Ed Roth via giant steps through a matrix based in the phenomenon placing most of the 7.8 billion of us within 6 or fewer degrees — steps — of each other...
- Steps from Ed Roth:
I'LL TAKE YOU THERE! ▶
'mātriks / "source" / from "mater", Latin for "mother". We're real mothers for ya!
I'LL TAKE YOU THERE! ▶
- Steps forward by: The Matrix
Who I Am & Where I Live
- Name: Ed Roth
- City: Los Angeles
- Country: United States
My Life & Work
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Bio:
Keyboardist Ed Roth’s feel, spirit, and touch have made him a top choice of renowned artists, producers, and musicians worldwide. Utilizing acoustic and vintage keyboard instruments, Roth creates memorable, soulful, melodies that sing, as well as adding deep, organic grooves with his playing.
The L.A. based arranger, keyboardist, musical director, and producer has played and/or recorded with a very diverse range of artists, including Grammy winners: Annie Lennox, the Brothers Johnson, Mya, Taylor Dayne, Rob Halford, the Avett Brothers, Coolio, and Tom Morello.
Other artists Roth has played and/or recorded with include Shuggie Otis, Angus and Julia Stone, Suor Cristina, Ronnie Montrose, Glenn Hughes, Jimmy Barnes, Flogging Molly, Maia Sharp, and the Divas of Disco featuring Thelma Houston, Cece Penniston and A Taste of Honey.
Even with his mastery behind the scenes, Roth shines the most as a solo artist. His latest solo album, "Mad Beatnik," released on Warrior Records, was top 25 iTunes jazz USA, and spent 9 weeks on the USA Jazzweek top 100 chart. The single “Mad Beatnik” was #1 iTunes Jazz in Greece, and #6 iTunes jazz Italy. The album features 3-time Grammy winning saxophonist Tom Scott, as well as Grammy winning drummer, Chad Smith.
"This is a truly organic album," notes Roth. "There is no programming, no midi, no sequencing, no beat detective, no auto tune. Every keyboard instrument is real -- acoustic pianos, electric pianos, clavinets, or analog keyboards, and you feel that. All real instruments, drums, sax, trumpet, percussion, guitar, trombone, and electric bass or keyboard bass...and you certainly feel that too."
Prior to “Mad Beatnik,” Ed’s debut album, a self-titled funky instrumental collection, spent 8 weeks on the Billboard Top 40 Smooth Jazz charts. “Music needs to make the world a more beautiful place, but sometimes it’s gotta have some fire to it as well,” says Roth. It’s been said that his instrumental music emotes lasting melodies and solos that speak to the listener like a short story.
Ed Roth is also a featured member of the Bombastic Meatbats, led by Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith (two Top 10 iTunes Jazz and Top 25 Billboard charting albums), and CTA with Chicago founder/drummer Danny Seraphine and 2-time Grammy winner Bill Champlin. Roth co-wrote and recorded with Arun Shenoy on his 2013 album, which was nominated for a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Album, and co-produced Kristine W’s #1 iTunes jazz single, “What I like About You.”
Another career highlight for Roth has been his tenure as the longest running member of the house band for L.A. top rock station, KLOS. In that band, Roth has played with such rock legends as Paul Rodgers, Peter Frampton, Edgar Winter, John Waite, Joe Perry, Keith Emerson, and Eddie Money.
As a longtime session player, Ed Roth has numerous soundtrack, video game, and commercial credits including Touchstone Pictures, BET, Sony Pictures, Hanna-Barbera, Disney, Guitar Hero 3, History Channel, Honda, Tropicana, Kenwood, Roland, QSC, and JBL.
East Coast raised and of Brazilian heritage, Roth grew up in a home where only Brazilian and classical music were allowed. He built his love for R&B staying up late listening to Howard University's radio station WHUR on headphones, after his parents went to sleep. This exposure set up his lifelong commitment to ‘the groove’.
Roth regularly contributes as music director for the Southern California based charity, Safety Harbor Kids, which works to enrich the lives of orphans, foster and homeless children through education in the areas of College, Career, and the Arts.
