Drummer of the week: Jojo Mayer

    Born January 18. 1963 in Zurich, Switzerland. Son of a musician (bass player Vali Mayer), he spent his early childhood on the road traveling throughout Europe and the Far East. At the age of 2 he got his first drum set, and his first public performance took place in Hong Kong when he was only 3 years old. Growing up in the influence of a musical environment Jojo is basically self-taught.

    At the age of 18 he joined Monty Alexander's group and toured extensively all over Europe, playing all the major jazz -festivals including the North-Sea-Jazz Festival, Montreux, Nice, Antibes, Athens etc.This lead to back-up gigs with other jazz-greats such as Dizzy Gillespie and Nina Simone and introduced him to an international audience.

    More recently, Jojo has been venturing into New York's Techno / Multimedia / Avantgarde / club scene by promoting his own weekly party event called PROHIBITED BEATZ. This new platform for live "Drum n" Bass", "Nu-Skool Breaks", "Speed Garage" and the latest stylistical hybrids and mutations in DJ culture, has also provided the back drop for his first solo project called NERVE. Described as an "endeavor in reverse engineering the textures and rhythms of the current stream of computer generated music into a live performed, improvisational format", NERVE and PROHIBITED BEATZ have created a reputation in the New York scene that already goes way beyond "a serious buzz".

    He was featured as the cover story of the January 2008 issue of Modern Drummer magazine. His DVD, Secret Weapons for the Modern Drummer, is a bestseller worldwide.

© Bernhard Castiglioni - drummerworld.com

    Okay, enough of the bio. Let's see Jojo in action :) This is a clip from his DVD on which Jojo plays some short solos / grooves. This one is called "New York Grooves":

And here's another video of Jojo Mayer performing on Modern Drummer Festival 2005 with his band Nerve:

Hopefully now you see, why he is considered one of the greatest drummers alive.

Drummerworld's website about Jojo Mayer
Jojo Mayer's official website