CURATION
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from this page:
by Augmented Matrix
Network Node
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Name:
Ben Azar
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City/Place:
Herzliya
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Country:
Israel
Current News
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What's Up?
I do sessions in and out of my studio, teach private and online lessons and write my own music.
Life & Work
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Bio:
Ben Azar represents a new breed of ultra-versatile guitar players and musicians which derives their ideas, style and taste from a broad and diverse range of sources.
A former New Yorker and now Israeli-based. Ben's career drifts from playing and touring as a side-man with established rock acts, such as guitar legend Marty Friedman (Megadeath, Cacophony) and Ron 'Bumblefoot' Thal (Guns n Roses), playing gospel (Hill Of The Lord Ministries in Brooklyn) to playing a verity of pop and ethnic/Middle-Eastern styles with local Israeli superstars, and of-course playing jazz concerts as a side man and as a leader with his group.
Ben's unique approach to music can be heard on his debut album "Organized Memories" (2011) which was released on Greg Osby's label, INNER CIRCLE Music. With his jazz guitar-based trio, his music reflects diverse influences and features intricate and lyrical compositions with a modern approach to improvisation. Ben brings to his music influences from all over the musical spectrum. From Mediterranean music, reflecting his early childhood in Israel, Rock music which reflect his teens, and Jazz music which reflect his late teens and twenties. Due to his international career the album, has reached far places of the world, to different kinds of music lovers, and is played in a variety of US and Israeli radio stations. Engineer Michael Perez-Cisneros (worked with Kurt Rosenwinkel, Eli Degibri, Omer Avital) mixed and mastered the album. He captured the intense performances of drummer Ziv Ravitz (Lee Konitz, Omer Klein, Shai Maestro) and acoustic bassist Daniel Ori (ASCAP Jazz Composers Award Winner of 2009).
In 2004 Ben received a scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston. He graduated with honours in 2007 with a double major in contemporary writing and production and performance. He studied under such luminaries as Mick Goodrick, Joe Lovano, Dave "Fuze" Fiuczynski, George Garzone, David Tronzo and more. While attending Berklee Ben has sharpen not only his instrumental skills, but also his writing and producing skills. Giving him a wider overview on his music and making it more accessible to the non musicians or academic crowd.
Writing music for bands, WEBSITES and movies also give Ben his diverse and unique sound. Having said that, with all the vast influences, it is very important for Ben to keep his music organic and natural sounding, he treats it like a living, breathing being.
Contact Information
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Email:
[email protected]
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Telephone:
+972 54-630-1309
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Record Company:
INNER CIRCLE Music
Clips (more may be added)
The Integrated Global Creative Economy, uncoiling from this sprawling Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix.
The mathematics of the small world phenomenon transforming the creative universe into a creative village wherein all are connected by short pathways to all.
In a small world great things are possible.
"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
Tap the grey crosses next to the categories on somebody's Matrix Page to recommend that person for that category.
(These crosses are only visible when you are logged in)
The crosses will turn green.
That person/category will appear in your My Curation & Recommendations.
You will appear in that person's Incoming Curation and Recommendations.
Both you and the person you are recommending will tend to some small number of steps from everybody inside the Matrix.
Salvador is our base. If you plan to visit Bahia, there are some things you should probably know and you should first visit:
www.salvadorbahiabrazil.com
Conceived under a Spiritus Mundi ranging from the quilombos and senzalas of Cachoeira and Santo Amaro to Havana and the provinces of Cuba to the wards of New Orleans to the South Side of Chicago to the sidewalks of Harlem to the townships of South Africa to the villages of Ireland to the Roma camps of France and Belgium to the Vienna of Beethoven to the shtetls of Eastern Europe...*
Sodré
*...in conversation with Raymundo Sodré, who summed up the irony in this sequence by opining for the ages: "Where there's misery, there's music!" Hence A Massa, anthem for the trod-upon folk of Brazil, which blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south until Sodré was silenced, threatened with death and forced into exile...
And hence a platform whereupon all creators tend to accessible proximity to all other creators, irrespective of degree of fame, location, or the censor.
Matrix Ground Zero is the Recôncavo, bewitching and bewitched, contouring the resplendent Bay of All Saints (end of clip below, before credits), absolute center of terrestrial gravity for the disembarkation of enslaved human beings (and for the sublimity these people created), the bay presided over by Brazil's ineffable Black Rome (seat of the Integrated Global Creative Economy* and where Bule Bule is seated below, around the corner from where we built this matrix as an extension of our record shop).
Assis Valente's (of Santo Amaro, Bahia) "Brasil Pandeiro" filmed by Betão Aguiar
Betão Aguiar
("Black Rome" is an appellation per Caetano, via Mãe Aninha of Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá.)
*Darius Mans holds a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT, and lives between Washington D.C. and Salvador da Bahia.
Between 2000 and 2004 he served as the World Bank’s Country Director for Mozambique and Angola. In that capacity, Darius led a team which generated $150 million in annual lending to Mozambique, including support for public private partnerships in infrastructure which catalyzed over $1 billion in private investment.
Darius was an economist with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, where he worked closely with the U.S. Treasury and the IMF to establish a framework to avoid debt repudiation and to restructure private commercial debt in Brazil and Chile.
He taught Economics at the University of Maryland and was a consultant to KPMG on infrastructure projects in Latin America.
Replete with Brazilian greatness, but we listened to Miles Davis and Jimmy Cliff in there too; visitors are David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR/WXPN
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
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.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
Ex Terra Brasilis
Wolfram MathWorld
UNIVERSAL
Alicia Svigals
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Luciano Calazans
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Gustavo Caribé
J Velloso
Lázaro Ramos
Fernando Guerreiro
Maria Marighella
Russell Okung
Bule Bule
Caetano Veloso
Sparrow/Pardal Roberts
RÁDIO MATRIX