Sandro Albert
This Brazilian cultural matrix positions Sandro Albert globally... Curation
CURATION
-
from this page:
by Matrix
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
-
Name:
Sandro Albert
-
City/Place:
New York City
-
Country:
United States
-
Hometown:
Porto Alegre, Brazil
Current News
-
What's Up?
Sandro has produced & played with some of the leading artists today including…
Milton Nascimento, Lenine, Jorge Vercilo, Omar Hakim, Patti Austin, James Ingram, Flora Purim, Maria Gadu, Brenda Russell, Dionne Warwick, Ruben Blades, Victor Bailey, Rita Coolidge, Abraham Laboriel, Jimmy Haslip, Alphonso Johnson, Darryl Jones, Herb Alpert, Bill Charlap, Toninho Horta, Claudio Roditi, Flavio Venturini, Jane Duboc, Renato Russo, Radio Taxi, Buster Williams, Mark Egan, Danny Gottlieb, Russell Ferrante, Kenny Garrett, Fred White, Harvey Mason, Peter Erskine, Antonio Sanchez, Terri Lyne Carrington, Vinnie Colaiuta, Luis Conte, Larry Williams, Bashiri Johnson, Sachal Vasandani, James Francis, Leon Ware, Dr Dre, Group War, Raphael Saadiq, James Ingram, Robben Ford, Joe Diorio, and Jimmy Wyble, among others.
Life & Work
-
Bio:
Sandro Albert's love affair with music began on the streets of Porto Alegre. At the age of 14, Sandro bought his first guitar from an ice cream vendor who played his instrument to the people walking by. Not long afterwards, a friend began to share his jazz collection with him. Some of his earliest influences were Wes Montgomery, Miles Davis, and Brazilian icons Milton Nascimento and Antonio Jobim.
To this day, the sounds and imprints of the busy streets of Porto Alegre can be heard in Sandro's music. Sandro is that rare phenomenon in the jazz world that is as equally gifted as a guitarist as well as composer. For the past half decade, he had dedicated himself solely to his music. The Sandro Albert Quintet has performed at the North Sea Jazz Festival, Ronnie Scott's, Catalina Bar & Grill, Yoshi's, the Blue Note, among other venues.
Sandro has played, produced and/or recorded with major Brazilian and American artists such as Milton Nascimento, Lenine, Jorge Vercilo, Omar Hakim, Patti Austin, Airto Moreira, Flora Purim, Brenda Russell, Dionne Warwick, Rita Coolidge, Victor Bailey, Abraham Laboriel, Jimmy Haslip, Alphonso Johnson, Darryl Jones, Herb Alpert, Bill Charlap, Toninho Horta, Claudio Roditi, Buster Williams, Mark Egan, Danny Gottlieb, Russell Ferrante, Kenny Garrett, Fred White, Harvey Mason, Peter Erskine, Antonio Sanchez, Terri Lyne Carrington, Vinnie Colaiuta, Luis Conte, Bashiri Johnson, Leon Ware, War, Raphael Saadiq, James Ingram, and Robben Ford.
In Brazil, Sandro found his magical sense of harmony and melody; in the United States, he defined his masterful improvisational style. Sandro has recently released his fourth album, Vertical on Daywood Drive Records. This new project showcases Sandro's incredible writing talents as well as his solo skills.
Clips (more may be added)
There are certain countries, the names of which fire the popular 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 world. And while Rio de Janeiro, or its fame anyway, tends toward the sophisticated end of the spectrum, Bahia bends toward the atavistic…
Have you ever noticed how different places scattered across the face of the globe seem almost to exist in different universes... As if they were permeated throughout with something akin to 19th century luminiferous aether, unique, determined by that place’s history...
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 all over the planet.
This Integrated Global Creative Economy (we invented the concept) uncoils from Brazil's sprawling Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix... expanding like the canopy of a rainforest tree rooted in Bahia, branches spreading to embrace the entire world...
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