Bio:
The vibrant and joyful music of Luiz Santos, a worldwide artist from New York City USA, will make you feel alive. His brilliant mix of Brazilian percussion, Caribbean, Chamber Music and Jazz as he plays the drums and the piano will fill your heart with hope. Simply put on one of his albums and you'll be sure to feel uplifted and encouraged. What makes the music of this world-class Brazilian drummer, percussionist, pianist and composer so unique and incredibly special? His unparalleled creativity in making music and has been doing so since his childhood.
His love of music stems from the passion for music his Brazilian parents had while growing up. They knew that as a young child of nine years old when they first heard Luiz play the drums, he had talent beyond his years. The more he played, the more he aspired to play many different rhythms.
The self-taught instrumentalist played his first professional gig at the age of 13 while living in Rio de Janeiro. Opportunities arose to play with older musicians which helped him to explore many different styles of music.
Eventually he began performing all over Brazil with well-known recording musicians such as bassist Arthur Maia, Jovino Santos, Hermeto Pascoal and many others. The passion Luiz had for music fueled him to begin composing and arranging full orchestral pieces.
He also toured extensively in Europe as part of "Brazil Fusion". His music became in high demand, enabling him to play for bands and work on music projects in several countries including Germany, France, Norway, Sweden, Holland, Belgium, Greece, Luxembourg and Italy.
Influenced by the music of Chick Corea, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Strawinsky, Debussy, Bartok, Hermeto Pascoal, Egberto Gismonti, Keith Jarrett, Weather Report, Pat Metheny, Elvin Jones, Peter Erskine, Billy Cobham, Tony Williams, Dave Weckl and Steve Gadd, he creates unique flavors of music by combining typical jazz sounds with classical and Brazilian percussion. He has also written compositions for everything from jazz to contemporary classical, modern music to string quartets.
He has also been on demand in New York City playing with musicians like Richie Goods, Lonnie Plaxico, Benito Gonzalez, Vic Juris, Tim Armacost, Peter Brendler, Russ Nolan, Sean Nowell, Helio Alves, Paul Meyers, Edward Perez, John Benitez, Hector Martignon, Mark Weinstein, Nilson Matta, just to name a few.
Luiz has recorded several CD Projects in Rio de Janeiro, all which feature his own compositions. Other musicians on his CD projects include: Humberto Mirabelli (guitar), Fernando Roza (bass), Fernando Trocado (tenor sax and flute), Marcelo Martins (alto/soprano sax and flute).
Life is filled with many sounds and as an accomplished and talented musician, Luiz Santos captures the sounds of life like no other. If you desire to hear music in a whole new way that brings refreshing to your soul and excitement to your everyday life, you will want to have the albums of Luiz Santos.
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).