CURATION
-
from this page:
by Augmented Matrix
Network Node
-
Name:
Brandon Coleman
-
City/Place:
Los Angeles, California
-
Country:
United States
Life & Work
-
Bio:
Bending the future of sound, taking ivory and ebony to destinations unknown, is keyboard maestro, vocalist, composer, producer, arranger and astral traveler Brandon Coleman. A regular fixture with Babyface, Donald Glover, Flying Lotus, and Kamasi Washington’s band, Coleman represents a new chapter in the evolution of jazz and funk fusion. His celebrated sophomore album, Resistance, released in late 2018, brought him “All Around The World” to Japan, South America, and Europe alongside Kamasi and traveling North America to support Flying Lotus, with his future funk band, Brandon Coleman’s SpaceTalker.
“For those accustomed to Coleman’s role laying the foundation for expansive spiritual-jazz explorations in Kamasi Washington’s band, it’s revelatory to hear him so spry on his feet and down to get down. If his work with Washington contains all the weight and gravitas of Sunday church, Coleman’s Resistance has all the fun, breeziness- and yes, sunlight- of an afternoon church picnic,” said Andy Beta of Pitchfork. At a typical Brandon Coleman show, whether trio, quartet, quintet, sextet, septet or SpaceTalker, it’s common to get the entire Sunday extravaganza.
from https://www.foxperformances.com/artist-roster/brandon-coleman
Contact Information
-
Record Company:
Brainfeeder
More
-
Quotes, Notes & Etc.
Brainfeeder is proud to present “Resistance” - a funk odyssey by keyboard maestro, vocalist, composer, producer, arranger and astral traveller Brandon Coleman. A regular fixture in the Kamasi Washington band, wylin’ out on the keys or wielding his keytar, he is introduced onstage at gigs as “Professor Boogie” by his longtime friend and collaborator. “Resistance” represents a new chapter in the Funk dynasty that spans George Clinton / Parliament Funkadelic and Zapp through to Dr. Dre, DJ Quik and Dam Funk as the Los Angeles resident salutes his musical heroes - Herbie Hancock, Peter Frampton, Roger Troutman - and honours their ethos of freedom and experimentation in his search for Funk’s future.
“Resistance” is a powerful statement from an artist who is passionate about hybridity and innovation - stitching together threads from jazz, disco, boogie, R&B, electro, soul and Funk. “I’ve been in the studio a lot in recent years, writing with this or that artist and I always felt constrained… like I had to compromise and submit to a ‘pop’ sensibility,” he explains. “This time I just wanted to create something that was really free… something original… to incorporate all the styles that I represent, because often when I’ve tried to do that in the past it’s been met with resistance.”
The list of artists with whom Coleman has collaborated is simultaneously inspiring and exhausting. From Ciara to Mulatu Astatke and Childish Gambino to Shuggie Otis… but one of his most consistent studio partners during the last decade has been R&B icon Babyface. “I’ve learned a lot from him… working on countless projects… he would just call me at any time and say: ‘Hey man, I’m in the studio with Aretha Franklin at the piano and I want you to come in and help us arrange some songs.’ And I would be like: ‘Erm ok, I’m on my way’,” he shakes his head and laughs. “Those experiences shaped the way I hear and appreciate music”.
Coleman’s epiphany came aged 16 when he’d only really just taken up piano. “My brother gave me a Herbie Hancock record - ‘Sunlight’,” he says. “I put it on and just kept listening to it on repeat ‘cos I couldn’t fathom how he was singing like that… it sounded electric. That was it for me.” Utterly bewitched by the marriage of human touch and robotic texture in those vocals, he moved on to Peter Frampton and Roger Troutman (celebrated for their mastery of the talk box) and decided to create his own signature synth patch for his vocals. “I wanted to take it further… if Siri could sing, this is how Siri would sing,” he laughs.
It is fitting that “Resistance” should arrive on the imprint founded by Flying Lotus - a perpetual free-thinker and champion of genre-exploding. “I can remember the first time I met him,” says Brandon. “It was at a ‘Suite For Ma Dukes’ rehearsal with Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and I walked in and noticed this mad set-up with crazy pedals and stuff and I’m usually the guy who has that. Who the hell does this guy think he is, doing what I do but different gear?… and then I was like ‘Holy shit - this is Flying Lotus!’” The pair have subsequently worked together on music for Bladerunner, FlyLo’s directorial debut Kuso and Brandon plays on “Until The Quiet Comes” and “You’re Dead!” too. It was an easy decision to sign the album to Brainfeeder: “It just feels like family, y’know?”, he explains. “Stephen [Thundercat] is there… plus I’ve toured a lot with Kamasi and the type of shows we were playing - the venues and the crowds - it wasn’t a jazz audience and I dug that. I feel like that was something that Brainfeeder brought to the table”.
Clips (more may be added)
I created this matrix so the world could discover elemental cultural genius here in Bahia: João do Boi (rest in power), Roberto Mendes, Raymundo Sodré and magisterial others. To make these artists discoverable worldwide though, there's a catch: The matrix must encompass so far as possible ALL CREATORS EVERYWHERE.
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.
Tap the crosses on somebody's Matrix Page to recommend that person for that category.
(Crosses 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.
You and the person you are recommending will be pulled by mathematical gravity to within DISCOVERABLE distance of EVERYBODY ELSE INSIDE the Matrix.
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
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.