Luciano Calazans - The Matrix

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Who I Am & Where I Live

Name: Luciano Calazans
City: Salvador, Bahia
Country: Brazil

My Life

Biographical: Luciano Calazans is a bass player, composer, and arranger from Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, and being a bass player here means having to inhabit some of the most sophisticated rhythms in the world while arcing through melodies and harmonies ranging from folkloric to futuristic.

Luciano began playing the bars and bailes of Salvador professionally at thirteen years of age, and has since played for, produced, and arranged for some of Brazil's greatest stars. He was propelled into music, growing up listening to his father play guitar in rodas de choro (choro circles; choro is an erudite music something like chamber samba)...beginning on the recorder and moving to the guitar at ten years of age. It was during Carnival 0f 1985 that Luciano stood and watched as seminal Salvador group Acordes Verdes (Green Chords) passed by -- led by bass player Carlinhos Marques -- and Luciano decided to switch to bass. Together with friends he put together his first band while his family lived in Curuzu, in Salvador's neighborhood of Liberdade (Liberty, one of the largest black neighborhoods in South America).

In 1989 Luciano received a scholarship for and entered into a preparatory course for composition and directing. He'd been noticed by a professor of musical perception -- Maria das Graças -- who discovered something about Luciana he wasn't aware of...the boy had absolute pitch. Then in 1992, at seventeen years of age, Luciano was asked to join -- as bass player and music director -- a Salvador band of nation-wide renown: Banda Reflexu's. Luciano was now playing on big stages and television.

A recording session at Salvador's iconic WR Studios caught the attention of owner Wesley Rangel and Luciano was called in for so many studio sessions that he left Banda Reflexu's. He recorded for Margareth Menezes (who was introduced to the United States by David Byrne), Gilberto Gil, Timbalada, Fafá de Belém, Zezé de Camargo e Luciano, Luís Melodia, Léo Gandelman, Aldo Brizzi and many others. In 1993 Margareth Menzes asked Luciano to join her band. In the same year Luciano won Salvador's Troféu Caymmi (Caymmi Trophy) as Best Instrumentalist.

Luciano's CD Contrabaixo Astral (the title being a play on words that only Portuguese-speakers will understand) was recorded at WR Studios at no charge to Luciano, a gift from Wesley Rangel for Luciano's having won 1st Prize for Best Arrangement in the 2nd Edition of Rádio Educadora's Festival of Music (Rádio Educadora is Brazil's National Public Radio). The arrangement for which Luciano won was for one his own compositions -- Valsinha (Little Waltz) -- which appears of course on the CD.

In 2008 Luciano produced Belô Velloso's Versão Brasileira (Brazilian Version), a CD which spent several weeks in Brazil's Top 10.

In 2009 Luciano did all the arrangments for a chamber orchestra work entitled "Um Estado de Espírito" (A State of Spirit), which included a beautiful piece sung by Gal Costa, "As Coisas Que Caymmi Cantou" ("The Things which Caymmi Sung": Dorival Caymmi was the musical bard of Bahia, one of Brazil's icons).

Luciano never stops. His current and ongoing project is Ufonia, a small "big band" including a horn-section featuring Bahia's top players. Ufonia was proud to feature special guest percussionist Robertinho Silva onstage in 2010. And Flavio Venturini recently sang on a Calazans-produced track included in a CD produced by Natura for the ecological benefit of Brazil's sea turtles.

Brazilian music is a sublime melding of some of the world's richest harmonies with some of its (as we've already pointed out) most sophisticated rhythms. It has a magnificent history, and with torch-bearers like Luciano Calazans on the scene, it also has a magnificent future!

My Media

Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/24TGz8d7BV6j0rOGy8bYIf
Instagram: luciano_calazans

Instructions

The matrix is a small world curation network.

It is designed to be coursed through, from node (person/entity) to node to node in a voyage of discovery.

This is universal open curation in series. A 21st century twist on the oldest and most effective means of publicity of all: word-of-mouth.

Curations in series form worldlines, which enter pages via the THEY CURATE ME tabs and exit via the I CURATE THEM tabs (per above).

The totality of worldlines taken together make up the matrix...a matrix in the original sense of "source", from "mater", Latin for "mother".

All are welcome to curate, and all may decide for themselves whose judgement to trust. One aspect of open curation is that it allows us to see the curations of performing experts in their area, no matter how obscure this area might be, areas where perhaps there are no professional curators.

After a page has been created (it can be as simple or as complex as you like) you create arts-related categories for which you can be recommended. Examples can be seen at the bottom of every member page, including your own.

Categories for which you can be recommended are created on your "THEY CURATE ME" tab. Then when somebody clicks on one of your categories, their image and a link back to their own page will appear there. You will appear on their "I CURATE THEM" tab.

When YOU click on somebody else's category on their "THEY CURATE ME" tab on their page, your image and a link back to your own page will appear there. THEY will appear on YOUR "I CURATE THEM" tab.

If wish merely to curate (recommend), simply don't create categories for yourself. Whatever the case, people getting to your page can see who you think is great. The people you think are great can see you think they are great!

You can put Spotify album or artist links in the Spotify fields; people on your page can click on these links and the Spotify web player will open up to your music.

You can put your music into your own Matrix player by clicking on the Add Music button at the top of your (or any) page.

You can embed YouTube videos into your own video page by clicking on the Add Videos button at the top of your (or any) page.

Join from the top of any page.