Bio:
Born in Fort Worth, Texas, and raised in Denver, Colorado, Royston has been a professional teacher, drummer and percussionist for almost twenty years.
He studied classical percussion at University of Denver where earned undergraduate degrees in Music and English, and accomplished teacher certification credentials from Metropolitan State College of Denver.
Rudy grew up playing drums in church, and found his voice under the auspices of Colorado’s celebrated trumpeter Ron Miles, whom Royston deems his greatest influence, and whom Rudy played with for 30 years.
He has taught, recorded and performed all styles of music from Jazz to marching percussion. Since moving to Piscataway, New Jersey in 2006, Royston has completed a Masters in Music degree from Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and performed with many of today’s finest Jazz musicians. Javon Jackson, Bill Frisell, Les McCann, David Gilmore, Ben Allison, Jason Moran, JD Allen, Sean Jones, Jeremy Pelt, Greg Osby, Jennifer Holiday, Ravi Coltrane, Ralph Bowen, Bruce Barth, George Colligan, Don Byron, Stanley Cowell, Tom Harrell, John Ellis, Jenny Scheinmenn and The Mingus Big Band, to name a few.
A lover of all genres of music, Rudy continues to pursue music and expand his music horizons. You may see Royston’s performance schedule, as well as music downloads on his web space: www.rudyroyston.com.
Discography:
2020
Brooklyn Eye - JOACHIM MENCEL
More Than Another Day - LISA HILTON
Panoptic - RUDY ROYSTON
Valentine - BILL FRISELL
Hero Trio - RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPA
Rippin & Runin - FARNELL NEWTON
Persistence- AMINA FIGUROVA
After Life - NOAH PREMINGER
Balance Point - ART HIRAHAMA
One For Twenty-Five - POSI-TONE SWINGTET
2019
Jigsaw - NOAH PREMINGER
Parallel Universe - BEHN GILLECE
Winds of Change - ALEXA TARANTINO
Break Up With The Sound - MICHELLE LORDI
…For it’s Beauty Alone - YURIY GALKIN
Vibrations - MARIANO LOIACONO
Living in Peace - CAROLYN FITZHUGH
Aeronautas - RODRIGO AGUDELO
2018
Sunward Bound - ART HIRAHAMA
Mark My Words - CRAIG BRANN
Tell Me The Truth - ROSANNA VITRO-WYCLIFF
Beautiful Liar - SHAMIE ROYSTON QUINTET
The Beauty of Differences - JEAN CHAUMONT
Interstellar Adventures - THEO HILL TRIO
Love Stone - JD ALLEN QUARTET
Dr. Quixotic's Traveling Exotics - JOHN IRABAGON QUARTET
Escapism - LISA HILTON
Longing - LEWIS PORTER/RAY SUHY QUARTET
2017
Radio Flyer - JD ALLEN QUARTET
Dr. Quixotic's Traveling Exotics - JON IRABAGON QUARTET
More Powerful - GEORGE COLLIGAN
The Wink of a Coward - ORGANIZED NOISE TRIO
Ruthenia - MARKO CHURNCHETZ
Escapism - LISA HILTON
American Trailer - RUDY LINKA
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).