What do Jimmy Cliff, Jimmy Page, and Dionne Warwick all have in common? For one thing, they've all lived in Bahia. And so have, and do, untold numbers of other wonderful creators whose magisterial work has never reached beyond very limited surroundings. That's why all this began. If all creators can potentially have global reach, Bahian creators can too.
In this matrix it's not which pill you take, it's which pathways you take, pathways originating in the sprawling cultural matrix of Brazil: Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, European, Asian... Ground Zero is the Recôncavo, delineated by the Bay of All Saints, earthly center of gravity for the disembarkation of enslaved human beings — and the sublimity they created — presided over by the ineffable Black Rome of Brazil: Salvador da Bahia.
("Black Rome" is an appellation per Caetano Veloso, son of the Recôncavo, via Mãe Aninha of Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá.)
Bio:
Pallett Band is the alternative voice of Iran’s current generation; a mix of contemporary and classical Persian poetry; a dialog between today’s social issues and their cultural heritage. All of these elements combined, create the colorful world of Pallett. The band is comprised of three classically trained musicians who are not bound by the conventional principles of their musical background, utilizing modern and contemporary motifs in their music.
They are considered pioneers of the new wave of alternative music, because of their authentic sound, which fuses elements of classical, traditional, jazz, rock, gypsy and Iranian folk music. The longevity of the band and their continuous success, both domestically and abroad, is a testament to the hard work and dedication to their craft. Incorporating Iranian and eastern scales within the framework of western instruments, they started off as an unconventional band but slowly made their way to the heart of the mainstream audience.
They are one of the few artists in this genre, who have massive audiences in different cities all around the country. They have gone on to perform hundreds of shows with no signs of slowing down. Not only have they sold out most of their domestic shows in recent years, but also internationally they have played for huge audiences in Europe, the US, Brazil and as such.
Pallett consists of OMID NEMATI (vocal), MAHYAR TAHMASBI (cello) & KAVEH SALEHI (guitar), in which HESAM MOHAMMADIANPOUR, ROUZBEH ESFANDARMAZ & DARIUS AZAR were former members. Over the last 10 years, they have collaborated with ROBBERT VAN HULZEN, GISBERT ZU KNYPHAUSEN, TARAB BAND, ZAMBALLARANA, DARA DARAEE, BEHNAM ABOLQASEM, MEHDI SAKI, KHATEREH HAKIMI and currently SHAGHAYEGH SADEGHIAN, SARDAR SARMAST, AMIN TAHERI, KASRA SABOKTAKIN, DARIUSH BIJANI, MEHRDAD ALIZADEH, FARZAD MILANI, PEYMAN HATAMI, IDEEN SHAFAEE and MAKAN ASHGVARI who accompanied the band as session players.
"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).
MATRIX MUSICAL
I built the Matrix 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).