Jim Black

Drummer and percussionist Jim Dark has become perhaps one of the most in-demand drummers in avant-garde jazz and experimental rock and roll since emerging seeing that a key person in the brand new York downtown picture through the ’90s. After we were young in Seattle, he shifted to Boston to wait Berklee and started performing and documenting with Human Experience, which also included guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel and reedmen Chris Swiftness and Andrew D’Angelo. In 1991 Dark shifted from Boston to NEW YORK (as did numerous others who become prominent within the N.Con.C. avant jazz globe). He joined up with Tim Berne’s Bloodcount, Dave Douglas’ Tiny Bell Trio, the Ellery Eskelin Trio, and Pachora. Furthermore to his regular shows and recordings in these groupings, Black also used Ben Monder, Ned Rothenberg, Stephane Furic, Dave Binney, Cuong Vu, and many more. Black created a multi-tasking method of drumming using a continuous flow incorporating different items from bells to bowls at hand drums, wowing countless live viewers and helped to create a new era of listeners to jazz and improvised music. Because the 2000s started, Black surprised a few of his jazz followers using the establishment of his rock-inclined AlasNoAxis quartet, also offering longtime collaborator Rate on tenor sax and clarinet, Skuli Sverrisson on bass, and Hilmar Jensson on acoustic guitar. Black demonstrated as innovative as ever like a bandleader, this time around discovering post-rock/experimental directions while carrying on to attract from his history in avant jazz. Apparently balancing affects from Seattle and Icelandic rock and roll with Brooklyn jazz, the AlasNoAxis quartet combined harsh textures along with a disarming melodicism, while usually emphasizing Black’s assertive and frequently skewed rhythmic basis. Over the following 10 years, AlasNoAxis would discharge five innovative albums, all on the wintertime & Wintertime label. Meanwhile, Dark remained an integral member of a great many other functioning groupings, most prominently Chris Speed’s yeah NO, the Ellery Eskelin Trio, Hilmar Jensson’s Tyft, as well as the Satoko Fujii Four, not forgetting a reunited Individual Experience, who released a fresh record in 2007 on Speed’s Skirl Information label. Among Black’s higher-profile gigs was as drummer for Laurie Anderson’s touring music group (which also included bassist Sverrisson). Within the arriving decade, Dark would remain energetic, launching a live cooperation between himself, Tim Berne, and guitarist Nels Cline (beneath the name BB&C) in 2011 known as The Veil. 2 yrs later he shipped AlasNoAxis’ sixth record, Antiheroes, and performed on Uri Caine’s version of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. In 2015, he became a member of pianist Kris Davis’ Infrasound octet to record the record Save Your Breathing.