CURATION
-
from this page:
by Matrix
Network Node
-
Name:
Munyungo Jackson
-
City/Place:
Los Angeles, California
-
Country:
United States
Life
-
Bio:
Percussionist, Composer, Arranger, Producer, Author and four time Grammy Winner Darryl Munyungo Jackson possesses an ever-increasing collection of instruments with which to execute his craft. That is one of the reasons this warm and unassuming West Coast artist can be found in virtually any musical setting—whether it’s Funk, Pop, Jazz, Latin, Reggae, or traditional dance music of such countries as Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, Haiti, Brazil and Cuba.
Despite his youthful appearance, Munyungo is no newcomer: in his over thirty years of playing, he has developed an awesome versatility and became a well-respected and much requested session, concert and tour player. He has performed with Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, Sting, Kenny Loggins, Herbie Hancock, Dianne Reeves, the Zawinul Syndicate, George Howard, Ronnie Laws, The Temptations, Four Tops, The Supremes, Bennie Maupin, Bill Summers, Marcus Miller, and dozens of others, including numerous ethnic music and dance troupes.
Munyungo was born in Los Angeles, California, into creative surroundings: his parents, Arthur Jackson Jr. and Genie Jackson, both maintained various involvements in music, dance and writing, and Munyungo is the nephew of the legendary jazz, pop and blues singer and pianist Nellie Lutcher who was on Capital Records.
As a child, Munyungo was required to take classical piano lessons, and did so until he was nineteen years old. But in his high school years, when one of his buddies started a Latin jazz band, seventeen-year-old Munyungo found himself uncontrollably attracted to the sound of the timbales, and his interest in piano began to fade. He began spending more and more time with the percussionist in that band, soon discovering that he was quite skillful at observing and remembering the techniques. His first opportunity he purchased his very own set of timbales.
During this period, Munyungo’s father was program director of a jazz radio station. The benefit to Munyungo was the constant exposure to much music. He happily surrounded himself with the albums of the many Latin artists of the day such as Mongo Santamaria, Willie Bobo, and Tito Puente, and practiced by playing his timbales along with these albums. Soon, his system of observation-plus-practice proved to be an effective method of self-training, and it wasn’t long before he formed a Latin jazz band with his classmates.
Munyungo’s passion for the timbales was only the beginning. From that point, he made the natural progression to Congas, Bongos, Latin Percussion and beyond, eventually to religious Bata Drumming, and numerous drums and percussion from many different cultures.
Subsequently, he met and worked with traditional drummers from Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, China and Japan resulting in a collection of over four hundred percussion instruments and drums from all over the world — all of which he plays proficiently.
Why that name? On several occasions, he performed with some players from Africa and the Caribbean, who would shout “Munyungo!” (Which is a Zulu word meaning “door” or “entrance”) to cheer him on as he played — and it wasn’t long before the word attached to him as a nickname.
Now, for him, the name means “Gateway to Heaven.”
Munyungo is deeply committed to understanding — and keeping alive — the tradition surrounding the instruments he plays. “It’s hard to study drums without studying the cultures from which they come,” he points out. This respectfulness seasons his playing with hearty passion and enjoyment.
“Drummer” is the term Munyungo uses to describe himself and his art. “Traditional percussion instruments were invented for the purpose of communication with nature and spirits as well as with other humans and someone who uses these instruments to invoke the forces of nature to act is traditionally called a ‘drummer’. This is why those of us who perform, know and study traditional music, don’t call each other ‘percussionist’; we call each other ‘drummers’.”
He is not unmindful, however, of the wealth of new technology available to the contemporary musician, and is equally committed to experimenting with it. Munyungo’s “electronic arsenal” of samplers, digital drums, drum machines and computers coexist comfortably with his traditional instruments and he finds them invaluable for composing original music, as well as for use within the various studio and movie soundtrack projects he undertakes.
In addition to his concert, tour and recording work, Munyungo is currently on the staff of the Watts Towers Arts Center in Los Angeles, where he helps to present an annual fall Drum Festival that brings together master drummers from all over the world to present their expertise. At past festivals, Babatunde Olatunji, Philly Joe Jones and Papa Joe Jones have been among the performers.
Munyungo has also lead his own band, Jungle Book, in presenting traditional performances, which often include dancers. In addition, he conducts local drum clinics in which he teaches the rudiments of ethnic percussion to aspiring professionals of all ages and levels. Watch, too, for his occasional appearances in television or film productions displaying his musical talents with or as a guest artist.
Munyungo knows where he’s going because he knows where he’s been. One of the best African American percussionists ever, and along with his partner Bill Summers are two of the best exponents of multiple and varied percussion arts. Two players who have been inspirational to other percussionists worldwide from Australia to Zimbabwe.
Clips (more may be added)
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
Wolfram Mathematics
This technological matrix originating in Bahia, Brazil and positioning creators around the world within reach of each other and the entire planet is able to do so because it is small-world (see Wolfram above). Bahia itself, final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place on earth throughout all of human history, refuge for Lusitanian Sephardim fleeing the Inquisition, Indigenous both apart and subsumed into a sociocultural matrix comprised of these three peoples and more, is small-world. Human society, the billions of us, is small-world. Neural structures for human memory are small-world...
In small worlds great things are possible.
Alicia Svigals
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"I'm truly thankful ... Sohlangana ngokuzayo :)"
—Nduduzo Makhathini (JOHANNESBURG): piano, Blue Note recording artist
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"Very nice! Thank you for this. Warmest regards and wishing much success for the project! Matt"
—Son of Jimmy Garrison (bass for John Coltrane, Bill Evans...); plays with Herbie Hancock and other greats...
Dear friends & colleagues,
Having arrived in Salvador 13 years earlier, I opened a record shop in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for Bahian musicians, many of them magisterial but unknown.
David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR found us (above), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Bahians and other Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix (people who have passed are not removed), then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
Years ago in NYC I "rescued" unpaid royalties (performance & mechanical) for artists/composers including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (for his rights in Bob Marley compositions; Clement was Bob's first producer), Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass and many others. Aretha called me out of the blue vis-à-vis money owed by Atlantic Records. Allen Klein (managed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles) called about money due the estate of Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) called just to see if he had any unpaid money floating around out there (the royalty world was a shark-filled jungle, to mangle metaphors, and I doubt it's changed).
But the pertinent client (and friend) in the present context is Earl "Speedo" Carroll, of The Cadillacs. Earl went from doo-wopping on Harlem streetcorners to chart-topping success to working as a custodian at PS 87 elementary school on the west side of Manhattan. Through all of this he never lost what made him great.
Greatness and fame are too often conflated. The former should be accessible independently of the latter.
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Recent access to this matrix and Bahia are from these places (a single marker can denote multiple accesses).
Across the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
For a complete list of everybody inside, tap TOTAL below:
TOTAL
Nduduzo Makhathini
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Matt Garrison
RÁDIO MATRIX