Bio:
Gabi Guedes é um dos mais importantes percussionistas do Brasil, em sua trajetória já passou por diversos cantos do mundo. Nascido no Alto do Gantois, cresceu ao lado da Iyalorixá Mãe Menininha e desde muito cedo se viu envolvido pelo toque – e os sons – dos tambores. Com pouco mais de 10 anos, iniciou os seus estudos de percussão ao lado dos Alabês Vadinho, Hélio, Dudu e Edinho.
Já tocou com músicos expressivos como Margareth Menezes, Lazzo, Gerônimo, Raimundo Sodré, Armandinho, Paulo Moura, Hermeto Pascoal, Orquestra Emília Biancardi, Jimmy Cliff e The Wailers, onde se tornou percussionista da Oneness Band. Gabi é mestre de percussão, e filho de santo do Ilê Omin Axé Iyá Massê e do Terreiro do Gantois.
Atua também como integrante do naipe de percussão da Orkestra Rumpilezz; além de dirigir seu projeto musical, o grupo Pradarrum, com o intuito de preservar e difundir a musicalidade dos terreiros. O repertório do grupo é formado por melodias oriundas dos terreiros, são composições direcionadas aos ritmos afro-religiosos como “Encruzilhada”, “Senhora Mãe” e “Engaramenço”, entre outras. Ele também é Percussionista da banda base da Jam no MAM (Museu de Arte Moderna).
Partiu para a Europa em 1987 tocando inicialmente na Áustria, em aulas de dança Afro. No ano de 1989 foi convidado pela Casa da Cultura do Mundo, em Berlim, para participar do festival “Percussionale 89”. No ano posterior, em Paris, ele ministrou cursos de percussão Afro-baiana. Em 1990 Gabi foi convidado por Jimmy Cliff para se tornar percussionista da Oneness Band, participando de festivais internacionais de reggae, ao lado de Burnning Spear, The Wailers Band, Melody Makers, Pato Banton, Majek Fashek; passando por países como os EUA, Alemanha, França, Japão, Hawai, Austrália, Suíça, Itália, Jamaica, Portugal e outros.
ENGLISH
Gabi Guedes is one of the heaviest percussionists of Brazil. His curriculum has recorded moments of an impressive trajectory which has taken him to all the corners of the world. Born in the Alto do Gantois, Gabi grew up next to Iyalorixá Mãe Menininha. From a very early age he was surrounded by the sound of the atabaques, traditional Brazilian drums, which reached his ears carried by the wind. At the age of 10, he started his percussion studies alongside Alabês, Vadinho, Hélio, Dudu, Edinho Carrapato and many others.
In Brazil, Gabi has played with prominent musicians such as Margareth Menezes, Lazzo, Gerônimo, Raimundo Sodré, Armandinho, Paulo Moura, Ricardo Chaves, Lourenço Rebetez, Hermeto Pascoal, Emília Biancardi Orchestra, and Jimmy Cliff and The Wailers, where he became a percussionist for the Oneness Band. Gabi is a percussion master and son of a saint from Ilê Omin Axé Iyá Massê and Terreiro do Gantois.
Currently, Gabi Guedes is a percussionist for the internationally esteemed Orkestra Rumpilezz, as well as conducting percussion lessons and workshops, alongside heading up the Pradarrum project . The group’s repertoire is formed by melodies from the terreiros (the Candomblé religion’s places of worship), compositions aimed at Afro-religious rhythms such as “Encruzilhada”, “Senhora Mãe” and “Engaramenço”, among others. He is also a percussionist for the base band of Jam at MAM (Museum of Modern Art).
Gabi left for Europe in 1987, performing initially in Austria in Afro dance classes. In 1989, he was invited by the House of World Culture in Berlin to participate in the “Percussionale 89” festival. Later that year in Paris, he taught Afro-Bahian percussion courses. In 1990, Gabi was invited by Jimmy Cliff to become the percussionist of the Oneness Band, participating in international reggae festivals, alongside Burnning Spear, The Wailers Band, Melody Makers, Banton Duck, Majek Fashek. These festivals took place in countries such as: the USA, Germany, France, Japan, Hawaii, Australia, Switzerland, Italy, Jamaica, and Portugal, amongst others.
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).