Contact Information
- Email: edskeyboardroom@gmail.com
My Media & Markets
- ▶ Twitter: officialedroth
- ▶ Instagram: officialedroth
- ▶ Website: http://www.edrothmusic.com
- ▶ YouTube Music: http://music.youtube.com/channel/UCwpZD6d6r1uK8X8-wcjI5Ng
- ▶ Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/6jEMNeh6vas1915kMMzQiH
- ▶ Spotify 2: http://open.spotify.com/album/4OSh9aA7nQH9qwqvaqT9FT
More
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Quotes, Notes & Etc.
"Ed's got the style, Ed's got the grace. He's got funky clav,
Rhodes and B3 up in your face. This man can do it all... with love and soul...My friend always take the music to a higher place."
- Chad Smith: Drummer, 5-time Grammy Winner, Red Hot Chili Peppers
"Ed has the kind of ears that not only come up with great stuff for him to play but somehow connect it with all the other guys' stuff. He's always cognizant of dynamics and keeps himself and everyone else honest. A great musician who accomplishes everything with that rare quality: Finesse. Plus, he's a great guy to hang with on breaks. Oh, and his chops? Forget it!!!!
- Bill Champlin: Grammy winning songwriter/artist, Sons of Champlin, Chicago
Ed Roth has been an essential component of several of my film scores. His instincts, and facilities, both on his instrument and from his lust for the right gear make him invaluable. There is nothing like Ed Roth because he is the real thing.
- John Swihart: Napoleon Dynamite, The Perfect Host, How I Met Your Mother
"I have managed for 17 years and the best man I have worked with is Ed. He is a true keeper as a musician and co-worker. When you need him he is there in a pinch, and when there is trouble he is very level headed and loyal. He is a great player and musician and I can't tell you how much I depend on him for my clients as well as now with the Room 105, the musical I am directing on Janis Joplin. Ed always comes through!"
- Gigi Gaston: manager, writer and director
"Ed is a super talented keyboard player who can play any style of music and is full of soul and personality... I love playing music with him live or in the studio."
- Kenny Aronoff, session drummer: John Mellencamp, Rod Stewart, Willie Nelson, John Fogerty, Avril Lavigne...
"Ed Roth has an incredible combination of chops and soul that can add dimension to a song without necessarily calling attention to the parts. That said, he'll also tear your head off with some of the funkiest playing you'll ever hear!"
- Ryan Hewitt: Rick Rubin,Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blink 182, Erykah Badu
"Ed Roth puts the fun in funky. His pocket is so deep that you can't find any loose change. A true master of groove, your track will holla if you pay him the dolla - your sound will be phat if you hire this cat! Seriously, Ed Roth is the best there is."
- Peter Fish: 6-time Emmy Award Winner/writer/producer/keyboard player for Carly Simon, Phoebe Snow
"I feel very blessed to have met Ed Roth. He not only a great player, you can communicate your ideas to him and he implements them . This is a rare gift to be able to understand another persons musical vision instinctively. We have traveled all over the world together. He makes me laugh at rehearsals but can also bring me close to tears when he plays. Ed is a talented gem."
- Kristine W, Recording Artist: 16 #1 billboard dance hits
"I have been in the music business all of my life and have been fortunate to have worked with some of the most talented musicians in the world. Ed Roth is indeed one of these. His passion and love for music always brings new life to a song and makes one thing very clear: Ed Roth was put on this earth to enchant our ears and make producers' lives a lot easier through his talent on the keys."
- Josh Tone - producer/songwriter/engineer for Santana, Green Day, Chris Isaak...
"Ed is a great musician with the chops, intuition and sensitivity to add authenticity to any project. I would use him without hesitation."
- Martin Davich: Composer, 2-time Emmy winner; E.R., Third Watch, Beverly Hills 90210, Trinity
"One of the best keyboard players in the world!"
- Coolio: Grammy award winning artist
"Ed is truly the jack of all trades and the master of them as well. There isn’t a style, texture or groove that he can’t play and play well. Rock, jazz, smooth jazz, funk, old school, hip hop and jazz/rock."
- Danny Seraphine: Multiple Grammy winner, original drummer and founding member of the group Chicago
"Ed is not only my first call, he is my only call. I've used him on recording sessions for albums as well as many TV & FIlm projects. He has a great ear & a fantastic collection of great vintage instruments."
