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CURATION
from this page:
by Matrix
Network Node
Name:
Ulysses Owens Jr.
City/Place:
New York City
Country:
United States
Life & Work
Bio:
Renowned as a performer, producer, and educator, Ulysses Owens Jr. transcends boundaries within the jazz realm and beyond, boasting an impressive repertoire of eight successful albums. His prowess shines through in his collaborations, notably contributing to GRAMMY Award-winning albums by Kurt Elling and The Christian McBride Big Band. On February 3rd, 2023, Owens clinched his 3rd GRAMMY Award for his remarkable work on an album featuring Steven Feiftke, Bijon Watson, and the Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra.
Owens' musical endeavors have garnered critical acclaim, with both Jazziz and Rolling Stone Magazines recognizing his album "Songs of Freedom" as a Top Ten Album in 2019. In 2021, his latest Big Band release, "Soul Conversations," claimed the top spot in May, as voted by JazzIz Magazine. The album's success transcended print, receiving widespread praise and securing spots on coveted playlists across Apple Music, Spotify, and Sirius XM. Currently, the Ulysses Owens Jr. Big Band is captivating audiences nationwide on their tour, further solidifying their status as the "Rising Star Big Band" of 2022, as declared by Downbeat Magazine.
His eighth and most recent album, "A New Beat," showcases his innovative "Generation Y" Band under the Cellar Jazz record label. Produced by Jeremy Pelt and recorded at the iconic Rudy Van Gelder Studios, the album has already made waves in 2024. Jazziz Magazine heralded "A New Beat" as one of the "10 Albums You Need to Know," while it continues to dominate streaming platforms like Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Tidal. Holding steady at the #1 spot on the Jazz Week Radio Charts for eight consecutive weeks, the album's popularity shows no signs of waning. Fresh off a successful stint in Tokyo, Japan, where they graced the Cotton Club stage in March, the band is poised to headline the prestigious Monterey Jazz Festival in the upcoming Fall season.
As an author, Ulysses has penned two notable books: "Jazz Brushes for the Modern Drummer: An Essential Guide to the Art of Keeping Time" and "The Musician's Career Guide: Turning Your Talent into Sustained Success," distributed by Simon and Schuster. His third literary offering, "Jazz Big Band for the Modern Drummer: The Essential Guide to the Large Ensemble," published by Hal Leonard Publications in January 2024, clinched the prestigious "Editor’s Pick" award from Musicians Inc Magazine at NAMM 2024 in Anaheim, California.
In the realm of product innovation, Ulysses has forged partnerships with industry leaders. Collaborating with Noble & Cooley Snare Drums, he recently unveiled the "U" Snare Drum, set to hit global markets on April 15th. Additionally, his collaboration with Dragonfly Percussion yielded the "U" Bass Drum beater, tailored for drumset players across various genres.
Ulysses is a prolific contributing writer for esteemed publications including WJCT Jacksonville Music Experience, Downbeat Magazine, Jazz Times Magazine, Percussive Arts Journal, Not So Modern Drummer blog, and an Op-Ed contributor to the Florida Times Union Newspaper.
As an educator, Ulysses has made significant contributions to The Juilliard School's jazz faculty, serving as Small Ensemble Director for over seven years and actively participating in the EDIB (Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging) committee. He has led panels, conducted workshops within the Alan D. Marks Entrepreneurship division, and holds the role of Artistic Director for "Don't Miss A Beat," a family arts non-profit in Jacksonville, Florida. Recently appointed as the Artistic Director for the Generation Y Summer Jazz Camp in Jacksonville, Florida, Ulysses is poised to make further strides in jazz education. Furthermore, he has been invited to join the Drumeo Online Educational Platform as their inaugural Jazz Drum Instructor, developing the curriculum for his interactive course, "30 Day Jazz Drummer," slated for launch in Fall 2024.
Ulysses is also known for his creation of several online jazz drum video courses, including "Jazz Drumming 101" (Mini-Course) for Drumeo and "Finding Your Beat," "The Art of Swing," and "Jazz Drumming 101" for Open Studio. He previously hosted the immensely popular weekly live YouTube series, "From The Drummer’s Perspective."
