Thurman Barker
Thurman Barker ( born January 8, 1948 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American jazz drummer, percussionist and composer.
Life and work
Barker began his career as a musician, as he gave the blues singer Mighty Joe Young accompanied with sixteen years. He studied at Empire State College, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree. Later he studied at the American Conservatory of Music with Harold Jones and at Roosevelt University in Chicago with Edward Parimba drums and percussion. He first played as a sideman for Billy Eckstine, Bette Midler and Marvin Gaye. For a period of 10 years, Barker was the house drummer at the Schubert Theatre in Chicago, where he accompanied by traveling theater tour groups in performances like Hair. In 1968, he starred in Joseph Jarman's first formation ( before the establishment of the Art Ensemble ). Finally, he joined the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians ( AACM ), which he feels connected to this day. He worked in the 1970s and 1980s, with musicians in the environment of the AACM as Muhal Richard Abrams, Pheeroan akLaff, Leroy Jenkins, Roscoe Mitchell, but also with Billy Bang, Lawrence Butch Morris, Henry Threadgill, and especially with Cecil Taylor, he with the several times was on tour in Europe. In the late 1970s he was a member of the formations of Anthony Braxton and Sam Rivers, mid-1980s, he played in a trio of Jarman and Amina Claudine Myers. Under his own record label " Uptee " Barker also released four albums of his own. Currently ( 2012) he founded the ensemble Thurman Barker's Time Factor, consisting of James Emery, Rob Schwimmer ( keyboards) and Jerome Harris ( bass).
Besides his work as a drummer Barker is operated in the 1990s increasingly as a composer. 1994 his work " Dialogue" at Merkin Concert Hall in New York was performed. After the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra performed two compositions by him, in May 1999 " Expansions", in October 2000, " Time Factor ". Since 1993 he also teaches at Bard College in Annadale -on-Hudson, New York, where he is Associated Professor. In 1999 he was a visiting professor at the University of Saint Petersburg.
Thurman Barker belongs Pheeroan akLaff, Phillip Wilson, Steve McCall and Don Moye to the generation of jazz drummers, who - despite their close relationship to the outdoors Jazz - have returned increasingly to play a metronome or a strong beat, the is once earned freedom, however, not given up, but in the more traditional game implies and resonates as expanding experience.
Discography
As a leader
- The Way I Hear It ( Uptee, 1999)
- Voyage ( Uptee, 1999)
- Time factor ( Uptee, 2001)
- Strike Force ( Uptee, 2004)
As a sideman
- Art Ensemble Of Chicago: Art Ensemble 1967-68 ( Nessa )
- Muhal Richard Abrams: Levels And Degrees Of Light ( Delmark, 1967)
- Pheeroan akLaff: Fits Like A Glove ( Gramavision, 1983)
- Billy Bang: The Fire From Within ( Soul Note, circa 1984 )
- Anthony Braxton: Performance ( Quartet ) 1979 ( hatART )
- Joseph Jarman: As If It Were The Seasons ( Delmark, 1968)
- Leroy Jenkins: Themes & Improvisations On The Blues ( CRI, 1992)
- John Lindberg: Discussion 5 ( Black Saint, 1981)
- Roscoe Mitchell Roscoe Mitchell ( Chief, 1978)
- Lawrence Butch Morris: Testament - A Conduction Collection ( New World, 1988-95 )
- Amina Claudine Myers: The Circle Of Time ( Black Saint, 1983)
- Sam Rivers: Waves ( Tomato, 1978), Contrasts (ECM, 1979)
- Cecil Taylor: Live In Bologna ( Leo, 1978), Live In Vienna ( Leo, 1978), Olu Iwa ( Soul Note, 1986)