Bio:
Chris Cheek
Chris is one of the most sought after saxophonists in the Jazz world today, having played in the the groups of legends such as Paul Motian, Charlie Haden, Steve Swallow and Bill Frisell. As a leader he has performed with the likes of Jorge Rossy, Brad Mehldau, Steve Cardenas and Kurt Rosenwinkle. His latest CD "Saturday Songs" (on Sunnyside Records) along with his recordings (on Fresh Sound records) "I Wish I Knew", "A Girl Named Joe", "Vine", and "Blues Cruise" have all received rave reviews internationally and have become favorites among players and listeners alike. He is also Co-leader of the bands "Rudder" (19/8 records), "the Bloomdaddies" (Fresh Sound) and "Reeds Ramble" (Criss Cross records).
Chris' music encompasses a wide vista, firmly rooted in the Jazz tradition with a foot towards the unknown. As Steve Swallow and Carla Bley put it: "On the one hand, he's the very embodiment of gentle, graceful lyricism. But he's unable to resist the urge to subvert. He's a master of the sucker punch; just when he's convinced you that things couldn't be sweeter, he'll play something that jolts you right back to real life, something as direct and succinct as an uppercut. Do not trust this man! Listen at your peril."
His colleague Guillermo Klein says of Cheek: "(Chris) is one of my favorite people in this world. An amazingly gifted musician in constant communion with sound. For more than 20 years I've been blessed to share music with him, and I have to say that every note and phrase he played to date it has been beautiful and meaningful, so inspiring to hear his interpretation of the music and also his own tunes have a unique beauty. He makes a place a happening place ...I think he doesn't realize it that much because he's always there."
His flexible, dynamic sound on all the saxophones, along with his adaptability and inventiveness makes him a valuable contribution to every band he plays with.
Chris Cheek was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1968.
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
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 MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).