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Sean Jefferson

Jazz history isn't exactly short on drummers who’ve pushed the artform to new heights. Some of them, as we all know, managed to do it on a nightly basis. For today’s jazz drummer, that means one thing: if you want to leave your mark, relying on chops and technique just isn’t going to do. You have to have a voice...

Though Sean Jefferson has certainly made it his life’s work to try and master the vast traditions set forth by drummers before him, he never set out to make music strictly for drummers. Or musicians. Or even jazz fans. Yes, he has studied rigorously. Yes, he has a knack for putting a fresh, cerebral spin on meter. Yes, he grooves hard and swings tight. But Jefferson has always, from day one, been in search of his own voice. And, though he is already pushing toward new horizons in jazz drumming, as a composer he points the way to a vision of jazz’s future as a language, and is never content to fall into the role of pedestrian beat-supplier. As far as Sean is concerned, drums must always fit into the greater whole of the music.

While heavily inspired

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Sean Jefferson - Releases "Dreamworks" on Bluesback Records

Sean Jefferson - Releases "Dreamworks" on Bluesback Records

Source: Michael Ricci

Visionary drummer/composer Sean Jefferson is proud to announce the September 20th release of Dreamworks, his sprawling new album on Wycliffe Gordon's Bluesback Records. You may already know Sean from his full-time gig as the hard-grooving drummer in Grammy- nominated organ trio Paradigm Shift, but Dreamworks, Jefferson's second album as a leader, announces his arrival in grand fashion. Consisting mostly of original compositions by Sean, Dreamworks captures him truly coming into his own as a composer. With Dreamworks, Jefferson was striving ...

"Jefferson's epic compositions have the sprawl of classical music but demand hard-driving groove and hairpin time changes that demand imagination from the players as opposed to sheer precision....As a result, the music sparkles in four dimensions, the way music does when four people truly play as a group." Saby Reyes-Kulkarni (City Newspaper)
Primary Instrument

Drums

Willing to teach

Beginner to advanced

Credentials/Background

Masters Degree in Music & Music Education Available by appointment $46/hour

Clinic/Workshop Information

Sean holds a masters degree in music and music education from Roberts Wesleyan College. He has studied both modern and classical percussion in addition to a lifetime spent mastering the infinite, ever-expanding vocabulary of jazz. A professional working musician and composer himself, Jefferson is active at the front lines of contemporary music and teaches from the perspective of an innovator who is up on today’s sounds

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Dreamworks

Bluesback Records
2010

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