Eric Bolivar is a musician who has shared his deep groove with people all over the world many times over. This musical journey has seen him perform with a wildly diverse list of world reknowned artists. Just a sampling of people Eric has performed with include, Blue Note recording artists Bobby Hutcherson, Eddie Gale and Karl Denson as a member of Karl Denson's Tiny Universe. During his tenure with Denson, Eric had the opportunity to perform with several special guests including Karl's old boss Lenny Kravitz as he would join the band onstage in different cities and on multiple occasions.
Eric's New Orleans' connections have seen him work with many of the cities legends including, George Porter and Leo Nocentelli of The Meters, Multi-platinum and Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter Anders Osborne of which he currently holds the drum chair, Ivan Neville of the Neville Brothers and Brian Stoltz of the Neville Brothers, Funky Meters and Bob Dylan fame.
Eric is currently busy dividing his time between The Big Easy, The Big Apple and the San Francisco Bay Area. His current projects in New York include Radio Mundial www.radiomundialband.com who are busy promoting their upcoming Palm / Universal worldwide release in August which includes worldwide touring which starts June 17th in Europe. Included in the band's 6th trip to Europe in two years will be several televised performances to take place at several Fifa World Cup events. After the band returns from Europe, they will prepare to go to Asia highlighted by dates at Peter Gabriel's WOMAD festival in Singapore www.womad.org which will also be televised. This will be Radio Mundial's 3rd WOMAD appearance. The band received rave reviews during their previous two performances in England and Spain in front of thousands of screaming fans. The band is also minutes away from signing on with a huge national tour sponsored by Yahoo amongst other prospective corporate sponsors. The guys are hot off of their collaboration with Santana joining him onstage in Atlantic City and in New York City to perform En Fuego which was written by Radio Mundial and recorded on Santana's current release All That I Am.
Another New Orleans project Eric is involved in is Bonerama. In addition to the bands constant national touring, the 7 piece funk group is also preparing to tour Europe in August opening for jazz star Wynton Marsalis. After a few days off the band will head to South America for a string of dates including a festival date in Sao Paulo, Brazil which will be televised and then come back to the states for a large Fall tour.
And after coming back from South America and Europe for the second time in a month, Eric will barely have time to figure out which time zone he is in before having the great pleasure and honor of touring with the legendary Dirty Dozen Brass Band www.dirtydozenbrass.com filling in for the incredibly nasty Terence Higgins. This tour will take the group through the Rockies and into Canada.
As a clinician and arranger, Eric has worked with many award winning drum corps, high school marching bands, jazz, orchestral and winter percussion programs as well as teaching privately when time has permitted. He hopes to get back to teaching and consulting someday soon when his hectic schedule relaxes a little.
Bolivar is a Vic Firth endorsed artist and has been since 2001.
A BRIEF DISCOGRAPHY:
ERICA BALLINGER " LIFE "
ROSCKSTEADY POSSE " LIVE AT SLO BREW "
HIGH ST. " HIGH ST "
GLOBAL FUNK COUNCIL " KEEP ON PUSHIN' "
TONY BOLIVAR " GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD "
BOMB SQUAD " II "
MELVIN SPARKS " GROOVE ON UP "
RADIO MUNDIAL " MOMENTO ETERNO "
ANDERS OSBORNE " LIVE AT TIPITINAS "
BONERAMA " BRINGING IT HOME "
ANDERS OSBORNE " COMING DOWN " coming out Sep 25th on MC Records
