Bertram
This Brazilian cultural matrix positions Bertram globally...
Curation
CURATION
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from this page:
by Title Holder
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
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Name:
Bertram
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City/Place:
Arlington, MA
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Country:
United States
Current News
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What's Up?
Hanging in .... teaching and playing music as much as possible and thankful to be well.
Life & Work
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Bio:
Quick Fix:
- Drummer and percussionist in Jazz, "Latin", Brazilian, and multiple other genres, and mixes thereof.
- I had the pleasure of performing with many Brazilian and Latin-American artists over the years, including Luciana Souza, Paquito d'Rivera, Dave Samuels, Romero Lubambo, Oscar Castro-Neves, Felipe Salles, Fernando Brandão, Mili Bermejo, Jurandir Santana, Receita De Samba, Ebinho Cardoso,
- Faculty at Berklee College of Music, teaching hands-on instrumental classes as well as Liberal Arts, and Ear Training. Brazilian music and culture figures big in all these activities.
Big Fix Bio:
Based in Boston for three decades, Bertram Lehmann's supple and fluid style of drumming has made him a sought-after player within a multitude of musical contexts in the region and beyond, performing Jazz, Latin, and World music.
In addition to his appearances and/or recordings with acclaimed artists such as Paquito D'Rivera, Randy Brecker, Dave Liebman, Anat Cohen, Antonio Sanchez, Romero Lubambo, Danilo Perez, Claudio Roditi, Tiger Okoshi, Oscar Castro-Neves, Eddie Gomez, Kenny Werner, the NDR Bigband and Dave Samuels' Caribbean Jazz Project, he has toured internationally in Russia, India, Bermuda, South Korea, Ecuador, Ghana, Mexico, Turkey, Spain, Israel, Virgin Gorda, and Germany.
Some of the distinguished national and international venues Bertram has performed at include Lincoln Center, Birdland, Symphony Space, Metropolitan Museum, Brooklyn Academy of Music, National Sawdust, and The Jazz Gallery in New York City; Symphony Hall, The Opera House, Paramount Theater, Boston Globe Jazz Festival, Beantown Jazz Festival, Celebrity Series of Boston, The American Repertory Theater, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; and many other venues elsewhere, such as the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 'Jazz Yatra' Festival (Mumbai), the Tchaikovsky Conservatory (Moscow), 'Panafest' (Accra), Chicago World Music Festival, Kumho Art Hall (Seoul), Istanbul Jazz Center and ‘Istanbul Jazz Festival’, 'Savannah On Stage' Festival; The Kennedy Center and The Blues Alley (Washington, D.C.), as well as the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
In the New England Region and beyond, Bertram Lehmann is renowned for his long-standing associations with artists such as Grammy-winning Brazilian vocalist/composer Luciana Souza, Latin-ensemble Mango Blue, Indo-Jazz band Natraj, jazz-diva Rebecca Paris, and South American jazz-vocalist Mili Bermejo’s groups, as well as virtuoso Cuban pianists Tony Perez and Osmany Paredes.
Most recently he appeared on recordings by Mehmet Sanlikol (‘The Rise Up’, feat. Dave Liebman and ‘Othello in the Seraglio – an Ottoman Coffeehouse Opera’, DVD/Amazon Prime), Felipe Salles’ Interconnections Ensemble (‘The Lullaby Project’ and “The New Immigrant Experience’, earning 4 and 4 ½ stars each in Downbeat Magazine reviews), Imagine 5 (self-titled debut release), Florian Poser (‘The Gaze’), and the forthcoming release of Astor Piazzolla’s “Six Tango Etudes for Flute”, by Lisa Bento-Rey.
He is an Assistant Professor in the Percussion, Ear Training, and Liberal Arts departments at Berklee College of Music, and also teaches at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. Additionally, Bertram has presented clinics/presentations Longy School of Music, Harvard University, Princeton University, University of Massachusetts Amherst and Boston, Five Towns College, Wellesley College, the University of New Hampshire, SOAS/University of London, Moscow Conservatory, at Dong-Ah Institute of Media and Arts, and Keimyung University in South Korea, at the Universities of Bremen and Oldenburg (Germany), Fundacio l'Aula de Musica (Barcelona), and the 'Centro Cultural' in Quito, Ecuador.
