Ibrahim Maalouf
This Brazilian cultural matrix positions Ibrahim Maalouf globally...
Curation
CURATION
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from this page:
by Augmented Matrix
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
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Name:
Ibrahim Maalouf
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City/Place:
Paris
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Country:
France
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Hometown:
Beirut, Lebanon
Life & Work
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Bio:
Born in 1980 in Beirut, the trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf is currently the most popular instrumentalist of the French musical scene. His work is infamous for its particular fusion of multiple musical genres and has been renowned around the world for more than ten years now.
Filling the Volkswagen Arena in Istanbul, playing sold-out concerts at the Lincoln Jazz Center in New York, and traveling to over 40 countries around the world in the last 10 years, he became the first jazzman in history to fill the largest concert hall in France. Indeed, Ibrahim put on a historic show on 14 December 2016, selling out more than 8 months in advance at the AccorHotels Arena in Paris Bercy.
A few months later, Ibrahim creates a surprise. Described as a "virtuoso" by the New York Times, he performed in an exceptional concert in collaboration with The New Levant Initiative at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC for the world premiere of his album "Levantine Symphony No.1".
Ibrahim is rewarded by 2 "Victoires du Jazz" and 2 "Victoires de la Musique" ("World Music Album" and "Concert or Tour of the Year") which are the first awards for victories in music given to an instrumentalist since their creation more than 33 years ago. Ibrahim has also received an "Echo Jazz" in Germany, a "César for Best Film Music" and a "Prix Lumières" for Best Film Music in 2016. He also received the honorary awards of Chevalier de l'Ordre du Mérite and Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres from the French government.
As a teenager, Ibrahim was at the top of the world's biggest international competitions and began a career as a classical soloist, but from the 2000s onwards, spotted for his ability to colour the music of his improvisations, he became an essential figure in pop, jazz and so-called "World" music. Sting, Salif Keita, Amadou & Mariam, Tryo, Matthieu Chédid, Lhasa de Sela and many other artists of very varied styles call on him.
Between 2007 and 2019, Ibrahim composes, arranges and produces more than 15 albums for himself and other artists. He also composed more than 10 symphonic works as well as a fortnight of feature film music.
Spotted by the legendary producer Quincy Jones during a concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2017, Ibrahim became one of the artists the American producer regularly promoted via the Los Angeles-based Quincy Jones Productions.
In 2019, Ibrahim signs the soundtracks of 3 films including "Celle Que Vous Croyez" by Safy Nebbou with Juliette Binoche, a real international success, then he goes on a summer tour across France with the Balkan band Haïdouti Orkestar.
Ibrahim followed this up with his 11th studio album "S3NS" in September 2019, performing to a sold-out crowd at the Olympia (Paris) on 23, 24 and 25 September and embarking on a world tour.
At the same time Ibrahim has been teaching trumpet and improvisation in conservatories since 1999. He has been invited several times by ITG (International Trumpet Guild) in the United States for concerts and master classes, and has been developing for several years a specific pedagogy for the teaching of classical musical improvisation in French conservatories.
His last pedagogical collaboration dates back to autumn 2019, when all the young students of the association Orchestre à l'École composed of several thousand orchestras across France joined Ibrahim at all his Zenith concerts in order to go on stage for the first time in their lives, and then accompany Ibrahim and his musicians on his composition "Happy Face".
In 2019, Ibrahim will compose, perform and record all the music for the show "Monsieur X" created by Mathilda May and performed by the famous actor and comedian Pierre Richard. Show that will win the Molière for best solo performance of the year 2020.
He also relaunches the Maurice André International Trumpet Competition, for its 7th edition, 14 years after the last competition. First initiated in the ’70s, this competition of international reputation is gathering the best classical trumpeters from all over the world.
