CURATION
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from this page:
by Augmented Matrix
Network Node
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Name:
Kiko Freitas
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City/Place:
Rio de Janeiro
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Country:
Brazil
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Hometown:
Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul
Life
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Bio:
Kiko Freitas was born in Porto Alegre, Brasil, into a family of musicians, poets and artists, on August 16th,1969. A professional drummer since 1987, he's performed with artists including Michel Legrand, Nico Assumpção, João Bosco, Milton Nascimento, Chico Buarque, Frank Gambale, Lee Ritenour, John Patitucci, John Beasley, Magnus Lindgren, Peter Asplund, Jeff Richman, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Jeff Andrews, Hubert Laws, John Leftwich, Wolf Kerschek, Lars Jansson, Nils Landgren, Lars Jansson, James Genus, Ivan Lins, Hamilton de Holanda, Leila Pinheiro, Armando Marçal, Luiz Eça, Francis Hime, Vladyslav Sendecki, NDR Big Band, Matosinhos Jazz Orchestra, Junge Norddeutsche Phillarmonie, Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra, Thomas Törnhaden, Peter Knudsen, and many others.
As an educator, Kiko has been carrying out many clinics in Brazil and around the world, participating as a teacher in events like: National Brazilian Drummers Festival, Curso Internacional de Verão-EMB, Masters of the Drums Workshop, Salão Internacional da Bateria, Encontro Latino Americano de Percussão (UFSM), Curitiba Memorial, Conservatório de MPB, Göteborg Music University, Malmö Music University and Stockholm Royal Achademy of Music (Sweden), Hochschule Für Music und Theater- Hamburg, Conservatorium Von Amsterdam, University from Rotherdam, California Jazz Conservatory (USA), Columbus University (OH-USA), University of Louisville (KY-USA).
Kiko Freitas has been playing with João Bosco since 1999, touring extensively in Brazil, USA and Europe, performing in many international jazz festivals, such as: Schleswig-Holstein-Musik-Festival, Salzau Jazz Festival, Montreaux Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, Malta Jazz Festival, Eldena Jazz Festival, Jazz Baltica, Internacionales Jazz Festival Bingen Swingt, Hamburg Jazz Open, Festival Internacional de Jazz de Granada, Ludwigshafen Enjoy Jazz, Jazz Classics Basel, Jazz Fest Sarajevo, Las Palmas Rrincón Jazz, Madrid Jazz Festival, Gijón Festival, All Blues Jazz Recitals, Istanbul Caz Jazz Festival, Kaunas Jazz Festival, Musiques Sur L’ile, Jazz Stars in Krakow, Skopje Jazz Festival, Toulouse Jazz Sur Son, Red Sea Jazz Festival.
Kiko was elected Best Drummer in World Music by the Modern Drummer Magazine, in 2019.
He endorses Vic Firth Drumsticks, Paiste Cymbals, Pearl Drums, Urban Boards Drum Shoes and Gavazzi Cases.
More
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Quotes, Notes & Etc.
“Kiko is an artist of the highest caliber. His knowledge, discipline and technique, second to none, but higher than the knowledge and technique is his magnificent and loving soul, intuition, creativity and musical benevolence – all of which are paramount in his artistry every time I hear this beautiful musician play.”
- Gary Husband
“I met Kiko Freitas in 1994 while on tour with the Frank Gambale band. I was playing keyboards with Frank, Alfonso Johnson on bass and Enzo Tedesco on drums. Kiko was playing on stage at the same venue as our band, and I was immediately stunned by this young maestro. We spoke and quickly became good friends and kept in touch. Kiko has the great passion of the rare artist who seeks the pinnacle of achievement in his or her chosen field. He called me to come visit the USA and meet Dave Weckl who I have played with and know pretty well. He wanted to take a lesson with Dave and see Los Angeles. Kiko stayed with me and my wife and two cats and it was a very special visit for all of us. To me, Kiko is quite a bit more than one of the greatest drummers/musicians on the planet. He is one of the greatest human beings I’ve ever had the honor of knowing for which I am deeply grateful.”