Some other of the more than 60 CD recordings featuring Bertram Lehmann on drum set and/or hand percussion are by Mehmet Sanlikol and WhatsNext (‘Resolution’ feat. Dave Liebman, Anat Cohen, Antonio Sanchez, ‘Whatsnext’), the Fernando Brandão Group (‘Sem Tradução’), the Klaus Spencker Trio (‘Crossing Borders’), Felipe Salles (‘The Ugandan Suite’ feat. Dave Liebman , ‘Departure’ feat. Randy Brecker, 'South American Suite'), Ian Ethan (‘Earth Suite’), Phi Scarf-Lewis Porter Group (‘Three Minutes to Four’), Wolfgang Torkler Trio (‘Trio’), DŰNYA ('Lale ve Kiliç/The Tulip and the Sword', ‘A Story Of The City: Constantinople – Istanbul’), Julie Lavender (‘Rising – A Modern Cantata For A World to Come’), Numasbala (‘A Ver’), Pablo Ablanedo Octet(o) (‘Recontradoble’), Mango Blues ('Immigrant Blues'), Dave Fiuczynski ('Kif Express'), Natraj ('Deccan Dance' ,'Song of the Swan'), Mili Bermejo Quintet ('De Tierra'), Katie Viqueira ('Amores Torcidos'), Peter Janson (‘Beautiful Day'), as well as the 'Berklee Herb Pomeroy Tribute Concert', a live-recording featuring Joe Zawinul, Gary Burton, John Abercrombie, among others.
Bertram is an endorser of AQUARIAN Drumhead products, VIC FIRTH drum sticks, Black Swamp Percussion, Murat Diril Cymbals, and DEMSticks.
My Instruction
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Lessons/Workshops:
I teach remotely to anywhere needed, aside from being available in the Boston area....
There are certain countries, the names of which fire the popular imagination. Brazil is one of them; an amalgam of primitive and sophisticated, jungle and elegance, luscious jazz harmonics — there’s no other place like it in the world. And while Rio de Janeiro, or its fame anyway, tends toward the sophisticated end of the spectrum, Bahia bends toward the atavistic…
It’s like a trick of the mind’s light (I suppose), but standing on beach or escarpment in Salvador and looking out across the Baía de Todos os Santos to the great Recôncavo, and mindful of what happened there (and here; the Bahian Recôncavo was final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place throughout the entirety of mankind’s existence on this planet, and in the past it extended into what is now urban Salvador), one must be led to the inevitable conclusion that one is in a place unique to history, and to the present:
Brazil absorbed over ten times the number of enslaved Africans taken to the United States of America, and is a repository of African deities (and their music) now largely forgotten in their lands of origin.
Brazil was a refuge (of sorts) for Sephardim fleeing an Inquisition which followed them across the Atlantic (that unofficial symbol of Brazil’s national music — the pandeiro — was almost certainly brought to Brazil by these people).
Across the parched savannas of the interior of Brazil’s culturally fecund nordeste/northeast (where wizard Hermeto Pascoal was born in Lagoa da Canoa — Lagoon of the Canoe — and raised in Olho d’Águia — Eye of the Eagle), much of Brazil’s aboriginal population was absorbed into a caboclo/quilombola culture punctuated by the Star of David.
Three cultures — from three continents — running for their lives, their confluence forming an unprecedented fourth. Pandeirista on the roof.
That's where this Matrix begins:
Wolfram MathWorld
The idea is simple, powerful, and egalitarian: To propagate for them, the Matrix must propagate for all. Most in the world are within six degrees of us. The concept of a "small world" network (see Wolfram above) applies here, placing artists from the Recôncavo and the sertão, from Salvador... from Brooklyn, Berlin and Mombassa... musicians, writers, filmmakers... clicks (recommendations) away from their peers all over the planet.
This Integrated Global Creative Economy (we invented the concept) uncoils from Brazil's sprawling Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix... expanding like the canopy of a rainforest tree rooted in Bahia, branches spreading to embrace the entire world...
Recent Visitors Map
Great culture is great power.
And in a small world great things are possible.
Alicia Svigals
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"Very nice! Thank you for this. Warmest regards and wishing much success for the project! Matt"
—Son of Jimmy Garrison (bass for John Coltrane, Bill Evans...); plays with Herbie Hancock and other greats...
I opened the shop in Salvador, Bahia in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for magnificent Brazilian musicians.
David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR found us (above), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix, then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
Years ago in NYC (I've lived here in Brazil for 32 years now) I "rescued" unpaid royalties (performance & mechanical) for artists/composers including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (for his rights in Bob Marley compositions; Clement was Bob's first producer), Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass and many others. Aretha called me out of the blue vis-à-vis money owed by Atlantic Records. Allen Klein (managed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles) called about money due the estate of Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) called just to see if he had any unpaid money floating around out there (the royalty world was a shark-filled jungle, to mangle metaphors, and I doubt it's changed).
But the pertinent client (and friend) in the present context is Earl "Speedo" Carroll, of The Cadillacs. Earl went from doo-wopping on Harlem streetcorners to chart-topping success to working as a custodian at PS 87 elementary school on the west side of Manhattan. Through all of this he never lost what made him great.
Greatness and fame are too often conflated. The former should be accessible independently of the latter.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Across the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
For a complete list of everybody inside, tap TOTAL below:
TOTAL
Ex Terra Brasilis
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Matt Garrison
RÁDIO MATRIX