Herlin Riley & Universes in THE MATRIX

You are in a matrix in the original sense of "source". It is a "small-world" network, meaning that the nodes inside it — mirroring human society & the 6 degrees phenomenon — tend to within a few steps of everybody else inside it. The matrix was built to allow regional Brazilian musicians to be discoverable-degrees away from everybody else in the arts world (and so the whole world), and by logical necessity this m.o. requires not only that the great Brazilians be matrixed, but so far as possible, all working artists in our time. Ergo:

This Herlin Riley matrix node is steps away from the entire planet by the well-known small-world ("6 degrees") phenomenon dictating that in human society you yourself are within several degrees of Herlin Riley.
THESE ARTIST NODES are routed to from this Herlin Riley node.

Are these Herlin Riley's personal recommendations?

CURATION STATUS

Worldline Generation: Routes by The Matrix via ↴

Who & Where

Name: Herlin Riley
City/Place: New Orleans, Louisiana
Country: United States

Life & Work

Bio: Since coming of age in the nurturing environment of a very musical family and a distinguished bloodline of drummers, New Orleans native Herlin Riley emerged from that most creative era of all things rhythmic in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, to enliven the ensembles of such influential and demanding improvisers as pianist Ahmad Jamal and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis through his commanding yet elegant rhythmic presence.

His authoritative style of melodic percussion is deeply imbued in the fertile creative soil of the Crescent City, encompassing as it does the entire length and breadth of America’s ongoing musical journey.

Now with the release of his debut recording for Mack Avenue Records, Riley’s New Direction is an engaging, wide-ranging recital that distills a lifetime of experience into a swinging body of new music that defines what a big tent the music of New Orleans has always represented stylistically and spiritually.

“You see,” Riley explains, “New Direction reflects a personal transition from being a musical associate with the likes of Ahmad and Wynton, to functioning in a leadership capacity, both as a bandleader and a composer. Like Art Blakey, I’m trying to maintain a certain exuberance by using all younger musicians, while helping them develop their own voices. So many great musicians and drummers have come out of New Orleans, and that really defines my personal legacy; I’m standing on the shoulders of giants. But I’ve been playing drums since I was three years old, so while the title New Direction may suggest new bottles, this is surely some well-aged wine.

“As a boy growing up in New Orleans, way before you heard that big bass drum in the street parades, you could feel it coming from four or five blocks away, and it would literally beckon you to come on down to the street, check out this music, and participate in it. On ‘Connection to Congo Square’ I quote the ‘Reveille’ in my intro. It reflects the melodic nature of how I tune my tom toms and is also a symbolic call to arms, for all the cats from the different neighborhoods to gather ‘round and participate in this celebration, this collective dialog. In everything I play, there’s some reference from my own personal experience, and while it may not be explicit, it’s all underneath there somewhere.”

For all the hard rhythmic driving intensity of New Direction, Riley is not one of those drummers who needs to blast away to captivate listeners and to remain engaged. There’s a consoling sweetness to the thematic variations of the slow groove on “A Spring Fantasy” and the manner in which Riley narrows the stylistic distance between hand percussion and the drum kit – just as he elicits those mysterious bent notes of the great congueros on his intro to the sultry changes of “Shake Off The Dust.”

“Still, when the music came to me, it was not with any particular intent. Everything on this record is something I’ve lived. It’s like cooking a big pot of gumbo; you may start out with some very humble ingredients, but by the time you’re finished, you have a meal fit for a king. I mean, the essence of jazz music to me is that it is free, but it has form. So our music is modern, and it’s progressive, but we’re trying to engage people as well. I do love to groove; that is a big part of who I am, and that is why as an expression of where I would like to take my music, New Direction feels very much like…like home.”

Contact Information

Email: herjinc@aol.com
Management/Booking: Management:
The Management Ark, Inc.
Bethesda, MD
www.managementark.com
ed@mngtark.com
301-859-4050

Booking:
The Kurland Agency
Boston, MA
www.managementark.com

Mail:
PO Box 872182
New Orleans, LA 70187

Media & Markets

▶ Buy My Music (downloads/CDs/DVDs): http://www.herlinriley.com/discography/
▶ Website: http://www.herlinriley.com
▶ YouTube Music: http://music.youtube.com/channel/UCkSxfEsg84DvM36ABb4DUZA
▶ Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/0adoHb4iey3I7lIeRi1cmY
▶ Spotify 2: http://open.spotify.com/album/61oJzQjOkocNbom4LiHfGw
▶ Spotify 3: http://open.spotify.com/album/7dMSMcG6LNgc84zfyizX1h

Clips (more may be added)

0:57:03
Herlin Riley performs at Seven Days of Satch!
By Herlin Riley

61 views
0:06:08
Tambourine 101 with Herlin Riley
By Herlin Riley

59 views
1:43:38
LIVE Crescent City Monk with Herlin Riley Friends 1st stage 2018
By Herlin Riley

59 views

These artist nodes route to this Herlin Riley node:

THE MATRIX WAS BUILT HERE, inspired in (the kabbalah-inspired fiction of) Borges' El Aleph, that in the pillar in Cairo's Mosque of Amr, where the universe in its entirety throughout all time is perceivable as an infinite hum from deep within the stone... The Brazilian "aleph" is different though...it doesn't hum...it sings!

Sprawled across broad equatorial latitudes
Stoked and steamed and sensual in the widest sense of the word
Limned in prosody and cadenced song
brəˈzɪl / from "brasa" / Latin for "ember"

w/ David Dye for U.S. National Public Radio

Given the immense untapped power of the small-world phenomenon, from Brazilians the matrix was expanded to include nodes per jazz artists, given jazz's common roots with Brazilian music (nodes based in publicly available information; some artists we informed — Bob Mintzer, Kamasi Washington, David "Fuse" Fiuczynski, Vijay Iyer, Greg Osby — and got thumbs up, others we'll get to), and moved on from there. Artists/academics/"creative people" are welcome to create their own nodes and curate (connect to other artist nodes, so that others may follow). BTW, our logo is a cortador de cana, cane cutter. It was designed by Walter Mariano, professor of design at the Federal University of Bahia to reflect the origins of the music the shop specializes in.

MUCH MORE on all of this in the window below (which, if you are logged in, will instead contain instructions on recommending), and in the window within that window (which includes a "radio" called by The Guardian one of "10 of the best music radio stations around the world"):