Bio:
Tommy Hilfiger. Monica. Betty Carter. Common. Terence Blanchard. Outkast. Goodie Mob. Korn. Bernard Purdie. The Roots. Sly and Robbie. Jason Moran. Speech. Ice Cube. Milt Jackson. George Benson. Joe Clausell. Marc Cary. Sean “Puffy” Combs. Christina Aguilera.
What reads like the front-row seating arrangement at a previous year’s Grammy award show is actually a partial membership list of a very elite group. Members of this group have received international acclaim for their contributions to popular culture and music. They have transformed the way we envision, appreciate, play, and hear music. All superstars in their own right, each member of this group sought the light of Tarus Mateen so that they could shine their brightest.
Tarus’s creative genius and mastery of acoustic bass, electric bass, rhythm guitar, and piano make him one of the most sought-after musician/producers in hip-hop, house, blues, rock, reggae, soul, and straight ahead jazz. He is quite possibly the only musician to receive critical acclaim in all these musical genres at once. Since 1996, there has not been a Top 10 jazz album that didn’t feature Tarus Mateen. This is a phenomenal feat for any artist, certainly for one of only 48 years in age.
Tarus began his journey as a professional musician with his two older brothers Roy (drums) and Radji (sax) who toured Jamaica with their group, opening for Freddie Mc Gregregor, as well as Judy Mowatt, formally with the Itrees backup for Bob Marley. By the time Tarus was a teenager, he was a studio musician for some of California’s early rappers and had toured nationally with his brothers.
In 1985 Tarus moved to Atlanta, Georgia to attend Morehouse College, majoring in Music. Setting the local club circuit on fire, Tarus sharpened his skills on both the upright and electric bass. While playing in Savannah, Georgia, Art Blakey encouraged Tarus to move to New York and join his band at the recommendation of front liners Javon Jackson and Philip Harper.
Upon arriving in New York in 1988, Tarus landed a new artist’s dream gig – a one and a half-year stint with legendary jazz master Betty Carter, with whom he recorded a Grammy nominated CD. Touring in Europe and Asia with Ms. Carter afforded him an incredible experience, as well as life long lessons. The cumbersome size of the upright bass made it impossible to keep one on hand for part of the tour. So, at each stop on the tour, Tarus met a new bass. Ms. Carter responded, “It’s not the bass, dear, it’s the bassist.” At this instant, he recommitted himself to artistic mastery.
It is this early commitment to mastering his craft to which Tarus remains true. Known in the jazz world as a genius on bass, his first instrument was actually the piano. A consummate artist, Tarus isn’t afraid to explore any musical genre. His repertoire says it all. Two of hip hop’s shining southern stars, groups Outkast and Goodie Mob, can credit their critical acclaim, and platinum commercial success with Tarus’s contributions to their albums. He is consistently requested for performances and studio sessions with R&B and hip hop artists including Q-Tip, Lauryn Hill, Ghostface, Ice Cube and The Roots. Tarus was the bassist of choice for Lauryn Hill in 2002 to jumpstart her studio performances.
Tarus has also made his mark on film with trumpeter/composer Terence Blanchard on the scores for Sugar Hill, and for the Spike Lee film Malcolm X, as well as the Grammy nominated Malcolm X Jazz Suite. Tarus’s original score for the upcoming documentary film, King George: a King Runs for President, about George Weah an international soccer star, is gaining pre-screening momentum in Hollywood. As well as having featured music on RFK Goes to South Africa a documentary about Robert F. Kennedy fighting Apartied.
Playing as part of a new generation of jazz crusaders, with award winning artists such as Jason Moran, Nasheet Waits, Marc Cary and Roy Hargrove, Tarus is the world’s bestbassist. There’s no doubt that blowing up the music world would keep even the most talented musician busy.
Tarus performs and records most regularly with pianist Jason Moran He's also worked with vibraphonist Stefon Harris, as well as the New Directions band, which includes, Greg Osby and Mark Shim. In 2000, along with drummer Nasheet Waits, he appeared on two stellar piano trio albums: Marc Cary's Trillium and Jason Moran's Facing Left.
Tarus has released “Arising Saints”, The Art of Solo, and produced Brittany Tanner’s new record. Riding on a Grammy nomination, this decade looks promising to say the least.
Award-winning pianist, composer, and Kennedy Center Artistic Director for Jazz Jason Moran is known for challenging "the same old thing" in jazz and confront...
Live and direct Esperanza Spalding freestyles at Nubian Hueman boutique at the Anacostia Arts Center in Southeast, DC. Event bought on by YoYo Ma, Kennedy Ce...
The canopy rises from Bahia to encircle the planet, but but the roots of the Matrix go back decades to Kingston, Jamaica...
I'm Sparrow. I used the contract above, Bob Marley's first (co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21, and this is a copy I made of Clement Dodd's original) to retrieve unpaid royalties from CBS Records. I retrieved money for Aretha Franklin, Gilberto Gil, Led Zeppelin, Barbra Streisand, Mongo Santamaria and many others. But what if Bob hadn't got out of Kingston, or Aretha out of Chicago? They would have been just as great but there would have been no way for the wider world to know. The world brims with brilliant artists without reach, including writers, filmmakers, painters... So in the Matrix, everybody can potentially be experienced from everywhere in the world. And the famous? Very few people (Bob and Michael Jackson aside) are famous everywhere, plus the famous like to recommend (connect to) too. The pathways are open. As they say in Bahia, "Laroyê!"
Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix. — Susan Rogers (Susan was personal recording engineer for Prince; she recorded "Purple Rain", "Around the World in a Day", "Parade", and "Sign o' the Times" and she is now director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory)
Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched! — Julian Lloyd Webber (Julian is the most highly renowned cellist in the United Kingdom; he is brother of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats...)
This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :))) — Clarice Assad (Clarice is a pianist and composer, with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world)
The Matrix uncoils from the Recôncavo of Bahia, Brazil, final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history and from where some of the most physically and spiritually uplifting music ever made (samba and its precursor chula, per the Saturno Brothers below) evolved...
By the same mathematics positioning some 8 billion human beings within some 6 or so steps of each other, people in the Matrix tend to within close, accessible steps of everybody else inside the Matrix.
Brazil is not a European nation. It's not a North American nation. It's not an East Asian nation. It straddles — jungle and desert and dense urban centers — both the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn.
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 — the hand drum in the opening scene above — 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.
SPARROW/PARDAL ROBERTS
SUSAN ROGERS
JULIAN LLOYD WEBBER
CLARICE ASSAD
ALICIA SVIGALS
KAMASI WASHINGTON