The New Orleans Groove Masters were created in 2017 for a concert for a performance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. The concert was a great success and with this enthusiasm a band was born. This band features three master drummers performing on percussion, tambourine, vibraphones, and vocals accompanied by piano, bass, and saxophone.
This is an exciting percussion led ensemble, steeped in the traditional drumming and contemporary stylings of New Orleans music. The materials are a collection of original compositions and repertoire from the musical canon of the Crescent City.
Since coming of age in the nurturing environment of a very musical family and a distinguished bloodline of drummers, New Orleans native Herlin Riley emerged from that most creative era of all things rhythmic in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, to enliven the ensembles of such influential and demanding improvisers as pianist Ahmad Jamal and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis through his commanding yet elegant rhythmic presence. His authoritative style of melodic percussion is deeply imbued in the fertile creative soil of the Crescent City, encompassing as it does the entire length and breadth of America’s ongoing musical journey. He is widely considered one of the great New Orleans drummers in jazz history and has been given the moniker of Groove Master by Wynton Marsalis. As a band leader he has released four recordings, these include: Watch What You're Doing (Criss Cross, 2000); Cream of the Crescent (Criss Cross, 2005); New Direction (Mack Avenue, 2016); Perpetual Optimism (Mack Avenue, 2019). Of his playing style, Herlin states: “The essence of jazz music to me is that it is free, but it has form. So, our music is modern, and it’s progressive, but we’re trying to engage people as well. I do love to groove; that is a big part of who I am and is an expression of where I would like to take my music.”
NEA Jazz Master Jason Marsalis is the son of pianist and music educator Ellis Marsalis and his wife Dolores, and the youngest sibling of Wynton, Branford and Delfeayo. Together, the four brothers and their patriarch Ellis, comprise New Orleans venerable first family of jazz. He is a graduate of New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts High School, and Loyola University in New Orleans, and has been a featured musician with a bevy of acclaimed artists including Lionel Hampton, Joe Henderson, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Los Hombres Calientes, and Dr. Michael White. In 2013, Jason released a recording as a leader on vibes entitled In a World of Mallets. The album went to number 1 on the CMJ Radio Charts and also won an Offbeat Magazine award, a New Orleans music magazine, for best Contemporary Jazz Album. With each passing year Jason Marsalis continues to grow and develop as both a composer and performer. The maturity and command he has over his music is evident to those who have heard or seen him.
Weedie Braimah is widely regarded as the premier voice of the Djembe. Born in Ghana and raised in East St. Louis with deep roots in New Orleans, he was first introduced to West African culture and drumming and began performing at the age of 2 years old. Braimah continued his lifelong quest and professional career in the study of African folklore and cultural music of the African diaspora. A maverick performer of the highest caliber, Braimah is endowed with an innate ability to draw entire audiences into his groove. Utilizing his amazing speed and dexterity, breathtaking skill, and breadth of knowledge, he ushers listeners through a rhythmic journey of Africa and the Diaspora. As Offbeat Magazine noted, his “skill at adapting to an array of styles” has made him an original and in-demand talent.
Braimah descends from a long lineage of drummers/composers, which includes his mother, Ann Morris, a respected jazz drummer; his father, Oscar Sulley Braimah, a world-renowned composer and master drummer; and great-uncle, jazz drumming icon, Idris Muhammad. Braimah honed skills learned through study with greats including Mamady Keita, Abdoul Doumbia, and Sylvester SunShine Lee among others. He excelled musically and became one of the leading exponents of the West African diasporic drum and dance world in his teenage years. For more than 25 years, Braimah has been a performer, teacher and preserver of African culture who continues to traverse new musical pathways.
Currently, the Grammy-nominated Djembefola records and tours with Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Baaba Maal, Trombone Shorty, and Bokante, as well as others. Braimah also leads his own band, Weedie Braimah & The Hands of Time, through which he elevates percussion as the front-facing music of the diaspora focusing on instruments such as Ngoni, Djembe, Dunun set, Sangban Kit, Keyboards, N’goni Bass, and Electric Guitar to create a compelling Stretch Music sound to claim new musical territory. As the publication AfroPop succinctly stated, “Braimah’s trademark approach to using the djembe drum as the centerpiece of a contemporary ensemble,” which culminates into “enfolding African folkloric music within a modern fusion ensemble in which all the instruments mesh into a tight, thrilling singularity.”
Braimah exemplifies tradition, evolution, and soul as he brings his vision of building reverence for folkloric West African music to life. His mission? To have the evolution of this folkloric music recognized as relevant, respected, and as the essential root of Jazz, funk, fusion, global music, and hip hop. And for his style of Stretch Music to take its rightful place as one of the pillars of modern music rooted in the African percussion continuum he has spent his lifetime championing throughout the world.
