Jeff Ballard

Drummer/percussionist Jeff Ballard was created in Southern California in 1963 and was raised in Santa Cruz, CA. He recalls laying in bed hearing the documented music his dad would perform on weekends, including Count number Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Oscar Peterson, Sergio Mendez, and Milton Nascimento. Ballard was originally affected by Joe Morello, Sonny Payne, Mel Lewis, Ed Thigpen, Elvin Jones, and Ed Blackwell. He graduated from senior high school in 1981 and enrolled at Cabrillo Community University in Santa Cruz, learning music theory with Sue Dark brown and Lyle Cruz, playing inside a big music group, and gigging with little groups that performed a number of music. The drummer also went to a Jamey Aebersold music group camp. Shifting to SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA in 1986, Ballard noticed Tony Williams, and it transformed just how he contacted the drums. In addition, it expanded his group of heroes to add Max Roach, Artwork Blakey, Steve Gadd, Eddie Marshall, and Enrique Pla. He was also dealing with trumpeter Ray Dark brown (spouse of Sue Dark brown), Smith Dobson, and Harvey Wainapel. At age group 25, Ballard started using Ray Charles during eight-month exercises for three consecutive years. From then on, he transferred to NEW YORK in 1990, where he communed using the modern neo-bop and intensifying players living there. He also collaborated with veterans like Pal Montgomery, Lou Donaldson, Eddie Harris, and Herman Foster. He became a member of Chick Corea in 1999 and provides continued to try out in his several projects. Ballard is normally a member from the Sam Yahel and Brad Mehldau trios, the Metheny-Mehldau Quartet, and Joshua Redman’s RUBBER BAND, and it is a co-leader of Take a flight, a collective trio with Tag Turner and Larry Grenadier. In NEW YORK, he in addition has turn into a prominent sideman and first-call drummer for and/or toured with Gary Burton, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Tag Turner, bassist Avishai Cohen, Ben Monder, Donny McCaslin, Frank Kimbrough, the Herbie Nichols Task, the Jazz Composers Collective, Dave Douglas, Ben Road, Maria Schneider, the entire Beliefs & Credit Big Music group, Guillermo Klein’s Los Guachos, Larry Grenadier, Ben Allison, Massimo Biolcati, Mike Stern, Michael Blake, Matthias Lupri, John Stetch, Steve Davis, Tim Ries’ Rolling Rocks Task, Steve Wilson, Adam Kolker, Joe Locke, Anthony Wilson, Horacio “Un Negro” Hernández, Claudia Acuña, Matt Penman, Ed Calle, Tim Garland, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Jason Lindner, Reid Anderson, Danilo Perez, Magali Souriau, and Hafez Modirzadeh.