This is a matrix in the original sense of "source". It is a "small-world" network, meaning that the nodes (people) inside it are — mirroring human society — within a few steps of everybody else inside it. The matrix was built to allow regional Brazilian musicians to be discoverable steps away from everybody else in the arts 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 MATRIX, THOUGH BRAZIL-BORN, IS UNIVERSAL
This James Gavin 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 James Gavin.
1 DEGREE FORWARD: James Gavin (node) ROUTES TO THESE ARTIST NODES
Are these James Gavin's personal recommendations?
CURATION STATUS
- → Routes by The Matrix
Who & Where
- Name: James Gavin
- City/Place: New York City
- Country: United States
Life & Work
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Bio:
James Gavin is a writer, author of Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker (Knopf), Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne (Simon & Schuster), Intimate Nights: The Golden Age of New York Cabaret (Grove Weidenfeld), along with numerous articles for the New York Times, Vanity Fair, Time Out New York and other publications.
He has contributed liner notes to over 400 CDs, including reissues he produced for Verve, Blue Note, and Koch Jazz. His essay for the GRP box set Ella Fitzgerald – The Legendary Decca Recordings earned a 1996 Grammy nomination.
Jim has made over two hundred radio appearances, including multiple interviews with NPR, the BBC, and Australia's ABC Network. He has appeared on the Today show, Good Morning America, and the PBS NewsHour.
His latest book is Is That All There Is?: The Strange Life of Peggy Lee, published by Simon & Schuster.
Media & Markets
- ▶ Twitter: JamesGavinBooks
- ▶ Website: http://jamesgavin.com/
More
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Quotes, Notes & Etc.
"James Gavin has captured the essence of the rich musical era that people like my dad, Nat King Cole, and Peggy defined. In his keenly observed, scrupulously researched biography he has also illuminated something very true and touching about the woman behind the glamour. I highly recommend this book."
-Natalie Cole
“Nobody writes as eloquently, knowledgeably, and page-turningly about the midcentury music heroes who sang - and lived - our American story as James Gavin. His biography of Peggy Lee immerses us in a singular life of radiant self-invention.”
-Sheila Weller (author of Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon - and the Journey of a Generation)
“Eminently readable ... fascinating, suspenseful, musically detailed and insightful.”
-Anita Gates, New York Times Book Review
“A killer biographer"
-Tim Appelo, Hollywood Reporter
FORTHCOMING: James Gavin's biography of GEORGE MICHAEL, to be published by Abrams.
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" 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"):
