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 Mazz Swift 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 Mazz Swift.
1 DEGREE FORWARD: Mazz Swift (node) ROUTES CURATING WORLDLINES TO THESE ARTIST NODES
Are these Mazz Swift's personal recommendations?
CURATION STATUS
- → Routes by The Matrix via ↴
Who & Where
- Name: Mazz Swift
- City/Place: Brooklyn, NY
- Country: United States
Life & Work
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Bio:
Critically acclaimed as one of America’s most talented and versatile performers today, Violin/Vox/Freestyle Composition artist Mazz Swift has engaged audiences all over the world with the signature weaving of song, melody and improvisation that she calls MazzMuse.
Mazz combines elements of classical, folk, rock, jazz, free improvisational music and electronica to create a rich, unique and diverse musical experience. She is a singer, composer and Juilliard-trained violinist who plays electric and acoustic instruments and has, over the years, performed and recorded with a diverse accumulation of artists including Whitney Houston, Perry Farrell, Dee Snider, James “Blood” Ulmer, Vernon Reid, Valerie June, DJ Logic, William Parker, Butch Morris, Jason Lindner, Kanye West, and most recently as string mistress for D’Angelo’s “Vanguard Strings”.
On electric violin, acoustic violin, soulful singing and improvisation, Mazz brings music that speaks directly to your soul. Expect to be transported.
Other performance and career highlights include:
– appearances on the Late Show with David Letterman and the Tonight Show with Jay Leno (Valerie June)
– tour of Africa (Mozambique, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon, Senegal) as cultural ambassador for the US Department of State (Matuto)
– travel to Suriname as a cultural ambassador for the US Department of State (The 13th Amendment?)
-featured violinist and singer in “Basetrack Live” national tour, culminating at a weeklong engagement at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival.
– featured appearance in the popular anti-fracking documentary “Dear Governor Cuomo”, in concert alongside Natalie Merchant, Joan Osborne, Citizen Cope, Medeski Martin and Wood, Dan Zanes and many more
– Solo MazzMuse appearance at the National Action Network’s 20th Annual Keepers of the Dream Award Ceremony in 2011, where President Obama gave the keynote address.
– festivals in The United States, Canada, New Zealand, Western and Eastern Europe, and Russia (Valerie June, LaFrae Sci’s The 13th Amendment?, Burnt Sugar, Daughters of Nina, Tamar-kali, Budapest Bar)
– performances in all of the great halls and public arts spaces in NYC (Carnegie, Avery Fischer, Alice Tully, Damrosch Park in Lincoln Center, the Lincoln Center Atrium, Symphony Space, Live at the New York Public Library, BAM Next Wave Festival at the Harvey Theater, Joe’s Pub, Le Poisson Rouge) as well as other well established venues around the world, including The Royal Albert Hall (London), The Queen Elizabeth Hall (London), The Palace of Arts (MŰVÉSZETEK PALOTÁJA, or MUPA – Budapest), and Bimhuis (Amsterdam)
– assisted in conducting workshops and performance with inmates at Sing Sing (NY State Correctional Facility, a Maximum Security State Penitentiary) as a Teaching Artist for Carnegie Hall’s Musical Connections Program
Contact Information
- Email: info@mazzmuse.com
Media & Markets
- ▶ Buy My Music (downloads/CDs/DVDs): http://mazzmuse.bandcamp.com
- ▶ Twitter: MazzMuse
- ▶ Instagram: mazzmuse
- ▶ Website: http://mazzmusic.com
- ▶ Website 2: http://www.silkroad.org/artists-mazz-swift
- ▶ Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/2WiOUz0ZVds8qiqaqkzlZw
More
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Quotes, Notes & Etc.
The Music:
Born of a self described “recovering christian” bisexual woman who as a person of color explored and expressed freely her love of classical music while secretly nurturing a love of rock, metal, punk, pop and electronica, this music is a sonic contradiction – a cognitive dissonance that by the pure fact of its existence, compels a cathartic experience for its performers and audience alike. It is the freedom of Rock and the depth of Soul, brought together with the precision of a classical sensibility.
Clips (more may be added)
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"):
