Playing Great Independent & Self-Produced Music

Artist Biography

New World Beat mixes sounds and rhythms from Africa to the Americas to create new music for the new multi-cultural world in which we now live.

More than a group, New World Beat is a state of mind: a musical journey of world cultures, respecting and promoting awareness of those influences. This fresh new sound will entertain and move you, heart, mind, and soul.

New World Beat is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist, producer and composer Ricky Andrews. Andrews has dedicated his entire career to the exploration of Latin American and World music. An accomplished improviser in the jazz idiom, his main instrument is the vibraphone, or vibes, on which he has developed a unique and modern sound.

Foregoing the vibrato and two mallet stylings of earlier generations of players, Ricky uses the four mallet technique, following in the footsteps of his main influence, master vibraphonist Gary Burton.

Perhaps more important to both his sound and compositional style is Andrews' other great influence, guitarist (and Burton protege) Pat Metheny. For the most part, Andrews foregoes the straight ahead acoustic sound of the vibes, instead using an electro-acoustic vibraphone run through signal effects processing to achieve his unique sound.

Compositionally, Andrews' has paralleled Metheny in writing extended arrangements that explore a variety of modalities, time signatures and rhythmic feels. Like Metheny, Andrews studied jazz composition at the University of Miami with famed jazz composer and educator Ron Miller. Later associations with Brazilian guitarist Toninho Horta and bassist Nico Assumpcao, not to mention a love of the music of Brazilian legend Milton Nascimento, were also influential.

Ricky has performed extensively in Europe, North Africa and Brazil, as well as North America. As a keyboardist, vibraphonist and percussionist, he has performed Jazz, Brazilian, Salsa and African music in clubs, music festivals, television and radio. He has worked with world class musicians from all over the world, including fusion guitarist Ray Gomez, Paco de Lucia band members Jorge Pardo, Carlos Benevent, and Ruben Dantas, New York jazz drummer Tony Moreno, Brazilian singer-guitarist Cesar Santana, and jazz harmonica player Randy Singer.

THE MUSIC

"Happy Tours"

New World Beat's latest project, "Happy Tours" takes the listener on a musical journey. With influences rooted in world music, "Happy Tours" mixes jazz, electronica and lounge to create a fresh musical statement.

Newer compositions use sampled ethnic percussion loops with funky drum grooves along with poignant melodies and harmonies that are nostalgic and bittersweet. Several extended jazz fusion compositions are more acoustic with a heavy Brazilian influence.

Tracks

The Daylight

"This is my anti-war / promote world understanding song. It starts with an Arab-inspired chant, then is joined by West African chanting and clapping. Next, the drums comes in with a heavier groove. Finally the piano kicks in with a funky bossa nova-kinda progression in the piano and bass, leading to the vocal melody. After an extended vibes solo, the vocals come back, this time with singing and shouting children. The composition goes out with a reprise of the Arabic melody."


Couldn't Say

This track starts out with a repeated pattern on the vibes. The rhythm section comes in with a somewhat funky beat, filled in with some 'trip hop' ostinato synth patterns. The arrangment is punctuated with a 'world' background vocal riff. A melody in a minor key is stated with a strident synth patch and vibraphone double. An extended solo on vibes explores the minor-major relationship of the hamony.

After Carnival

Jazz funk with a heavy Brazilian influence, this track features a bittersweet melody, transitional section, then ends with a little samba. Brazilian Carnival is about letting go and partying like there is no tomorrow. Relationships begin and end in a span of a few days. This song is about the feeling that remains when the Bachanal has ended.

Song For Brasil

This acoustic track is a rhythmic ballad. The head is in four sections: an opening melody, nostalgic in nature, leads to a lighter transition in 3/4, followed by a darker, un settled section, then the nostalgic melody comes back. Sometimes, I have called this composition, "Song For Rosali", because that's who it was really for.

It's Not Far

Acoustic in style, this track is an earlier composition that is influenced by Metheny in terms of harmony and arrangement and by Brazilian music in terms of melody and rhythm. It begins with a loose feel under the statement of the melody, then moves into a Brazilian groove with a back beat. A double-time transition moves it into a middle section with a more dissonant, searching harmony behind a bass solo. Everything comes way down as the vibes solo begins, an introspective exploration that builds up to the coda, another Brazilian groove and chorus to take it out.

Sunday Morning

I used to hear lectures by Alan Watts on Sunday mornings as alternative religious programming when I was a kid, lecturing about Eastern religions. He really affected me. This track uses pieces of one of his lectures where he says the universe is created out of sound. I created a rhythmic synth background based on a repeated pattern on the vibes. Finally, I mixed in a clip of children in India playing and singing by a river."

Tell Him

This starts out with a trippy, electronic-type pattern, kinda spooky. Then the drums kick in with a funky, straight "four on the floor", followed by the piano with a latin riff. The rhythm is rounded out by a Steely Dan-inspired staccato guitar scratching. It goes out on a melodica solo that gets backed up with slices of a loop of African singing.