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Jimmy Macbride

Jazz Drummer

About Me

Drummer and composer Jimmy Macbride is a third year student in the jazz program at the Juilliard School, where he studies with Billy Drummond. He has received such prestigious honors as a residency with the Steans Institute for Young Artists at the Ravinia Festival in 2009 and was also chosen to participate in the 2009 Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Program at the Kennedy Center in DC. He has twice been selected to be a member of the Monterey Jazz Festival Next Generation Jazz Orchestra. Last year the group did a tour of the Midwest and performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival with Wynton Marsalis. Fro the summers of 2012 and 2013 Jimmy will has been chosen to participate in the Jazz Mentors Program at the Stanford Jazz Workshop. In 2010, Jimmy was a finalist in the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, YoungArts Week, where he attended a weeklong residency in Miami and performed in their Gold & Silver Awards Celebration at the Baryshnikov Center in NYC. He has attended the Vail Jazz Workshop and the Brubeck Summer Jazz Colony, and has been awarded several full scholarships to Berklee’s 5-Week Performance Program. Other honors include several ASCAP Foundation Young Jazz Composers Awards for his original compositions, most recently in 2012, as well as several ASCAP Plus Awards. Downbeat Magazine has honored Jimmy five times with its Student Music Awards as an oustanding soloist as well, in 2010, for his original composition “Galactic Journey”. In addition, the Percussive Arts Society awarded him the Larrie Londin Memorial Scholarship as well as the PASIC Scholarship. Some of Jimmy’s recent performances include performing at Alice Tully Hall with the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra and Jane Monheit, and the Killingworth Center for the Arts in CT, performing with the legendary Bob Dorough, where he opened for Kevin Hays. Upcoming performances include The Blue Note as well as performances at the 55 Bar, Smalls Jazz Club and the Cayman Islands Arts Festival. Transformation Suite, first performed during Jimmy's 2011 tour in Brazil, will be released on CD in the spring of 2012. In addition to his performing credits, Jimmy is very involved in giving back to the community. Since third grade, Jimmy has been performing with a group called Jimmy and the Hasbeens. This group performs throughout the greater Hartford area at senior citizen homes, and the like. All proceeds earned from these performances have been donated to Jimmy’s former elementary school’s instrumental music fund. To date, the group has earned over $5,000 for the Whiting Lane School, which was able to purchase a drum set, along with other needed instruments and equipment. The group, now know as Duo Con Alma, continues to perform and raise money for the Whiting Lane School in West Hartford, with Jimmy’s sister Alma continuing this important endeavor. In addition, Jimmy served as a volunteer on the student task force of West Hartford’s Gifts of Music, a foundation that raises money for West Hartford, CT youngsters who are unable to afford musical instruments or private lessons. Jimmy’s commitment to education continues to grow. He has worked as an educator/mentor for several of Julliard’s summer jazz programs and was chosen to be a teacher/clinician aboard the Queen Mary 2 in the summer of 2011. He also was a performer/clinician in Salvador, Brazil that summer. For his junior year, Jimmy was selected as a Gluck Community Outreach participant. This program will support Jimmy in visiting and performing for senior centers throughout the NY metropolitan area.