Marc Gratama

Biography
Influencers

Born in the Netherlands, Marc Gratama started playing drums at the age of 9. In 1982, he and his family moved to Iowa City, Iowa. During his time in Iowa he performed and recorded extensively as part of the Iowa City music scene. After having studied classical percussion at the University of Iowa, Marc transferred to Berklee College of Music to focus on his drumset playing and graduated with a Professional Music Diploma in the summer of 1997.

During his five years as a Boston resident Marc was very active on the East Coast music scene, performing in Boston, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Martha’s Vineyard and New York with steady projects, recordings and freelance work. In New York he performed with Cuba Gooding and the Main Ingredient. Cuba Gooding wrote and recorded the popular song “Everybody Plays the Fool” which was later covered by Aaron Neville of the Neville Brothers. Apart from his musical endeavors in Boston, Marc performed with various rock groups, funk groups, jazz small groups and Big Bands in the United States, Holland, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden and Hungary. Marc has performed with many well established musicians including Phil Wilson, Hal Crook, Steve La Spina, John Abercrombie, George Garzone, and Jerry Bergonzi. He also toured and recorded with Bergonzi for the Swedish X-Records label in the fall of ’94 and the Dutch A-Records label in the fall of ’95. Marc then went on to perform and record with the Boston fusion power trio Neptune Ensemble for the Hi-Test records label. In August of 1998, Marc moved back to Holland, where he was in high demand as a freelance drummer. He was a member of the Max Vax Trio, performing at the 1999 Iowa City Jazz Festival, and played with such European notables as Jazz tenor saxophonist Dick de Graaf, bassists Bobby Jacobs, Theo de Jong, Hein van der Geyn, Jean Louis Rassinfosse, as well as Hans “Big Boy” Dulfer and Dutch trumpet player Saskia Laroo. While in the Netherlands, Marc played drums on a solo album by Debbie Sledge, one of the famous 70’s “Sister Sledge” disco queens. He was also part of the Amalgam Jazz Quartet, and recorded a CD with them In May of 2001. More information on Amalgam and the CD can be found at www.Amalgam.nl

In September of 1999, and again in October of 2000, he played drums for the Tribal Love Musical “Hair”, touring throughout Italy for two months. From the fall of 2001 and into 2002, Marc played drums for an “open run” production of the Andrew Loyd Webber / Tim Rice musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, at Chicago’s Royal George Theater and at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts.