Bio:
Sri Lankan/Portuguese Australian-born saxophonist/composer Jacam Manricks was raised in a musical family. His parents were resident classical musicians in the state symphony in his hometown of Brisbane and his grandfather was a famous Portuguese jazz clarinetist and saxophonist in Sri Lanka. As a child Jacam frequently attended his parents’ symphony concerts and was introduced to jazz at home through his fathers’ jazz record collection. Due to these surroundings, Jacam was able to build a diverse musical foundation from a young age that combined jazz and classical music, two genres that continue to influence his music today. Jacam began studying piano at age 5 and the alto saxophone at 9. His formal musical training continued in New York in 2001, culminating with a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in JazzArts from the Manhattan School of Music in 2007.
As a saxophonist and woodwind player, Jacam has performed and/or recorded with some of the most prestigious international artists of our time. He has performed at venues such as the Jazz Standard, the Jazz Gallery, Cornelia Street Café, Smalls, and Jazz at Lincoln Center.
As a composer, soloist and ensemble leader, Jacam has recorded six albums to date (Sky’s the Limit, Labyrinth, Trigonometry, Could Nine, Chamber Jazz, and GilManricks). His music has been highly commended in major jazz magazines, websites and newspapers in the United States, Canada, France, Italy, Ireland, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. In 2009 Jacam released his second album Labyrinth, which received rave reviews in JazzTimes, Downbeat, All About Jazz-NY, Sydney Morning Herald and the Irish Times among others. Labyrinth consists of Jacam’s compositions for jazz quintet and chamber orchestra and features some of New York’s finest jazz soloists (Ben Monder – guitars, Thomas Morgan – bass, Tyshawn Sorey – drums, Jacob Sacks – piano and himself on saxophones/woodwinds).
His third album Trigonometry, which was recorded in New York in May 2010 (Posi-tone Records), features Jacam’s compositions for jazz quartet and septet, performed by leading New York jazz artists (Gary Versace – piano, Joe Martin – bass, Obed Calvaire – drums, Scott Wendholt – trumpet, Alan Ferber – trombone and himself – saxophones). Trigonometry has been highly praised by writers for international jazz market media magazines, newspapers and websites. These include Jazz Times, The New York Times, All About Jazz, Time Out-New York, The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, Ottowa Citizen, All Music Guide, EJazzNews and more. In October 2011, Jacam recorded Could Nine (Posi-tone Records), released in 2012. The album features Jacam’s original compositions and arrangements for jazz quartet performed by internationally respected jazz artists (Adam Rogers– guitar, Matt Wilson – drums, Sam Yahel-Organ, and himself – alto saxophone).
Jacam has received a number of prestigious awards and scholarships for artistic excellence and touring, such as the International Pathways Touring Grant in 2011, the Contemporary Music Touring Program awards in 2010, 2009 and 2008, the Australian National Jazz Award- 2009, the Marten Bequest Arts Fellowship in 2005 and the Queensland Lord Mayors Performing Arts Fellowship in 2000. He has toured extensively throughout Europe, Australia, Canada and the US as a soloist and/or bandleader.
Jacam has composed works for a number of different ensembles worldwide. These include a Suite for Symphony Orchestra and Big Band, which was premiered as a part of the Manhattan School of Music’s 90th Anniversary Celebration Concert in New York in October 2007. The concert featured Jacam as composer/orchestrator and alto saxophone soloist. He has written and/or conducted other works for the William Patterson University Big Band (New Jersey, USA), the Manhattan School of Music Jazz Orchestra (New York, USA), The Mothership Jazz Orchestra (Sydney, Australia), numerous ensembles at the Helsinki Polytechnics Pop and Jazz Conservatory (Finland), the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo (Norway Fall-2010), and the Queensland Conservatorium of Music (Brisbane, Australia).
In addition to performing and composing, Jacam is a very experienced musical educator. He has done lectures, courses, master classes and clinics at internationally renowned institutions such as the Manhattan School of Music (New York, NY), the William Paterson University (Patterson, NJ), the New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music (New York, NY), University of California Davis (Davis, CA), University of Toronto (Canada), Sydney Conservatorium of Music (Sydney, Australia), Victorian College of the Arts (Melbourne, Australia), Queensland Conservatorium of Music (Brisbane, Australia).
Jacam received his Bachelor degree in Music Performance from the Queensland Conservatorium, Brisbane, Australia in 2000, his Masters degree in jazz composition and arranging at the William Paterson University in New Jersey in 2003, and his Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree from the Manhattan School of Music, New York, in 2007 as one of the first doctorate-level graduates in the field of jazz composition/performance/pedagogy.
Quotes, Notes & Etc.
"Superb saxophone work, intellectually stimulating writing and ingenious dovetailed rhythmic lines"
- ALL ABOUT JAZZ
"First class talent... a potent swinging chemistry... he gives the genre meaning that people can relate to and apply to their own lives"
- JAZZ TIMES MAGAZINE
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).