In November 2020 Ibrahim has celebrated his 40th birthday and released his new album 40 MELODIES. For the first time in a duet with François Delporte, his guitarist of the last ten years, the album will also feature many other renowned guests (Sting, Marcus Miller, Matthieu Chedid, Alfredo Rodriguez, Richard Bona, Trilok Gurtu, Hüsnü Senlendrici, Jon Batiste, Arturo Sandoval, and others).
Clips (more may be added)
There are certain countries, the names of which fire the popular imagination. Brazil is one of them; an amalgam of primitive and sophisticated, jungle and elegance, luscious jazz harmonics — there’s no other place like it in the world. And while Rio de Janeiro, or its fame anyway, tends toward the sophisticated end of the spectrum, Bahia bends toward the atavistic…
It’s like a trick of the mind’s light (I suppose), but standing on beach or escarpment in Salvador and looking out across the Baía de Todos os Santos to the great Recôncavo, and mindful of what happened there (and here; the Bahian Recôncavo was final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place throughout the entirety of mankind’s existence on this planet, and in the past it extended into what is now urban Salvador), one must be led to the inevitable conclusion that one is in a place unique to history, and to the present:
Brazil absorbed over ten times the number of enslaved Africans taken to the United States of America, and is a repository of African deities (and their music) now largely forgotten in their lands of origin.
Brazil was a refuge (of sorts) for Sephardim fleeing an Inquisition which followed them across the Atlantic (that unofficial symbol of Brazil’s national music — the pandeiro — was almost certainly brought to Brazil by these people).
Across the parched savannas of the interior of Brazil’s culturally fecund nordeste/northeast (where wizard Hermeto Pascoal was born in Lagoa da Canoa — Lagoon of the Canoe — and raised in Olho d’Águia — Eye of the Eagle), much of Brazil’s aboriginal population was absorbed into a caboclo/quilombola culture punctuated by the Star of David.
Three cultures — from three continents — running for their lives, their confluence forming an unprecedented fourth. Pandeirista on the roof.
That's where this Matrix begins:
Wolfram MathWorld
The idea is simple, powerful, and egalitarian: To propagate for them, the Matrix must propagate for all. Most in the world are within six degrees of us. The concept of a "small world" network (see Wolfram above) applies here, placing artists from the Recôncavo and the sertão, from Salvador... from Brooklyn, Berlin and Mombassa... musicians, writers, filmmakers... clicks (recommendations) away from their peers all over the planet.
This Integrated Global Creative Economy (we invented the concept) uncoils from Brazil's sprawling Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix... expanding like the canopy of a rainforest tree rooted in Bahia, branches spreading to embrace the entire world...
Recent Visitors Map
Great culture is great power.
And in a small world great things are possible.
Alicia Svigals
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"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; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"Very nice! Thank you for this. Warmest regards and wishing much success for the project! Matt"
—Son of Jimmy Garrison (bass for John Coltrane, Bill Evans...); plays with Herbie Hancock and other greats...
I opened the shop in Salvador, Bahia in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for magnificent Brazilian musicians.
David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR found us (above), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix, then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
Years ago in NYC (I've lived here in Brazil for 32 years now) I "rescued" unpaid royalties (performance & mechanical) for artists/composers including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (for his rights in Bob Marley compositions; Clement was Bob's first producer), Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass and many others. Aretha called me out of the blue vis-à-vis money owed by Atlantic Records. Allen Klein (managed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles) called about money due the estate of Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) called just to see if he had any unpaid money floating around out there (the royalty world was a shark-filled jungle, to mangle metaphors, and I doubt it's changed).
But the pertinent client (and friend) in the present context is Earl "Speedo" Carroll, of The Cadillacs. Earl went from doo-wopping on Harlem streetcorners to chart-topping success to working as a custodian at PS 87 elementary school on the west side of Manhattan. Through all of this he never lost what made him great.
Greatness and fame are too often conflated. The former should be accessible independently of the latter.
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 founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Across the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
For a complete list of everybody inside, tap TOTAL below:
TOTAL
Ex Terra Brasilis
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Matt Garrison
RÁDIO MATRIX