Jojo Mayer
Drum-kit revolutionary
Swiss music prize 2017
Jojo Mayer was born in Zurich in 1963. He is one of the world’s most celebrated drummers and, through his stylistic innovations, has breathed new life into the art of drumming. He was a sideman for Monty Alexander early in his career and since 1998 has been bringing jazz into the digital age. Together with his trio Nerve he blends live improvisation with programmed music, melding human creativity with digital technology. The hallmark of his high-precision tempo playing is “reverse engineering”: the transposition of computer-generated drum ’n’ bass rhythms into complex, constantly recombined playing techniques.
