By Nils Jacobson

New York drummer Jim Black doesn’t let anyone tell him what to do. "I have a little trouble sometimes with authority," he admits. Part of his attitude problem comes from a relentless pursuit of the new and different, and part from a fundamental respect for human dignity. With a bright intellect, a quick sense of humor, and encyclopedic knowledge of the jazz idiom, Black has not let his propensity for iconoclasm get in the way of working with some of New York’s most exciting young musicians.

"I don’t like closed minds or conservative attitudes--people that aren’t accepting or looking towards the new and different," Black explains. During his tenure with the University of Washington Big Band, for example, Black frequently butted heads with the music director over whether the material should recycle the classics of yesteryear or explore new territory. With the wisdom of hindsight, Black offers a handy metaphor for the situation: "You know how they say, ‘Don’t marry somebody if you’re going to try to change them?’ It’s the same thing. Don’t join a big band if you’re going to try to change them, unless it’s that kind of vibe. That’s what I mean. I was kind of an imp."

Growing up in cloudy Seattle, Black listened to a lot of classic rock. "When I was really young, I got into playing with Blondie albums," he admits. From there it was on to Led Zeppelin, Rush, and the Police. Only after he joined a swing band did Black begin to really appreciate the sounds of jazz. At the tender age of 14, Black began earning cash money playing weddings with his 17-year old friends, including current bandmates Chris Speed, Andrew D'Angelo, and Brad Sheppik. Black’s early on-the-job training taught him much more than how to drive a swinging groove. "It showed me that there is a way: that if you want to be artistic, you can survive. It doesn’t mean you’re going to be making great music all the time. At least you can play drums and make a living."

While he was busy mining the works of Basie and Ellington, Black also received an accelerated education from his bandmates in the sounds of modern jazz. "Older kids in the band hipped me to Trane and Miles," Black says. "The same guys who were showing me Trane and Miles albums were also showing me Ornette Coleman and Blood Ulmer." To this day, Black’s open-minded approach to drumming and composition still owes massive debts to these pioneers of hard bop and free funk.

When it came time to pursue his higher education in music, Black traveled to Boston to attend Berklee college of music. "Boston was a good place to learn. You have all kinds of people showing up from all over the world to study, so it’s a great place. Despite all the dissing of Berklee, it’s hard to beat if you know what you want. It’s all there if you look for it."

Despite his enthusiasm for the educational process, he viewed this period of his life as but a means to an end. Black had a greater vision in mind. "I just went to school, hung out, played locally, got my gigs, made up bands, and moved on," Black explains. "I always wanted to move to New York. I was waiting till I was okay enough to actually do something and not get made fun of--not get eaten alive, you know." Since he moved to Brooklyn in 1992, he has participated in an incredibly broad spectrum of projects, ranging from old-school swinging standards to Balkan jazz to free-form avant garde.

To Black, New York is a stopping place in the life-long process of education. "I’m still enjoying my continuing education being here. It’s a big community, and it’s amazingly friendly. That’s why it’s nice to live it New York: it’s like going back to school, but it’s a very huge scene. It’s amazing how supportive all the musicians are, because we’re all here in the same boat. It’s a great leveler."

Since moving to New York, Black established himself in several groups as a capable in-and-out player. Bloodcount, a twin-saxophone quartet led by Tim Berne, spans the gap between swinging lyricism and expressionist freedom. It’s a perfect setting for Black, who thrives on connecting the dots in the huge universe of jazz. The fundamental link between all these points can be found through improvisation. Black explains, "In Tim Berne’s music, we’re playing the leader’s music, but he expects us to improvise. That’s the expectation: it’s to get up there and deal. And when he says ‘play by yourself,’ you have to do it." Within Berne’s quick-moving and sarcastic musical universe, Black glides fluidly from moments of introspective contemplation to explosions of funk fury. Of the handful of live Bloodcount records recently released on Berne’s Screwgun label, the high point is 1997’s 3-disc set Unwound.

During one of the early rehearsals for Bloodcount, Black hooked up with tenor player Ellery Eskelin. With the eventual inclusion of accordionist Andrea Parkins, Eskelin’s trio made earth-shaking recordings--from the overt sonic terrorism of 1995’s Jazz Trash to 1998’s more refined Kulak 29&30. At least two more records are due from this group in the near future. Eskelin’s great strength, like Berne’s, is composition. Like many of the new breed of post-Zorn improvisers, Eskelin prizes change. Black explains: "When you back up and listen to the music, it might be free one minute and funky the next. How it gets there is a lot of the process. And sometimes how it doesn’t get there is part of it too, like with deadpan drops. Ellery’s music does a lot of cutting."

