CURATION
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from this page:
by Matrix
Network Node
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Name:
Nelson Latif
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City/Place:
São Paulo
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Country:
Brazil
Life
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Bio:
ENGLISH:
Cavaquinho and acoustic guitar player Nelson Latif formed his musical identity in the legendary jazz scene of 1980's São Paulo. With roots in choro and jazz, Latif merges Brazilian styles and a classical guitar technique with diverse musical influences. In his melodic phrasing one hears bebop and Brazilian syncopations, and in his virtuosity the energy of flamenco.
Latif started his studies at age fourteen. At seventeen he was already accompanying singers in the São Paulo nightlife. At this time he won a music school competition and was awarded a scholarship to study conducting and composition at the Faculdade Santa Marcelina. Upon completing this course, he continued his classical guitar studies at the Faculdade Paulista de Música.
In the early 80´s Latif joined several groups in his native São Paulo. Two of these strongly influenced his musical development: the Quarteto Paulista, a choro group formed by some of the best São Paulo musicians, and a flamenco duo with guitarist Julio Ramires. Also during this period, Latif studied electric guitar with Mozart Mello and improvisation with Paulo Belinatti.
In 1988, after a tour in Europe with the choro trio Remelexo, Latif moved to Lisbon, where he gave workshops at the Juventude Musical Portuguesa and taught classical guitar at the well-known Escola de Guitarra de Duarte Costa.
In 1989 Latif moved to Amsterdam, where he lived for twelve years. During this time he was a member of Uit de Kunst, an organization designed to promote foreign culture in Holland. Latif also continued his musical career by playing with several important musicians on the Dutch jazz scene. Latif also toured many countries with Brazilian musicians, playing jazz and world music festivals, and made several recordings.
During the 90's Latif started performing on the cavaquinho, an instrument that has since become his trademark.
Between 1997 and 2000 he led the group Raiz Latina, touring throughout the Asian continent. They recorded their debut album in Seoul with the well-known Korean singer Kim Jun.
In 2001 he formed Trio Baru with the musicians Fernando Corbal and Bosco Oliveira.
He recorded the CD Brazilian Portrait together with the saxophonist Flávio Sandoval in 2003, and promoted this album in Brazil and Europe. In this same year he went to Suriname several times to play concerts and give workshops and lectures. Together with the guitarists Stanley Noordpool and Robby Faverey he played at the Carifesta and the Groen Festival.
In 2004 Latif formed a duo with the multi-instrumentalist Carlinhos Antunes. In 2005 he joined forces with Ustad Zamir Khan, sitar and tabla player and member of the legendary family of Indian musicians. Latif and Khan merged the traditional music of their countries, discovering a whole new world of musical possibilities. Also in 2005, Latif recorded the CD Choro, Samba e Afins with Dutch guitarist Joeri de Graaf. This recording started off the Choramundo Project, uniting musicians from Holland, Suriname and Brazil.
Since 2002 Nelson Latif has been ahead of the Alma Brasileira Project, designed for universities and cultural institutions all around the world. The project consists of workshops, concerts and lectures, addressing the history and diversity of traditional Brazilian music.
Nelson Latif is also a sociologist, graduated from the University of São Paulo.
PORTUGUÊS:
Violonista e cavaquinista, Nelson Latif é fruto da boa safra de músicos paulistanos da década de 80. Com formação musical em jazz e choro, atua nos principais palcos brasileiros e europeus.
Nelson Latif une os fundamentos da música clássica às diversas tendências musicais assimiladas ao longo da carreira. No fraseado melódico, linhas de forte influência jazzística executadas ora no ritmo sincopado e alegre do choro, ora com a precisão e o vigor do flamenco produzem um estilo singular, marca inconfundível do artista.
Latif iniciou seus estudos de violão clássico aos 14 anos e aos 17 já acompanhava cantores nos bares da intensa noite paulistana. Um ano mais tarde, venceu o festival de música secundarista promovido pela Faculdade Santa Marcelina, onde passou a estudar composição e regência. Continuou seus estudos de música na Faculdade Paulista de Arte, como aluno do curso de Bacharelado em Violão.
No início dos anos 80, integrou diversos grupos musicais na cidade de São Paulo com o violonista e guitarrista, entre os quais se destacam o Quarteto Paulista e o duo de música flamenca que formou com o violonista Julio Ramires. Nesse período, foi aluno do guitarrista Mozart Mello e do violonista Paulo Bellinati, com quem estudou harmonia e improvisação.
Em 1988, com Trio Remelexo, mudou-se para Portugal, onde ministrou workshops de música brasileira para a Juventude Musical Portuguesa. Em Lisboa, foi professor da renomada Escola de Guitarra de Duarte Costa. Apresentou-se com o Trio Remelexo (Nelson Latif, João Arruda e Eduardo Miranda) durante um ano nos principais teatros portugueses.
Em 1989, Nelson Latif radicou-se em Amsterdã. Durante os 12 anos em que morou na Holanda, foi membro do time de professores da Uit de Kunst, instituição divulgadora da cultura estrangeira no país, e trabalhou com diversos artistas. Também acompanhou nesse período os músicos brasileiros, tais como Mestre Marçal, Alcir da Mangueira, Ceumar e Lílian Vieira e os grupos Raíces de América, Quinteto Violado e Fuzuê. Participou de diversos festivais de jazz e world music, tais como o holandês North Sea Jazz Festival, o belga Sfinks Festival, o austríaco Sun Splash Festival e os Festivais de Jazz de Istambul, Lisboa e Jacarta.
Na década de 90, começou a se apresentar também com o cavaquinho, instrumento que o caracteriza desde então.
De 1997 a 2000, Latif dirigiu o grupo Raiz Latina, que o acompanhou em inúmeras turnês pela Ásia, das quais resultou o CD Love, gravado na Coréia.
Nelson Latif voltou a residir no Brasil em 2001, onde forma com os violonistas brasilienses Fernando Corbal e Bosco Oliveira o Trio Baru.
Em 2003, lançou com o saxofonista paulistano Flávio Sandoval o CD Brazilian Portrait, divulgado em turnês no Brasil e na Europa. No mesmo ano, foi acolhido pelo país vizinho Suriname, onde se apresentou diversas vezes, entre elas no Groen Festival, ao lado dos renomados violonistas surinameses Stanley Noordpool e Robby Faverey, e no Carifesta.
Em 2004, formou parceria musical com o também multiinstrumentista de cordas paulistano Carlinhos Antunes.
Em 2005, em duo com o músico indiano Ustad Zamir Khan, sitarista e tablista da legendaria família Khan, trafega pela pouco explorada união entre a música tradicional da Índia e do Brasil.
De 2006 até o presente, Latif tem se apresentado com o Trio Baru ou em concertos solo em palcos nacionais e internacionais.
Como promotor cultural, Nelson Latif coordena o Projeto Alma Brasileira, composto de oficinas musicais, palestras sobre a história da música brasileira e concertos. O projeto visa à difusão da nossa música no exterior e já foi apresentado em diversas universidades e centros de cultura brasileira, em mais de 30 paises.
Nelson Latif é também sociólogo, formado pela Universidade de São Paulo.
Contact Information
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Email:
[email protected]
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Management/Booking:
Brasília +55 61 9264-0911
Amsterdam +31 (0 ) 623675176
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