- Mike Baiardi: Music producer/ composer
"Ed is a consummate professional that not only has the chops to cover anything I throw at him, but the experienced ears to capture fantastic tones that compliment the recording. Ed is fast, efficient, friendly and easy to work with and he has saved the day more than once for me. I will most certainly be working with him again!"
- Steve Ouimette: Guitar Hero, Rock Revolution, composer/artist/producer
"Ed Roth is both proficient and prolific in the studio. The ideas run like a river and the experience is always both professional and fun. Whenever I need keys whether it be Rock, Jazz, Funk, Latin the first call always goes to Ed, he has the gear, the ears and the vibe. Enough said!"
- Roy Z: Producer/writer Judas Priest, Sebastian Bach, Bruce Dickinson, Rob Halford
"Ed possesses the enviable ability to attack any style of music be it funk, rock, jazz, pop, latin, blues, etc. and make it seem as if he had been raised on that particular brand alone. He has always connected with any musical combination I've thrown at him which is why I'm still working with him after 17 years."
- Marc Bonilla: Emmy nominated guitarist/producer/film and television composer
"Eduardo Roth...musicianship is one thing...personality is another...Eduardo has both! Very easy to work with. He's a pleasure to be around, and a genius in contributing to any musical situation!!!"
- George Johnson: Grammy winner, The Brothers Johnson
"Hi Ed, Thanks for all the effort. I just loaded the tracks into my protools session, they sound absolutely fantastic. Cheers!"
- Andrew Layfield: recording artist/internet customer
"Your fantastic keyboards are highlighting five of the eleven songs. They really do add something special. I'm really impressed with the sound of the Hammond especially!"
- Charlie Betts: recording artist/internet customer
Clips (more may be added)
The world's artistry via giant steps through a matrix based in the phenomenon placing most of the 7.8 billion of us within 6 or fewer degrees — steps — of each other ...
... a project conceived and built in the fertile, fecund and atavistic ground zero of Bahia, Brazil initially for the discoverability of this singular region's dispossessed genius.
All explained in the window immediately below. Followed — beneath this window — by scores of magnificent artists, each leading to myriads more artists/categories. Inside this window also may be found our Brazilian record store radio, named by British journal The Guardian as one of 10 of the Best Radio Stations Around the World!
IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE HEAT
Brazil is not a European nation. It's not a North American nation. It's not an East Asian nation. It straddles -- jungle and desert and dense urban centers -- both the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn. It absorbed over ten times the number of African slaves taken to the United States of America, and much of its aboriginal population was absorbed into the general population-at-large. Its people have lived under oligarchy, plutocracy, dictatorships and massive corruption, with elements of these still strongly entrenched today.
But!
Brazil has buzz...not the shallow buzz of a fashionable moment...but the deep buzz of a population which in spite of -- or perhaps because of -- the tough slog through life they've been allotted by humanity's dregs-in-fine-linen, have chosen not to simply pull themselves along but to lift their voices in song and their bodies in dance...to eat well and converse well and much and to wring the joy out of the day-to-day happenings and small pleasures of life which are so often set aside or ignored in the European, North American, and East Asian nations.
For this Brazil has a genius perhaps unparalleled in all other countries and societies, a genius which thrives alongside peeling paint and holes in the streets and roads, under bad organization by the powers-that-be, both civil and governmental, under a constant rain of societal indignities...
Which is all to say that if you don't know Brazil and you're expecting any semblance of order, progress and light, you will certainly find the light! And the buzz of a people who for generations have responded to privation at many different levels by somehow rising above it all.
Raimundo Sodré, in a conversation ranging from New Orleans to Harlem and the South Side of Chicago ... through Appalachia and Irish villages and Russian shtetls and the unofficial symbol of Brazil's Bahian-born national music (the pandeiro) almost certainly having arrived in Brazil in the hands of Sephardic Jews (including conversos) fleeing the Inquisition, once remarked: "Where there's misery, there's music!"
A pandeirista on the roof. And it's not just music. And it's not just Brazil.
