic concert in the country, led the National Symphony Orchestra as assistant principal trumpet for 17 years, recorded 10 LPs with his own orchestra, and was recognized by the Governor of Puerto Rico with the Distinguished Visitor Award. He was simply always working, always giving.

After retiring to Cary, North Carolina, Guillo never stopped sharing music. He tuned pianos across the Raleigh area and taught children in the community how to play piano and trumpet. He was, above all, a deeply giving person. In 2014 he invited Dr. Stephen Anderson, Director of Jazz Studies at UNC Chapel Hill, to perform in Santo Domingo, and that single gesture sparked the Dominican Jazz Project. In 2017, several reel tapes containing decades of his recordings were discovered in a garage. Carefully restored, those recordings are now available on SoundCloud.