Nigel Hall
This Brazilian cultural matrix projects Nigel Hall globally...
Curation
CURATION
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from this page:
by Matrix
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
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Name:
Nigel Hall
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City/Place:
New Orleans
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Country:
United States
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Hometown:
Washington, D.C.
Life & Work
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Bio:
Soul provider Nigel Hall is in many ways an artist who needs no introduction. An in-demand sideman, he’s built a mighty foundation of funk over the years onstage and in the studio with collaborators including the Warren Haynes Band, Jon Cleary, Soulive, Oteil Burbridge and Roosevelt Collier, Ledisi, the Soul Rebels, Lettuce and countless others. Legions of fans are already well in the know about Hall’s copious keyboard chops and powerful vocal style. But even to them, his Feel Music/Round Hill debut solo album will be a revelation – a confirmation that Hall has stepped out front and center into a creative space to call his own.
“Ladies & Gentlemen… Nigel Hall,” due out in digital format November 13th and vinyl November 27, captures the spirit of the songs that made Hall a musician. It was produced by Eric Krasno, guitarist and producer of music by a dizzying array of artists including Norah Jones, Justin Timberlake, Talib Kweli, Aaron Neville and Matisyahu. Hall’s original compositions, from the blissful, sunny ‘60s-style soul grooves of lead single “Gimme A Sign” and “Never Gonna Let You Go” to the teasing, R&B kiss of downtempo cuts like “Too Sweet” and “Call on Me” to show off a record collector’s pitch-perfect knowledge and a lifelong fan’s passion for gritty, muscular rhythm and blues, funky dancefloor rave-ups and sultry bedroom serenades.
Nigel Hall grew up in Washington, D.C., in a highly musical family. His fingers first touched the keys before he hit kindergarten age, and his ears were wide open.
“I grew up with records,” he said. “That’s why I’m obsessed. My father had a vast collection. I’d be in third grade with my Walkman and everyone’s listening to Ace of Bass, and I’m listening to “Return to Forever,” Chick Corea’s fusion project with Stanley Clarke. The vintage sounds of “Ladies & Gentlemen… Nigel Hall,” infused with his electric freshness, together make both an audible autobiography and Nigel Hall’s musical mission statement.
Cover choices including Ramp’s “Try, Try, Try,” written by Roy Ayers, Ann Peebles’ “I Can’t Stand The Rain,” and Latimore’s “Let’s Straighten It Out” - deep album cuts from the back pages of golden-age R&B - reveal a true student of the sound. Most of the songs on “Ladies & Gentlemen… Nigel Hall” were cut in one take, straight from Hall’s spirit to tape. It’s a loving, detailed, sure-handed scrapbook of American soul influence that tugs your heart and moves your hips.
“Music is our way of traveling through time,” he said. His cover of Stanley Clarke’s “I Just Want To Love You,” for example, newly recorded as a turn-the-clock-back, Motown-infused duet with intensely soulful vocalist Alecia Chakour, was originally released the year Hall was born, in 1981.
“It’s a part of my life, a part of my childhood, and it’s a part of what made me me, that song,” he said.
Nigel Hall is also a relatively new resident of one of America’s most sonically significant cities, a place that has always respected the power of history. Since relocating to New Orleans in late 2013, Nigel Hall has been embraced by its world-renowned music community. In early 2014, a feature in its premier music-focused magazine, Offbeat, enthusiastically welcomed Hall as “a perfect fit” for the vibrant city and its singular culture. The Times-Picayune’s review of his solo debut at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival the same year crowned him with a comparison to Southern funk godfather Art Neville.
“It’s the best decision I ever made for myself in my life and musically,” Hall said of the move. “I’m surrounded by the most amazing, incredible musicians in the world at all times. The big picture, the sincerity is very present here at all times. It’s a breath of fresh air. Everybody’s in the vibe. Everybody’s feeling something.”
You can feel it on “Ladies & Gentlemen… Nigel Hall,” particularly on the slinky, nasty, Meters-style funk of “Don’t Change for Me.” But Hall’s recent past is present, too; his Lettuce co-conspirator Eric Krasno shares writing credit on several of the original tracks, and longtime jamband collaborators like sax man Ryan Zoidis and drummer Adam Deitch, of Lettuce and Soulive, lend their talents. So does fellow crate-digger Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson, who guests on a cover of the Isley Brothers’ “Lay Away” along with former Rolling Stones sideman Ivan Neville.
