Bio:
FERENC NEMETH is an accomplished and versatile musician who continues to push the boundaries of jazz drumming and composition. Nemeth has since the early days of his career, been one of the most sought after drummers both, in his native Hungary as well as in the United States. Coming from a musical family, his unique dynamism and versatility was fostered from a very early age. An exciting performer and imaginative collaborator, Nemeth is well regarded for his work with the Lionel Loueke Trio and GilFeMa and has also travelled, performed and collaborated extensively as a bandleader, co-leader, sideman and educator as well as initiating creative projects of his own.
From his early days at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and the Thelonius Monk Insitute of Jazz in Los Angeles, Nemeth has learned from and worked with the world’s finest jazz musicians and groups including Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Terence Blanchard, the Billy Childs Trio, Bob Sheppard, Dave Carpenter, John Clayton, Jimmy Heath, The Henry Mancini Orchestra amongst others. Relocating to New York in 2003, Nemeth’s distinctive energy and drive saw his career continuing with many of the same musicians, and also expanding to include the likes of Christian McBride, John Patitucci, Lionel Loueke, John Abercrombie, Dave Samuels, Mark Turner, Hal Crook, David Benoit, Bud Shank, Greg Hopkins, Phil Wilson, Dave Grusin, Eddie Daniels, Eddie Henderson, Ron McClure, Chris Cheek, Aaron Goldberg, Kenny Wheeler, Eli Degibri, Jonathan Kreisberg, John Ellis, Omer Avital, Ilayaraja, the Kenny Werner Coalition and most recently Dhafer Youssef.
Many of his collaborations have become long-standing partnerships spanning over a decade. 2003 was also the start of Nemeth’s involvement with GilFeMa, a trio also featuring Lionel Loueke and Massimo Biolcati. The trio, who had been playing together since the Berklee days continued their creative efforts in this format with all three contributing compositions to the 2004 album, eponymously titled, GilFeMa (ObliqSound). Notwithstanding, college fraternity and friendship, Nemeth’s natural great range coupled with his dynamism, complexity and improvisation makes him a perfect partner in the Loueke-Biolcati-Nemeth cooperative. His contribution here as well as with other collaborations is evidence of his great versatility, which informs a unique musical personality. His expertise and vast knowledge beyond traditional jazz, has also seen him move effortlessly through contemporary jazz as well as pop, rock, electro-pop, hip hop and increasingly into ethnic and culturally diverse disciplines.
Beyond the extensive repertoire of performance and recording, Nemeth has also established his own label, Dreamer’s Collective Records and in 2007, released his debut album of original compositions, “Night Songs” to much accolade and features such luminaries as John Patitucci, Chris Cheek, Mark Turner, Lionel Loueke and Aaron Parks. Displaying sophistication and self-assurance, the recording has established Nemeth as a composer and arranger in his own right. A second project for the label “Triumph” was released in the autumn of 2012, sees Joshua Redman, Kenny Werner, Lionel Loueke as contributors, as well as a small wind orchestra. For over 10 weeks the album was among the Top 15 on the CMJ Jazz Charts. Both of his albums were finalist at the Independent Music Awards in 2008 and 2012, respectively. “Imaginary Realm”, the third album for the label was released in 2013 and it features a duo with Javier Vercher, one of Nemeth’s long time friend/bandmate. The fourth album of the label was released on the fall of 2014 and it’s a collaboration with Hungarian legend, guitarist, Attila Laszlo and features two Grammy winning musicians, Jimmy Haslip and Russell Ferrante, besides two incredible vocalists, the Hungarian Charlie Horvath and the Spanish Lara Bello.
An ever-present thirst for exploration and experimentation has seen Nemeth travel widely and play with musicians from a variety of backgrounds and countries. This occupation in turn, has also resulted in Nemeth’s regular participation in workshops and teaching programs in the United States and internationally, the most recent being stints at the University of Siena, the Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music in India, the Kodolanyi University in Hungary, the Bartok Conservatory in Hungary, the Asheville Percussion Festival in North Carolina and the Wheeler School in Providence.
In addition, in 2011, Ferenc has launched an app at the Mac AppStore called “Drum School,” that is an educational tool, including over 400 drum grooves and hand exercises. This app is a rhythm library, an instructional DVD and a method book, all in one.
Drum School app is now available at the AppStore and the Google Play Store! More info: www.drumschoolapp.com
About the App:
Advanced groove library and drum learning tool for all levels.
Whether you’re a beginner or a pro Drum School is the perfect tool for advancing and expanding your skills. With a large selection of grooves, exercises and practice ideas Drum School will continue to take you to the next level.
It is also the perfect tool for easy access to a large library of professional sounding grooves for play along and as a reference library.
Drum School contains two sections, one with over 260 grooves and the other with 64 drum practice exercises.
All grooves and exercises support the following features:
– Standard drum notation with high quality graphics in portrait or landscape mode.
– High quality audio made from real drum samples that loop for play along practice.
– Variable tempo range of 30 to 300 bpm without any loss of audio quality.
– Audio isolation of what each limb is playing, allowing the student to break down the groove into its basic components, learn them separately, and finally put them back together in various combinations.
– Bass lines that help learning and experiencing the relationship between the drums and the bass in each style in a fun way.
– Extended high quality video performance by the author of the app, established and world renowned drummer, Ferenc Nemeth.
– Extra videos at slower tempo for the more advanced grooves.
– Detailed descriptions of performance details, learning tips and historical notes about each style.
– Photo instructions for proper posture and hand technique.
– Grooves include styles: Rock, Rock ’n' Roll, Alternative Rock, Heavy Metal, Punk, Blues, R&B, Hip Hop, Funk, Reggae, Ska, Disco, Drum’n Bass, House, Techno, Country, Bluegrass, Jazz, Swing, Dixieland, Ragtime, Fusion, New Orleans, Tango, Bossa Nova, Samba, Afro Cuban, Soukous, Calypso, Waltz and many more.
– The practice section offers 64 drum exercises divided into: Basic Rudiments, Rolls, Flams, Drags and Hand Exercises.
The development of Drum School continues and will add more grooves and features.
Drums School was developed by drummer Ferenc Nemeth
in collaboration with Massimo Biolcati.
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).