Bio:
Leo Nocentelli, Master Guitarist, Composer, the creator and innovator of Syncopated Funk wrote one of the most internationally noted Grammy inducted songs for the iconic and legendary pioneers of funk THE METERS, called Cissy Strut he is known as the most sampled guitarist of all time. In addition to being a 2018 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient he is also a four-time Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame nominee with The Meters. As well as many accomplishments and achievements with The Meters, Leo has performed, composed, recorded and toured with great and iconic artists such as; Peter Gabriel, Paul McCartney, Allen Toussaint, Etta James, Harry Connick Jr. George Duke, Stanley Clarke, Patti Labelle, Ice Cube, Queen Latifah, Jay Z & many more.
Leo Nocentelli is known as the "funkiest, fast fingered" guitar player of today and has been credited as one of the 50 top guitarist in the world. He has written more than 200 songs, many of which were recorded by definitive artists including Peter Gabriel, Harry Connick Jr. George Duke, Etta James, Robert Palmer, Joe Cocker, The Neville Brothers, Z.Z. Hill, Albert Kings, Patti LeBelle, Ramsey Lewis, Otis Rush and Trombone Shorty. Leo is continuing to develop his style with varied elements that cover blues, rock, rap, jazz and hip/hop. Leo has performed from coast to coast including appearances at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. He has also been involved in many international tours including Tokyo and Osaka Japan, Sao Paulo Brazil, as well as other European countries.
Leo's solo, musical compositions and contributions has continued to evolve with personal appearances on stages and Television shows alike. Some include Saturday Night Live along with the recognition and special guest invitations by the major musical directors of Jimmy Fallon with The Roots Band. Conan O'Brien Show with Jimmy Vivino and special guest invitation to perform live with Paul Shafer and the CBS Orchestra on Late Night with David Letterman and the Funk continues....
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).