CURATION
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from this page:
by Augmented Matrix
Network Node
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Name:
Richie Barshay
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City/Place:
New York City
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Country:
United States
Life & Work
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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.
More
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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
Clips (more may be added)
We use the mathematics of the small world phenomenon to transform the creative universe into a creative village wherein all are connected by short pathways to all... (Wolfram explains how above)
This Integrated Global Creative Economy uncoils from a sprawling Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix...
Great culture is great power.
"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"
Our Matrix was conceived under a Spiritus Mundi ranging from the quilombos and senzalas of Cachoeira and Santo Amaro to Havana and the provinces of Cuba to the wards of New Orleans to the South Side of Chicago to the sidewalks of Harlem to the townships of South Africa to the villages of Ireland to the Roma camps of France and Belgium to the Vienna of Beethoven to the shtetls of Eastern Europe...*
Sodré
*...in conversation with Raymundo Sodré, who summed up the irony in this sequence by opining for the ages: "Where there's misery, there's music!" Hence A Massa, anthem for the trod-upon folk of Brazil, which blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south until...
And hence a platform whereupon all creators tend to accessible proximity to all other creators, irrespective of degree of fame, location, or the censor.
Matrix Ground Zero is the Recôncavo, bewitching and bewitched, contouring the resplendent Bay of All Saints (end of clip below, before credits), absolute center of terrestrial gravity for the disembarkation of enslaved human beings (and for the sublimity these people created), the bay presided over by Brazil's ineffable Black Rome (where Bule Bule is seated below, around the corner from where we built this matrix as an extension of our record shop).
Assis Valente's (of Santo Amaro, Bahia) "Brasil Pandeiro" filmed by Betão Aguiar
Betão Aguiar
("Black Rome" is an appellation per Caetano, via Mãe Aninha of Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá.)
Replete with Brazilian greatness, but we listened to Miles Davis and Jimmy Cliff in there too; visitors are David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR/WXPN
I opened the shop in Salvador, Bahia in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for magnificent Brazilian musicians.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar found us (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.
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 founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Salvador is our base. If you plan to visit Bahia, there are some things you should probably know and you should first visit:
www.salvadorbahiabrazil.comAcross the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
Wolfram MathWorld
Ex Terra Brasilis
Alicia Svigals
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Roberto Mendes
Luciano Calazans
Gustavo Caribé
J Velloso
Lázaro Ramos
Fernando Guerreiro
Maria Marighella
Russell Okung
Bule Bule
Caetano Veloso
RÁDIO MATRIX