- David Goldblatt
“I met Kiko in Hamburg for the rehearsals with NDR Bigband and the program with Joao Bosco that we were to perform during our Brasil-Tour of 200?? ( Cant remeber what year). He came straight from the flight from Rio, sat down behind the drums and just kicked the shit out of everybody in the room from beat one. What a Drummer! We just looked at each othere and smiled from ear to ear. And I knew from that moment, thsi is the beginning of a great friendship, musical and personal. Upon arrival we hardly had time to get of the plane before Kiko offered to take us to the best Steaks and Cachasa, which we gladly accepted. There was many such nights to be had on that tour! But the main thing was the music. I played one set with my Funk music and then I took a seat in the trombone section for the second set with João. Just to be able to sit there, playing João´s music with himself playing gui tar and singing like a god. And then on top of that Kiko leading the band in directions the might never have known was possible to go. It was one of the best experiences of my life and much of it thanks to Kiko. Since then we have played many times and we enjoy each others company and playing, as well as a good steak and some cachasa. On my next Album, he even performs together with me and Joao, I cant wait til I can bring it out. Kiko, You’re the best. I am proud to have you as my friend! Love ,
- Nils Landgren”
“Kiko Freitas is a beautiful musician. Not just a great drummer that plays with fantastic, clean technique, energy, swing and a strong groove. He is a warm and beautiful generous person. For me that is very important and inspiring. Would be fantastic and an honour to have Kiko Freitas playing my music.”
- Lars Jansson
“Kiko Freitas is an amazing drummer. More than that: he is a true musician. With him the NDR Bigband could explore new shores. We first met Kiko in 2007 when we prepared a trip to Brazil with the great João Bosco, followed by a recording session for a CD that will be released in 2010. It wasn’t only that Kiko was well familiar with Joao’s music – his mere breathtaking technical skills and his infinite creative energy inspired the whole band. Not to mention his warmhearted personality – he’s a real team player! With passion and patience he shaped the rhythmic parts, and thank’s to him a German Big Band turned into a steaming Samba band – at least for a couple of moments…! In Kiko’s playing the tradition of the Jazz drumming lives on and blends with the Afro-Samba heritage. As the American composer and arranger Maria Schneider once said: “Kiko is the only drummer I know, who can play at the same with one hand Bebop, and Samba with the other”. It is this cultural bridge work that makes his playing so unique. Kiko Freitas is one of the great artists of our time.”
- Stefan Gerdes/NDR
“I´ve had the pleasure of touring together with Kiko Freitas, João Bosco and the NDR Big Band in Brasil in 2007. Since I was just playing the first half of the concert I got the chance to listen to Kiko´s outstanding Grooves every night. His way of playing is very unique, inspiring and tasty all the time. He´s the kind of drummer who always plays what´s right for the song and he knows exactly what to do. Kiko has a warm sound on the drums and his touch is simply amazing. Kiko Freitas is one of the most musical drummers I know. I´m his biggest fan!”
- Wolfgang Haffner
“Even though I am probably known for more moderate statements; in this case regarding Kiko Freitas I have to renew the superlative, that for me he is the best drummer in the world.
After first meeting him in a Brasilian context as the drummer of João Bosco, where he already changed my view on drumming drastically, transcending all I knew about this music far beyond the horizon, I then had the opportunity to invite him to play some ambitious music productions for the Olympic Games in German public TV and finally my own artistic projects with the NDR Bigband and Symphony Orchestra as special featured drums soloists. His participation is still one of the most rewarding and most beautiful magical experiences of my professional musical life. He has always been the heart and soul of every project in which I had the pleasure to be working with him. I will always be grateful getting to know this giant of drums and exeptional world class musician that brings every music to rise to unknown levels and changed my view on drumming for ever.”
