Bio:
Vencedor do Prêmio Caymmi de Música como “Melhor Instrumentista” em 2015, o guitarrista, cantor e compositor baiano Eric Assmar se destaca como um dos principais nomes da nova geração de artistas de blues e rock no Brasil. Ele lançou três álbuns solo: "Eric Assmar Trio" (2012), "Morning" (2016) e "Home" (2022).
Como músico, Assmar colaborou com grandes nomes como Álvaro Assmar, Marcelo Nova, Os Panteras (Raul Seixas), André Christovam (pioneiro do blues no Brasil) e Flávio Guimarães (Blues Etílicos). Ele também se apresentou em festivais renomados, incluindo o SXSW (Austin, Texas, 2009), XI Fenart (João Pessoa, 2010), SESC 'N' Blues (Ribeirão Preto, 2011), VI Festival de Blues de Londrina (Londrina, 2016), Festival de Jazz do Capão (Chapada Diamantina, 2018), Paulo Afonso Jazz Festival (Paulo Afonso, 2018), Blues Jazz Serra Grande (Serra Grande, 2019) e Festival Jazz no Castelo (Praia do Forte, 2022). Suas apresentações também passaram por importantes cidades como São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Nova Iorque (outubro de 2016), Toronto (agosto de 2017) e Londres (fevereiro de 2020).
Seu trabalho foi destaque em especiais de televisão na TV Brasil e na TVE Bahia e recebeu reconhecimento em revistas especializadas como Guitar Player Brasil (2015), Guitar Load (2013) e Wall Street International (Nova Iorque, 2015).
Além de sua carreira musical, Eric Assmar é pesquisador e professor de guitarra blues. Ele possui doutorado em Música pelo PPGMUS/UFBA, com uma pesquisa sobre metodologias de ensino da guitarra blues no Brasil (2019), e mestrado em Etnomusicologia pela mesma instituição, com foco na cena do blues em Salvador (2014). Formou-se em Licenciatura em Música pela Universidade Federal da Bahia em 2010.
Filho do renomado bluesman Álvaro Assmar, com quem trabalhou como músico e co-produtor, Eric Assmar também é produtor e apresentador do programa Educadora Blues na Rádio Educadora FM, uma emissora pública da Bahia. Criado por seu pai em 2003 e transmitido semanalmente, o programa continua a apresentar novos lançamentos de blues tanto no Brasil quanto internacionalmente.
English:
Eric Assmar, a guitarist, singer, and composer, won the Caymmi Music Award for “Best Instrument Player” in 2015. Recognized as a leading figure in Brazil's new generation of blues and rock musicians, he has released three solo albums: "Eric Assmar Trio" (2012), "Morning" (2016), and "Home" (2022).
Throughout his career, Assmar has collaborated with notable artists such as Álvaro Assmar, Marcelo Nova, Os Panteras (Raul Seixas), André Christovam (a blues pioneer in Brazil), and Flávio Guimarães (from Blues Etílicos). He has performed at numerous festivals, including SXSW (Austin, TX, 2009), XI Fenart (João Pessoa, 2010), SESC 'N' Blues (Ribeirão Preto, 2011), VI Festival de Blues de Londrina (Londrina, 2016), Festival de Jazz do Capão (Chapada Diamantina, 2018), Paulo Afonso Jazz Festival (Paulo Afonso, 2018), Blues Jazz Serra Grande (Serra Grande, 2019), and Festival Jazz no Castelo (Praia do Forte, 2022). He has also played in major cities worldwide, including New York (October 2016), Toronto (August 2017), and London (February 2020).
Assmar's work has been featured on TV special shows for TV Brasil and TVE Bahia and highlighted in magazines such as Guitar Player Brasil (2015), Guitar Load (2013), and Wall Street International (New York, 2015).
In addition to his artistic career, Assmar is an accomplished researcher and educator. He holds a PhD in Music from UFBA, focusing on blues guitar teaching methodologies in Brazil (2019), and a Master’s in Ethnomusicology from the same institution, where he studied the blues scene in Salvador (2014). He graduated in Music from Universidade Federal da Bahia in 2010.
Son of bluesman Álvaro Assmar, a pioneering figure in Bahia's blues scene, Eric has continued his father's legacy by co-producing music and presenting the weekly radio show Educadora Blues on Rádio Educadora FM, the leading public radio station in Bahia. Founded by his father in April 2003 and continued after his passing in December 2017, the show showcases new blues releases both in Brazil and internationally.
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"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; recorded "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
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...*
*...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!" Thus 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 thus 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).
("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.
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).
EX TERRA BRASILIS
The Small World Phenomenon
Susan Rogers
Alicia Svigals
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Sodré
Betão Aguiar
Bule Bule
Caetano Veloso
Darius Mans
Sparrow/Pardal Roberts
RÁDIO MATRIX