“I like to sing songs that reflect my being and who I am as a person,” he said.
“Because that really touches me. When you hear a song and it makes you cry, or it makes you happy or it evokes any kind of feeling, that is music. That is what music is supposed to do. And music is the last pure thing we have left on this earth. It’s the only pure thing.”
Contact Information
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Management/Booking:
MANAGEMENT
Jamie P. Hall
NIGECO MUSIC
+1 (504) 858-0046
[email protected]
BOOKING
Gunter Schroder
THE KURLAND AGENCY
173 Brighton Avenue
Boston, MA USA 02134
+1 (617) 254-0007
[email protected]
www.thekurlandagency.com
Clips (more may be added)
This is a small-world open-curation network initially created so that magnificent but unknown (to the wide-world) Bahian artists might be eminently discoverable by humanity everywhere. However! For the Matrix to function for the Bahians it must function for ALL artists/creators:
MATRIX ONLINE NETWORK
There are certain countries, the names of which fire the imagination. Brazil is one of them, an amalgam of primitive and sophisticated, jungle and elegance, luscious jazz harmonics...there’s no other place like it in the universe. The Integrated Global Creative Economy (we invented the concept) uncoils from this sprawling Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix — concatenating branches of a virtual rainforest tree rooted in Bahia, canopy spreading to embrace the entire planet...
Ex Terra Brasilis
Starting point for this project was the culture born in Brazil's quilombos (in Angola a "quilombo" is a village; in Brazil it is a village either founded by Africans or Afro-Brazilians who had escaped slavery, or — as in the case of São Francisco do Paraguaçu below — occupied by such after abandonment by the ruling class):
...theme music for a Brazilian Matrix, from an Afro-Brazilian Mass by
From inside this Matrix, all creators-creative entities everywhere — empowered by the mathematics of network theory — become potentially discoverable by all people worldwide. Go straight to one of the (randomly selected) creators-creative entities below to see how their Matrix Page — information and media, outgoing and incoming curation — works (reload to feature other artists/creators), or find out below the black line below what unsung (metaphorically only) brilliance this is all about:
More on these profound incubators of Afro-Brazilian culture at:
Os Quilombos da Bahia
The Quilombos of Bahia
It’s like a trick of the mind’s light (I suppose), but standing on beach or escarpment in Salvador and looking out across the Baía de Todos os Santos to the great Recôncavo, and mindful of what happened there (the Bahian Recôncavo was final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place throughout the entirety of mankind’s existence on this planet), one must be led to the inevitable conclusion that one is in a place unique to history, and to the present:
Brazil absorbed over ten times the number of enslaved Africans taken to the United States of America, and is a repository of African deities (and their music) now largely forgotten in their lands of origin.
Brazil was a refuge (of sorts) for Sephardim fleeing an Inquisition which followed them across the Atlantic (that unofficial symbol of Brazil’s national music — the pandeiro — was almost certainly brought to Brazil by these people).
Across the parched savannas of the interior of Brazil’s culturally fecund nordeste/northeast (where wizard Hermeto Pascoal was born in Lagoa da Canoa — Lagoon of the Canoe — and raised in Olho d’Águia — Eye of the Eagle), much of Brazil’s aboriginal population was absorbed into a caboclo/quilombola culture punctuated by the Star of David.
Three cultures — from three continents — running for their lives, their confluence forming an unprecedented fourth. Pandeirista on the roof.
That's where this Matrix begins:
Wolfram MathWorld
The idea is simple, powerful, and egalitarian: To propagate for them, the Matrix must propagate for all. Most in the world are within six degrees of us. The concept of a "small world" network (see Wolfram above) applies here, placing artists from the Recôncavo and the sertão, from Salvador... from Brooklyn, Berlin and Mombassa... musicians, writers, filmmakers... clicks (recommendations) away from their peers worldwide.
Recent Visitors Map
Great culture is great power.
And in a small world great things are possible.
Alicia Svigals
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"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...
I opened the shop in Salvador, Bahia in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for magnificent Brazilian musicians.
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 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, 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've lived here in Brazil for 32 years now) 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.
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 founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
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
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Matt Garrison
RÁDIO MATRIX