CURATION
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from this page:
by Matrix
Network Node
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Name:
Stefon Harris
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City/Place:
Sayreville, New Jersey
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Country:
United States
Current News
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What's Up?
WBGO, the worlds #1 jazz radio station has named Sonic Creed Jazz Album of the Year!
Life & Work
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Bio:
Vibraphonist-composer Stefon Harris is heralded as "one of the most important young artists in jazz" (The Los Angeles Times). He is unquestionably developing what will be a long and extraordinary career.
Stefon Harris' passionate artistry, energetic stage presence, and astonishing virtuosity have propelled him into the forefront of the current jazz scene. Widely recognized and lauded by both his peers and jazz critics alike, he is committed to both exploring the rich potential of jazz composition and blazing new trails on the vibraphone.
A graduate of The Manhattan School of Music, he received a B.A. in Classical Music and an M.A. in jazz performance. Stefon is a recipient of the prestigious Martin E. Segal Award from Lincoln Center and has earned back to back to back Grammy nominations for Best Jazz Album including The Grand Unification Theory (2003), the 2001 release of Kindred (Blue Note) and his 1999 release of Black Action Figure (Blue Note) for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo. North Sea Jazz (Netherlands) named Harris for the prestigious International 2002 Bird Award for Artist Deserving Wider Recognition. He has been voted Best Mallet player by the Jazz Journalist Association (2003, 2002, 2001 and 2000), Debut Artist of the Year by Jazztimes, Downbeat's Critics Poll Winner for Vibraphone and Rising Star, Vibraphone (2003) Newsweek's Best Jazz CD, Best New Talent and 1999-2000 Readers Poll Best Vibraphonist by Jazziz Magazine and Chicago Tribune's Debut of the Year.
Mr. Harris has performed at many of the world's most distinguished concert halls, including Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. The Kennedy Center, San Francisco's Herbst Theater, UCLA's Royce Hall, Chicago's Symphony Center, Detroit's Orchestra Hall, and The Sydney Opera House. He has toured and recorded with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and performed his original compositions with the Dutch Metropole Orchestra in Den Hague. He has toured South Africa, Brazil and Europe performing at the North Sea Jazz Festival, Istanbul Jazz Festival and the Umbria Jazz Festival, among others.
In 2001 he premiered "The Grand Unification Theory" -- a full length concert piece commissioned by The Troy Savings Bank Music Hall which was later presented at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. He has also appeared at the legendary Playboy Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival and the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Most recently Mr. Harris received a commission from The Wharton Center for Performing Arts, Michigan State University which will debut in 2005.
An active educator Mr. Harris conducts over 100 clinics and lectures annually at schools and universities throughout the country. He is currently Artist in Residence at San Francisco Performances and in 2002 at The Isabelle Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. In addition he has been an active member of the Executive Board of Directors for Chamber Music America
"Blackout," Stefon's new project featuring a hybrid of acoustic music and progressive sounds debuted its CD, Evolution in April 2004 and also embarked on a national tour. Praised for "pursing jazz on its own terms" (Washington Post); the band features Casey Benjamin (alto sax), Marc Cary (keyboards), Darryl Hall (bass) and Terreon Gully, and has performed to sold out crowds at The Kennedy Center and North Sea Jazz Festival.
The 2003 release of The Grand Unification Theory; an eleven movement piece featuring Latin, Classical, African and Jazz influences earned a Grammy nomination, JAZZIZ Critics Choice and 4 star reviews from Downbeat Magazine, Rolling Stone and The Los Angeles Times,
His 2001 CD Kindred earned him his second Grammy nod for Best Jazz Album. A quartet recording with the noted pianist Jacky Terrasson Kindred is a follow-up to his sophomore release Black Action Figure (Blue Note Records) which was also nominated for a Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo. His premiere as a leader, A Cloud of Red Dust, was voted Best Debut Recording at the 1999 New York Jazz Awards.
In addition to leading his own band, Mr. Harris has recorded as part of The Classical Jazz Quartet, a series of jazz interpreted classics with Kenny Barron, Ron Carter, and Lewis Nash. He has also recorded and toured with many of music's greatest artists, including Joe Henderson, Wynton Marsalis, Cassandra Wilson, Buster Williams, Kenny Barron, Charlie Hunter, Kurt Elling, Cyrus Chestnut, Steve Coleman, and Steve Turre among many others.
Contact Information
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Management/Booking:
AGENT
Myles Weinstein
Unlimited Myles
p: (732) 566-2881
w: unlimitedmyles.com
Clips (more may be added)
Uncoiling from an Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix...
EX TERRA BRASILIS
Millions of short-path connections unite creators worldwide by means of the extraordinary mathematics of:
The Small World Phenomenon
—The Integrated Global Creative Economy
Take an artist... from Salvador, Havana, Brooklyn, Cape Town...
Writer, musician, filmmaker, painter, choreographer, architect, academic, fashion designer, chef...
Integrate this artist into a network of other artists around the world.
Our artist tends to within close proximity of all others in the network, in the identical manner in which most human beings are within some six degrees of most others.
The creative universe becomes a creative village in which all have access to all.
Inspired in the sensorial immanence of Borges' transfinites-inspired Alephs.
The Aleph / O Aleph
O God! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space...
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.com
Linking to the Matrix from your media (to the Matrix in general / to your Matrix Page from your Instagram) plugs your people in.
https://linktr.ee
"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; recorded "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): World's premier klezmer violinist
"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...)
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"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
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
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!" Thus A Massa, anthem for the trod-upon folk of Brazil, which blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south until Sodré was silenced, threatened with death and forced into exile...
And thus 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 (seat of the Integrated Global Creative Economy* and 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.)
*Darius Mans holds a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT, and lives between Washington D.C. and Salvador da Bahia.
Between 2000 and 2004 he served as the World Bank’s Country Director for Mozambique and Angola. In that capacity, Darius led a team which generated $150 million in annual lending to Mozambique, including support for public private partnerships in infrastructure which catalyzed over $1 billion in private investment.
Darius was an economist with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, where he worked closely with the U.S. Treasury and the IMF to establish a framework to avoid debt repudiation and to restructure private commercial debt in Brazil and Chile.
He taught Economics at the University of Maryland and was a consultant to KPMG on infrastructure projects in Latin America.
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'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 founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
Susan Rogers
Alicia Svigals
Julian Lloyd Webber
Kamasi Washington
Clarice Assad
Randy Brecker
Herbie Hancock...
Bule Bule
Caetano Veloso
Darius Mans
Sparrow/Pardal Roberts
RÁDIO MATRIX