As a Cultural Entrepreneur, Ulysses has garnered recognition through various prestigious awards, including the "Difference Maker" Award from Beacon College, the "Robert Arleigh White Advocacy Award" from the Cultural Council of Northeast Florida, and multiple grants from the Community Foundation of Northeast Florida as an Individual Artist. His contributions to the arts have been further acknowledged with the 2023 Ann Baker McDonald Art Ventures award from the Community Foundation of Northeast Florida. Additionally, he was honored in 2022 as part of the "40 Under 40" list by the Jacksonville Business Journal and was selected for the 2023 Leadership Jacksonville class.
In April 2024, Ulysses will embark on a new endeavor in the realm of radio alongside his co-host, Keanna Faircloth, a celebrated anchor in Jazz Radio with previous shows on NPR and WBGO. Together, they've crafted "Jazz Beyond Tradition" for the Jacksonville Music Experience on WJCT Public Radio, scheduled to debut on April 21, 2024, on 89.9 FM. Their program promises to delve into Jazz Voices from the Past, Present, and Future through captivating interviews featuring local and national public personalities.
Despite his busy schedule, Ulysses remains highly sought-after for new projects and consulting opportunities, solidifying his status as one of the foremost thought-leaders of his generation. However, amidst his professional pursuits, he maintains a steadfast commitment to giving back and expressing gratitude for each new day to make a meaningful difference in the lives of others.
Contact Information
Management/Booking:
Management and Booking inquiries for Ulysses Owens Jr.:
Myles Weinstein [email protected]
PR inquiries for Ulysses Owens Jr.:
Lydia Liebman
https://lydialiebman.com/index.php/ask-for-a-quote
European booking inquiries for Ulysses Owens Jr.:
Nicola Adriani [email protected]
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Bewitching, bewitched Bahia, Brazil, sprawled across broad equatorial latitudes, stoked, steamed and sensual in the broadest sense of the word, limned in prosody and cadenced melody, is where the magic (mathematical and otherwise) and enchantment upon which this matrix is based, begins...
...a matrix conceived in conversation with now 75-year-old Raymundo Sodré — man of, and for, the trod-upon folk of the Brazilian backlands; his career destroyed during Brazil's dictatorship — during a discourse ranging from the quilombos and senzalas of Cachoeira and Santo Amaro to the wards of New Orleans to the South Side of Chicago...to the sidewalks of Harlem to the villages of Ireland to the Roma camps of France and Belgium...to the Vienna of Beethoven to the shtetls of Eastern Europe... wherein Sodré opined for the ages what is now inscribed on the wall of Plato's cave: "Where there's misery, there's music!"...
...a matrix wherein it's not which pill you take, it's what pathways you take, pathways originating in the sprawling cultural matrix of Terra Brasilis: Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian... Matrix Ground Zero being the Recôncavo, contouring the Bay of All Saints, Earth's absolute center of gravity for the disembarkation of enslaved human beings (and for the sublimity these people created), the bay presided over by Brazil's inffable Black Rome: Salvador da Bahia.
("Black Rome" is an appellation per Caetano Veloso, son of the Recôncavo, via Mãe Aninha of Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá.)
I built the Matrix in the place below (I'm below left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) 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. 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; designed by Walter Mariano of the Federal University of the Recôncavo of Bahia).
The Matrix is a small world network in which creators may recommend other creators and be recommended by other creators. And where, like stars coalescing into a galaxy, creators in the Matrix mathematically gravitate to proximity to all other creators in the Matrix, no matter how far apart in location, fame or society. This gravity is called "the small world phenomenon".
While the Matrix's utilization of small world gravity is unprecedented (position everybody in the creative universe within discoverable range of everybody else in the creative universe), small world networks are all around us, even inside us: our brains contain small world networks. Humanity itself is a small world network, wherein over 8 billion human beings average 6 or fewer steps between any two given people, anywhere. Those steps are seldom all transitable though. In the Matrix they are. In a small world great things are possible.
"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).