CURATION
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from this page:
by Matrix
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
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Name:
James Brady
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City/Place:
Glasgow
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Country:
United Kingdom
Life & Work
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Bio:
Born in 1989 in London to Irish-immigrant parents, James followed study at the Royal Academy of Music with an undergraduate degree in Music from the University of Cambridge (specialising in composition) and a Masters in Jazz Trumpet from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he wrote regularly for the Guildhall Jazz Band. Now active as a composer, arranger, music educator and multi-instrumentalist, he works across the jazz sector as well as leading groups including jazz/classical/world octet Waywiser and most recently his big band, whose 2017 Christmas launch show was described by London Jazz News as “the perfect blend of hip and nostalgia”.
2020 has been a year of new compositional ventures as well as reinvigorations of older material. Duo Dances (first set), James’ suite of miniatures for two violins, was premiered by Mainly Two at St David’s Hall, Cardiff, in January, and subsequently released by Turquoise Coconut Records (on the album Squirrels in Matchboxes), receiving plaudits such as “captivating and inventive compositions… an exceptional sense of beauty, imagination and fun” (Bradley Creswick, former concert master of Royal Opera House, Philharmonia and Royal Northern Sinfonia) and being featured in Spotify’s ‘New Classical Releases’ playlist. Forthcoming in July is the release of Vesperados, a 5-track EP of music inspired by Latin America, the music of Gerry Mulligan and featuring Alex Hitchcock on tenor saxophone.
2020 has also brought new collaborations: with Colombian-American soprano Stephanie Lamprea, with UK bassist Rex Horan, and a forthcoming mixed-media composition composed in collaboration with Matthew Hardy and members of East London Community Band. In 2021, James looks forward to the debut of Dunt for SSAATTBB choir by ECHO Choir, highly commended in their composition competition in 2019.
In 2018 James premiered a new suite for jazz orchestra at the Gateshead International Jazz Festival, commissioned by the Sage Gateshead and PRS Foundation for youth jazz ensemble Jambone, as well as debuting new works for combined jazz and string quartet at Union Chapel, London.
Composing and arranging credits include performances at the Barbican, Vortex, Cecil Sharp House, Milton Court, the Forge, Spice of Life, West Road, Royal Academy of Music, Phonox, Wilderness Festival, London Jazz Festival and Cambridge Jazz Festival. He has worked with artists including Liane Carroll (“a classy arrangement of Dublin Morning” – London Jazz News), Kate Nash (“a properly stirring experience” – The Guardian), Laura Mvula, Will Young, Laurence Cottle, experimental classical group The Hermes Experiment and youth chamber orchestra Britten Sinfonia Academy. His compositions and arrangements have been published by Sheet Music Plus and Kevin Bell Music and have been awarded prizes including the 2018 Eddie Harvey Award for Jazz Arranging, and runner up in the 2017 Dankworth Prize in the big band composition category. In 2020, James was selected by the Ivors Academy for a profile on UK jazz composers, featuring his piece DARKMANS. As well as writing for traditional big bands and small jazz line-ups, he has also written extensively for orchestra and last year arranged 18 pieces by David Bowie for 8-part choir and 4- piece band for shows promoted by the Jazz Cafe.
A highly-accomplished jazz trumpeter, James has performed at many top jazz venues including the Pizza Express Jazz Club, the Vortex, the Casa del Jazz in Rome and at the London, Montreux and Cheltenham Jazz Festivals. In 2017 James was invited to take part in the 3rd Jazz Directors series tour with Zoe Rahman, appearing at venues across the North West including Band on the Wall. in 2018, James teamed up with vocalist and pianist Robin Phillips to debut a new Chet Baker tribute, which received a 5-star review from influential jazz blog kindofjazz.com, including the comment "this tune featured a blistering solo by the young trumpet player, James Brady, who impressed throughout." 2018 also saw James tour Nanjing province, China, with UK neo-soul artist Ollie Lepage Dean and his band Mode9, performing on both trumpet and synthesiser. James also plays percussion, and has recently added trombone to his arsenal of instruments.
James is also in demand as an arranger and music copyist, providing these services to some of the UK's top music organisations including the Royal Opera House, Wigmore Hall, Gabrieli Consort, London Chamber Orchestra and Triborough Hub. With his broad and deep musical training, he's able to work on pieces ranging from early opera (Purcell's King Arthur, Wigmore Hall 2016) right up to new commissions for symphony orchestras and choirs (Charlotte Harding's Ivor Novello-winning Convo, Royal Albert Hall 2019). James was Music Copyist for the RPS Award-winning Seven Seeds by John Barber, performed at the Royal Albert Hall in 2015 and featuring over 800 musicians.
With a long-term commitment to music education, James is currently Director of Jazz at East London Community Band, and teaches brass instruments, music theory and composition to students at Hockerill Anglo-European College, Bedford Girls’ School and privately. In 2018, James completed a PGCert in Performance Teaching at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, with distinction, focusing on inclusive learning pathways. James’ commitment to involving people at all stages of musical development has more recently begun to shape his compositional output more, and he looks forward to taking this further in future.
Clips (more may be added)
Few people know that the Bay of All Saints was final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. And few people know the transcendence these people, and their descendents, wrought. 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.
Salvador is our base. If you plan to visit Bahia, there are some things you should probably know and you should first visit:
www.salvadorbahiabrazil.com
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