- Prof. Wolf Kerschek
“Kiko, I think you’e the greatest Drummer on the Planet. You have perfect technique, Traditional and matched grips, ambidextrous too. You swing so hard, it’s a pleasure to see the clips you post. I think any Drummer would be really fortunate to study with you.I would come to a class if I could, you’re never too old to study from the Master. I mean everything I said. You are my hero! The best of wishes for you my friend from me and Michele.”
- Colin Bailey
“Kiko’s aplications of brazilian rhythms to drumset are only a matter of pure musicianship….yet if they are full of tecnical dificulties is only to the service of music…..so this is not another braziliam rhythms drum book, this is a book about brazilian music from the drum set made by one of it’s modern most advanced innovator.”
- Horacio El Negro Hernandez
“Pra ser inteiramente sincero, NUNCA vi um baterista melhor do que você. Você é, sem favor algum, o melhor batera do MUNDO!!!
Abração,
Aldir”
- Aldir Blanc
“Era final dos anos 90 quando o baixista Nico Assumpção me disse sobre uma gravação que faríamos dentro de alguns dias: eu conheço um baterista de Porto Alegre. Você precisa conhecê-lo. Vamos convidá-lo para essa gravação?
Lá se vão 19 anos desde o nosso primeiro encontro. Já viajamos juntos o mundo inteiro e ainda há muito que viajar… O que me impressiona em Kiko Freitas é a facilidade que ele tem de traduzir as situações rítmicas mais complexas que surgem na execução de um tema. Ele nos faz sentir mais inteligentes quando toca pois temos a sensação de estarmos compreendendo tudo pois nos revela detalhes de suas preciosas conquistas por ser o grande baterista que é . Generoso , para mim ele é uma espécie de reencarnação de Joe Morello, baterista do Dave Brubeck Quartet que atuava dessa mesma forma. Assim como Paul Desmond compôs Take Five “apenas como um pretexto para um solo de bateria de Morello”, venho experimentando alguns temas apenas como pretexto para solos de bateria de Kiko Freitas.
A boa nova é que ele está lançando esse livro didático sobre as adaptações dos nossos ritmos brasileiros. O livro traz explicações e partituras que vão enriquecer a todos e certamente , ao final, seremos mais inteligentes.”
- João Bosco
My Instruction
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Lessons/Workshops:
To all who have been asking, now I am opening some hours for Skype lessons. If you are interested, send an email to [email protected]
My best regards. Thank you!
Clips (more may be added)
Integration is a superpower...
This technological matrix originating in Bahia, Brazil closely integrates creators around the world with each other and the entire planet. It is able to do so because it is small-world (see Wolfram):
Bahia itself, final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place on earth throughout all of human history, refuge for Lusitanian Sephardim fleeing the Inquisition, Indigenous both apart and subsumed into a brilliant sociocultural matrix comprised of these three peoples and more, is small-world.
America is small-world. Mozambique is small-world. Central Asia is small-world. Ukraine is small world...
Human society, the billions of us in all the complexity of our relationships, is small-world. Neural structures for human memory are small-world. Neural structures in artificial intelligence are small-world...
In a small world great things are possible. In a small-world matrix they are universal.
Alicia Svigals
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"I'm truly thankful ... Sohlangana ngokuzayo :)"
—Nduduzo Makhathini (JOHANNESBURG): piano, Blue Note recording artist
"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...
Dear friends & colleagues,
Having arrived in Salvador 13 years earlier, I opened a record shop in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for Bahian musicians, many of them magisterial but unknown.
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 Bahians and other 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 (people who have passed are not removed), 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 "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.
* I renegotiated sync rates for Earl and for The Flamingos. Now when I hear "Speedo" in a movie soundtrack (Goodfellows and others), or "I Only Have Eyes for You" (a million films), I remind myself that the artists (and now their heirs) were/are getting double what they were getting before.
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Recent access to this matrix and Bahia are from these places (a single marker can denote multiple accesses).
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
Nduduzo Makhathini
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Matt Garrison
RÁDIO MATRIX