CURATION
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from this page:
by Augmented Matrix
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
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Name:
Adam Cruz
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City/Place:
New York City
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Country:
United States
Life
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Bio:
Drummer, composer, and educator Adam Cruz was born in New York City and has been a vital creative force on the international jazz scene for the last two decades. He leads his own group, is an integral part of renowned pianist Danilo Perez’s trio, and regularly works with artists such as Tom Harrell, The Mingus Big Band, Joey Calderazzo, Chris Potter, Steve Wilson and Edward Simon. Adam currently teaches at CCNY and the Berklee Global Jazz Institute.
As a drummer, Adam represents a unique place in the American jazz lineage. His mixed ethnic background informs his playing in ways that transcend easy stylistic categorization. The wealth of his rhythmic knowledge, his deep sense of jazz swing and his knowledge of Latin American rhythms, all coalesce into his personal sound, giving his playing a powerful depth and a rare and distinctive musicality.
Adam first emerged professionally in the early 1990’s, performing and recording extensively with saxophonist David Sanchez and the Charles Mingus Big Band. He toured with pianist Chick Corea, recording Origin - A Week at the Blue Note. He spent the end of that decade touring as a duo with guitarist Charlie Hunter, and then began his long-term association with pianist Danilo Perez in 2000, along with bassist Ben Street.
Adam studied at Rutgers’ Mason Gross School of the Arts and The New School for Social Research, where he received his BFA and his teachers included Joe Chambers, Keith Copland, Kenny Washington, Frank Malabe, Victor Lewis, Lewis Nash and Portinho.
He was first introduced to music by his father Ray Cruz, a renowned New York-born percussionist of Puerto Rican heritage. His mother hails from a rich musical background as well. She is the daughter of Italian-American trumpeter Ricky Trent (who worked with Paul Whiteman and Tommy Dorsey) and Mildred Kapner, a Jewish-American dancer. The diversity of Adam’s background is greatly reflected in his work as a musician and educator.
In 2010, he was awarded a grant from the ACFM to record Milestone, his much anticipated-debut recording as a composer and bandleader. Milestone was released in 2011 on Sunnyside Records to great critical acclaim by the Los Angeles Times, Downbeat Magazine, and Jazz Times among others. The New York Times described the album as "Informed by several strains of Latin music but just as meaningfully by brisk post-bop and lyrically minded free jazz… featuring intricately shifting counterpoint” and “brilliant surging solos.”
Throughout his illustrious career as a drummer, Adam has toured and recorded with artists as diverse as Danilo Perez, Tom Harrell, McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, Pharaoh Sanders, John Patitucci, Eddie Palmieri, Joanne Braackeen, Chris Potter, Edward Simon, Steve Wilson, Charlie Hunter, and Lee Konitz. He continues to maintain a busy performing and teaching schedule, sharing his talent, knowledge and experience with appreciative fans all over the world.
More
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Quotes, Notes & Etc.
“Drummer Adam Cruz pairs flawless technique and a crystalline touch with a level of prophetic intuition that is awe-inspiring.”
- Modern Drummer
“Adam Cruz is the classic drummer bandleader, in the tradition of Philly Joe Jones and Elvin Jones, who knows how to stroke the fire from the proverbial engine room, but he’s gone the extra mile on Milestone in crafting quite a solid compositional woodpile of original music.”
- Downbeat Magazine
Clips (more may be added)
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.
Brazil absorbed over ten times the number of enslaved Africans taken to the United States of America, and is a repository of African deities 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.
"Great culture is great power. And in a small world great things are possible."
The Matrix was built to open the world to Bahian musicians by opening the world to all creators.
In the Matrix you curate people (and entities) for what they do and where they do it. And they can curate you. A network is formed.
By the mathematical magic of the small-world phenomenon, everybody in the Matrix (as in human society) tends to within degrees of everybody else.
And by logical extension, the entire planet. All can (potentially) be found by everybody. QED
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"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...
Ground Zero for the project was the culture born in Brazil's quilombos (in Angola a kilombo is a village; in Brazil it is a village either founded by Africans or Afro-Brazilians who had escaped slavery, or — as in the case of São Francisco do Paraguaçu below — occupied by such after abandonment by the ruling class):

...theme for a Brazilian Matrix, from an Afro-Brazilian Mass by
Milton Nascimento
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.
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