Global Rhythms

BRAZIL'S CRAZIEST, HAPPIEST BASS PLAYER — Most bass players live in the background, literally and figuratively. They add immensely to the beat and rhythm of a band, but they aren’t the stars, the entertainers, or the “wowee” soloists. Zerró Santos is all of those, and much more.

Zerró is a one-man high-wattage power plant who has more expressions in his face, more velocity in his fingers, more energy in his body, and more imagination in his compositions than any bass player (or any jazz musician) I’ve ever seen.

And he’s 65!

Brazil’s happiest, craziest bass player JAZZ NOS FUNDOS CLUB, Sao Paulo — Most bass players live in the background, literally and figuratively. They add immensely to the beat and rhythm of a band, but they aren’t the stars, the entertain…

SEARING, PROVOCATIVE, MUST-SEE MOVIE. If you can't be protesting or marching, you can be self-educating. You can watch it on Prime, Hulu, Dox, Tubi, Magnolia Selects, and YouTube Movies. Here's the Prime link: https://amzn.to/3hjSbkX

His first saxophone was a pencil...

A saxophonist whose first sax was a pencil! MR. HENRY’S. — If you’re willing to start learning the saxophone on a pencil, you’re one driven musical son of a bitch! But that’s exactly how Herb Scott, one of Washington D.C.’s favorite saxophone players and the founder of the weekly Capitol Hill Jazz Jam at Mr. Henry’s, got starte...

JAZZ PHOTO OF THE DAY #21 — ANDY’S JAZZ CLUB, Chicago: (Corey Wilkes on trumpet) — The Founder of the weekly Trumpet Summits at Andy’s, Marques Carroll, uses his trumpet to make music and to make change. Hundreds of young men in Chicago have found new lives through Marques and the music program he started in one of the toughest sections of the city. He also plays with the Count Basie Orchestra and many other groups, but teaching is his first love.

“Music has been a way for me to learn about myself,” he told me. “It taught me discipline, it taught me how to give back, it taught me how to deal with my feelings and my emotions and my thoughts. It’s taught me to be serious about matters that matter to me the most.”

Listen to his powerful music and hear his story here: https://globalrhythms.net/2018/11/20/the-trumpet-its-got-brilliance-darkness/

This is the 21st day of posting one of my favorite photos from filming and interviewing more than 50 musicians in 17 cities in 11 countries on five continents over the last four years....listen to the bands and the interviews on my blog at https://global rhythms.net