What must it be like to suddenly find yourself in the band line-up of two leading lights, whose music you listened to incessantly throughout your teenage years? That’s what happened to Brian Blade, the gifted drummer from Louisiana – as he was thrust together with Joni Mitchell and Wayne Shorter. He would constantly play cassettes of their music in the first small car he owned as a student. This opened his ears, mind and heart to previously unimagined musical freedoms. Then when he reached his mid-20s, he was suddenly a co-creator of their music. He has long been one of the most important and inspiring musicians in the jazz world and far beyond. The fact that this happened is miraculous in one sense, and somehow just meant to be at the same time.
In the »Elbphilharmonie Talk« shortly before his concert in the Recital Hall, we discuss his exceptional career, the Christian influence of his parents, the innate good in people and, of course, his magnificent Fellowship Band, which has been writing jazz history for decades.
Jazz Drums :Season 2024/25
Swing, funk, free jazz, hip hop, R’n’B – each and every one of them thrive on ingenious rhythms and just the right groove. For the »Jazz Drums« series six of the hottest jazz drummers are headed to the Elbphilharmonie.
Anyone observing the drummer Brian Blade at work – which by the way never feels like work to him and always just pure pleasure – is fortunate enough to experience the presence of a fully formed musician. His entire, unfathomable self flows directly into the music through the extremities involved in playing the drums. Every musical thought, every technical detail, the immensely variable dynamics of his playing and his ability to act and react within whatever band he happens to be playing with – they all mark pure presence, in the moment. Brian Blade has a presence behind his set that is exciting and calming all at the same time. You never know what ideas the next second will bring out in him. But you do always know it will be musically coherent. And will enrich what you hear and bring it alive in a way that only he can.
In the »Elbphilharmonie Talk«, he speaks about the Christian values instilled in him as a child and the limitations they brought. He talks too about how, as an adolescent, he was constantly exposed to the music of the saxophonist Wayne Shorter. He went on to play alongside him in his own quartet from the turn of the millennium until the end of Shorter’s playing career. Joni Mitchell is very much in the picture too, as he reflects on the decades they have spent together. And of course there is a lot of talk about the Fellowship Band, the sextet that Brian Blade has headed up since the 1990s with an almost unchanged line-up and which makes wonderfully relaxed, witty and soothing music.
Brian also speaks about his close collaboration with the legendary producer Daniel Lanois, as well as about writing songs, lyrics, singing and playing guitar. All of which are close to his heart too and inevitably get neglected due to the demanding schedule of this extremely sought-after drummer. Alongside everything that makes him unique as a musician, he also has an engaging personality. Brian Blade is someone who not only believes in the good in everyone. He sees it as well. He himself feels liberated from any sense of a mission in life, his creative output makes the world a better and more beautiful place.
