Nick Thabit

Nick Thabit has studied drums with Dennis Cristallo, Gary Sykes, Andrew Cyrille, and David Lee. From his late teens he performed and toured with rock bands, always however moving towards more instrumental, improvisatory music. He was a student at the University of New Orleans with a major in Jazz Drum Performance during the tenure of Ellis Marsalis and performed at the Sandbar club and the campus mainstage. He has since played in fusion band The Shrimps in New Orleans, Texas blues band The Thing (performing mostly in France), and gigged with the eclectic Pick-up AllStars in NYC, improvisor Doug Lesser, jazz bands the Avi Pavlovich Trio and the Axis Quartet, both in NYC.

Interdisciplinary situations are a particular interest: in 2003 he took part in Bicycle Music with Adam Fisher, Sabir Mateen, Grant Smith, Jane Wang, and Stefan Zenuik (which included the use of bicycle-based sculptures as musical instruments) at FiveMyles gallery in Brooklyn, NY. He also composed and performed with the Creatures of Habitat performance troupe, in their ongoing multimedia work "Widow's Walk"; performed as a duo with COH founder and tap dancer Stefanie Weber and also with her tap ensemble Tap City, and with her collaborative Rhythm and Flow Medicine Show, including such artists as Nana Simopoulos (sitar, digeridoo), Brian Bender (trombone), Aimee Gallinus (african percussion) in extended impovisation/explorations. For a year he ran a weekly free-improvisation jam session at The Artist's Gallery in Chelsea, New York, drawing musicians from the jazz, classical, experimental, and improv sectors.

Since 1999, Nick has been exploring the provinces of visual art as well as music; his latest series of drawings, displayed on his website nickthabit.com, is concerned with his year in Buenos Aires, Argentina. While there he jammed with some local jazz musicians and renewed his idea of the drums and also of composition.

Based in NY, he is focused on original music projects and seeks out fresh and challenging situations.

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