Bio:
Richie Barshay began drumming inside kitchen cabinets at an early age, and continues banging on things worldwide to this day.
Noted for his work with the Herbie Hancock Quartet (2003-2007), he's been dubbed "a major rhythm voice on the rise" by Downbeat magazine, and The Guardian (UK) praises "the arrival of a major innovator who also knows how to have fun."
On tour and recordings his diverse résumé includes Hancock, Chick Corea, Esperanza Spalding, The Klezmatics, Fred Hersch, Kenny Werner, Lee Konitz, Natalie Merchant, Bobby McFerrin, and Pete Seeger among others.
Since 2004 he has led outreach projects across 5 continents as an American Musical Envoy with the U.S. State Department. Based in New York City, he can be heard on over 75 recordings including his latest release as leader, Sanctuary (2014), featuring Chick Corea.
Quotes, Notes & Etc.
"Drummer Barshay provided a wealth of energetic support, never losing his nimble way even at the sometimes breakneck paces...He turned the dreaded drum solo segment into an engaging rhythmic call-and-response exercise with the crowd."
Randy Lewis - Los Angeles Times
"Richie Barshay is one of New York's most sought after jazz drummers."
The Seattle Times
"He is one of those players who just needs to breathe on his drum kit to set up a rhythm. His light touch, incorporating tablas, electronic percussion and crisp-sounding cymbals, ensured that there was always an interesting pulse."
The Herald (Edinburgh, Scotland)
“Richie Barshay plays like that.....It’s like a deep fundamental groove that’s always there, no matter how many notes.” Russ Titelman, three-time Grammy Award-winning producer
"Barshay also struck gold with his drum solo on the second to last song, mixing styles and rhythms with ease."
DCMetroTheaterArts
“Then he played, and the tapestry of sound he created - from soft snare rattles and delicate cymbal breezes to electronic percussion - announced the arrival of a major innovator who also knows how to have fun.” “A theme based on a Peruvian rhythm, a twisting Indian tabla feature...confirmed what unusual angles the gifted Barshay comes from. This is just the beginning for him.”
John Fordham - The Guardian (UK)
"This man is a serious percussionist and composer for percussion. Something beneficial has happened to my heartbeat. "
Robert R Calder - PopMatters Music Review
"A player to watch." “He fervently explores the many instruments and rhythms at his beck and call.”
Scott Albin - JazzTimes.
"A fascinating musician."
Chick Corea
“Homework introduces a major rhythm voice on the rise.”
“Some use the word ‘painterly’ to describe piano players engaged in impressionistic flights of fancy. This description also suits the graceful determined phrasings of Richie Barshay.”
Ken Micallef - Downbeat
"Utterly fabulous and uplifting...this musegician drummer/percussionist is a master with the muse and a true gift to this land."
Nancy Nash - June Award nominee Canadian blues singer
“Playing a hybrid kit incorporating hand drums, percussion, and trap set, Barshay swings his butt off, simultaneously creating a Jazz/Indian world like Tony Williams setting fire to the Ganges.”
Modern Drummer
"Listening to Richie Barshay's deft drumming is always a treat."
Time Out New York
“On Homework, his striking debut as a leader, Herbie Hancock’s current drummer, Richie Barshay, effectively incorporated tabla into his drum kit while adding a wide spectrum of Indian and Afro-Cuban instruments to the fabric of his brilliantly original compositions. Tabla has a prominent role throughout.… And we’re not talking overdubbing here. Barshay actually plays the tabla at the kit while simultaneously activating the bass drum and hi-hat with his feet, then alternately picking up sticks to traverse his snare and toms in organic fashion.”
“a showcase of Zen-like cymbal work”"
Bill Milkowski - Traps: The Art of Drumming
"All the right stuff, so we have hope...continues to impress us all with his swing and musicality. "
Bob Brookmeyer
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).