Pausing in contemplation, Black waxes metaphysical on Eskelin’s musical vision: " It’s as random as life itself. It’s as random as when I’m concentrating and the phone rings. There’s absolutely no difference. Why should music be so far apart from daily existence?" Like many of New York’s avant jazz leaders, the young drummer prefers to view his music as an extension of life itself. "I thought Zorn had a point about that. He grew up on cartoons and stuff. Hey man, that’s what it is. If you really break it down, life is really trippy every minute--if you get into the subtleties of what’s going on, the multitudes of things happening! We get so numb to it."

Just call Jim Black the anti-anaesthetic. Along with his long-time collaborator and boyhood friend Chris Speed, Black has also formed two collective projects. Human Feel, a group with Speed, Andrew D'Angelo, and Kurt Rosenwinkel, delves into the nether reaches of melodic improvisation. On the other hand, Pachora, a group with Speed, Brad Shepik, and Skuli Sverisson, approaches the music of the Balkans with a decidedly Afro-American improvisational feel.

According to Black, Pachora was formed as an outgrowth of shared interest in the music of Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey. Balkan musicologist Matt Darriau helped launch the group by hooking Speed up with a series of original LP recordings of master village musicians. Black took an immediate personal interest: "That music is so close to what we do, yet so far. It’s amazing how many similarities it has with what we had already known as a improvisational language, but the melodies and the rhythms were a big eye opener."

"It was a study project. We heard the music and said, ‘Let’s learn how to play some of this!’ Then we started writing music in the style of it, trying to retain the harmonies, rhythms, and melodies, yet use our vocabularies to improvise. placing ourselves in that box--placing ourselves in that musical picture and trying to exist." Two records later, Pachora continues to explore the middle ground between Balkan folk music and American jazz, moving freely between original compositions by members of the group and traditional Bulgarian, Turkish, and Balkan songs.

"Pachora has completely influenced everything else I’ve done," Black explains. "I’ve learned so much from studying that music, and throwing myself into writing it and to making our own versions of these tunes. Creating new scenes, new things for us musically and ideawise. So it’s something I’m really happy to be working with also, along with all these other groups."

Although Black makes frequent use of the drums indigenous to Turkey and the Balkans, he is careful to assert his humility as a near-East drummer. "I will never be a master dumbek player. That wouldn’t be the point for me. My influences are broad enough. I just like what that stuff did to me, and how close I felt to it without having to work very hard, in comparison." After a single lesson with the great Macedonian darbouka player Seido Salifoski, Black had acquired all the formal training he cared to pursue. "One lesson was enough. I would not attempt to become a darbouka player, a dumbek player. I know I’m a bastard on that instrument, but I’m trying to find other ways to express myself, still being able to utilize that sound." Black’s drumming with Pachora, alongside his work in Dave Douglas’s Tiny Bell Trio, establish him as a fine student of Balkan rhythms, if not already a master.

Despite his self-professed distrust of authority, Black has proven himself a capable performer under the leadership of other musicians. His discography is notable for the absence of any records recorded as a leader. "I don’t know if I want to be the chief yet, even though I have a lot of my own ideas. Somehow I feel like I’m not being squelched in my exploration of the music I get to do with these other people in collectives and sideman-based situations... I would be very happy to tour with my own projects all year round--to be a leader and take that responsibility, hold up that end of the thing. I’ve just taken what’s come along, what’s come first, or simultaneously. It’s hard for me to think about quitting the bands I’m in. It’s hard to do that. My ego ain’t screaming, ‘Yeah man, you gotta be a leader! You gotta do it!’"

At this point, Black prefers to make his contribution as a sideman. In this role he has the freedom to explore his wide-ranging musical interests, which span the range from swing to electronic music. In the latter category, Black insists that electronic composers like Squarepusher and Richard D. James have something important to offer: "I’ve learned so much from the drum machine, because it’s other musicians programming them... somebody who doesn’t play the drumset, who has brilliant ideas and puts them into the computer. It can do things that you never thought were possible." Black has begun exploring the possibilities of sampling and sequencing, though not yet in performance.

"There’s nothing like the classic soul of a jazz improviser." Black ponders. "I’ve worked with that, but I like also the beauty of the absolute other side of that, where music is as disposable as computers and technology. There’s a beauty in that too. I’m definitely attracted somewhere in the middle, with some situations showing more colors than others." Who knows where the music of Jim Black will head in the future. Some hints can be found in new releases by Chris Speed, Ellery Eskelin, and the Tiny Bell Trio. Otherwise, stay tuned. This drummer isn’t quitting any time soon.