Elie Afif 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 Elie Afif:
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 via ↴
Who I Am & Where I Live
- Name: Elie Afif
- City: Dubai
- Country: United Arab Emirates
- Hometown: Beirut, Lebanon
My Life & Work
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Bio:
Elie was first introduced to music at the age of 9. Soon after, music became his main interest and he began studying from records. He began imitating bass lines from those records, such as Jaco Pastorius’ debut album and albums Jaco featured on with Weather Report and Joni Mitchell. Elie quickly began showing talent, and by the time he was 17, he had built a name for himself in Lebanon. During the same year, Mike Stern invited him to perform alongside him on a visit to Beirut, which further inspired Elie to pursue music as his profession.
Elie then began playing regularly with Arthur Satyan, started taking lessons in upright bass as well as in classical contrabass, and also started taking a great interest in the jazz theory approach of Barry Harris who would become his idol. Over the years, Elie would go on to study with Barry Harris several times, in both Italy and New York.
In 2007, upon receiving a scholarship, Elie attended Prins Claus Conservatorium in Holland for a short period.
He then attended the The Collective School of Music in New York in 2012 after receiving another scholarship. It was here that Elie was quickly exposed to the New York scene, as well as having the opportunity to meet many great players that he would also learn a tremendous amount from such as Matt Garrison, Tarek Yamani and Ian Foreman.
Originally from Beirut, Lebanon, Elie is currently based in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, performing in various formations, mainly as Afif Jazz, as well as working in the sound production field.
Elie has performed with many great players such as, Rene Mclean, mike Stern, Jerome Sabbagh, Chris Mcnaulty, Bobby McFerrin, Ranjit Barrot, Tim Garland, Ayden Esen, A.R Rahman, Zakir Hussein, Bobby Durham and Dwight Dickerson to name a few.
My Media & Markets
- ▶ Twitter: elieafifmusic
- ▶ Instagram: elieafifmusic
- ▶ Website: http://elieafifmusic.com
- ▶ YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ElieAff
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.
