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Joe Syrian
Joe Syrian is a veteran jazz drummer, bandleader, arranger, and producer best known as the founder and leader of the Motor City Jazz Octet, a Detroit-rooted ensemble devoted to hard bop, soul-jazz, and large-ensemble jazz arranging. Drawing from both classic jazz repertoire and American popular song, Syrian has developed the Octet into a flexible “little big band” featuring musicians from Detroit, New York, and beyond.
The Motor City Jazz Octet’s recent recordings include 2024’s Secret Message and 2026’s A Blue Time. The group’s repertoire blends jazz standards with inventive treatments of material by artists including the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Antônio Carlos Jobim, Leon Russell, and Fleetwood Mac. Syrian has described the band’s approach as taking familiar songs and reshaping them through a modern jazz vocabulary while preserving strong melodies and groove.
Over the years, the Motor City Jazz Octet has featured a wide range of respected jazz artists, including vibraphonist Joe Locke, saxophonist Tim Ries, guitarist Paul Bollenback, trombonist Doug Beavers, vocalist Kenny Washington, pianist Adam Birnbaum, and percussionist Luisito Quintero. Syrian features arrangers who emphasize ensemble color, swinging rhythm sections, and accessible but sophisticated interpretations.
Critics have noted the group’s balance of hard bop tradition, soul-jazz warmth, and contemporary polish, with Syrian serving as both the musical anchor and organizational force behind the ensemble. Through the Motor City Jazz Octet, he has cultivated a sound rooted in straight-ahead jazz while remaining open to pop, Latin, funk, and crossover influences.
Syrian has written educational articles for Modern Drummer and Percussive Arts Society. His drum book, The Traveling Left Foot — concerned with playing two bass drums and hi-hat — was endorsed by Louis Bellson, Jim Chapin and Dom Fomularo.
Gear
Yamaha drums
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Joe Syrian Motor City Jazz Octet: A Blue Time
by Jack Bowers
Drummer Joe Syrian's spit-shined Motor City Jazz Octet keeps driving emphatically forward on its second recording, A Blue Time, using an impressive arsenal to scurry through a generally agreeable lineup of more or less familiar themes that have been given fresh coats of paint by seven astute and talented arrangers. Even with the various harmonic and rhythmic changes, many of which were inspired by Syrian, the music remains lucid and accessible, thanks to the clever charts and spirited ...
Continue ReadingJoe Syrian: Secret Message
by Richard J Salvucci
A title like Secret Message does make a listener wonder what it might be. Is it deeply subversive, like the Zimmerman Telegram, or apocalyptic, like Fatima? Of course, as someone is reputed to have said, 'Sometimes, a cigar is just a smoke.' So it is possible to over-interpret a title, which may, in the final analysis, simply be a title. Joe Syrian is a Detroit-based drummer, a city that can claim Brian Blade, J. C. Heard, ...
Continue ReadingJoe Syrian Motor City Jazz Octet: Secret Message
by Jack Bowers
No fuss, no frills here, simply forty-seven or so minutes of generally bright and engaging straight-ahead jazz, stylishly performed by drummer Joe Syrian's admirable Detroit-based octet. This is music the group plays often, blending standards from the Great American Songbook with more recent themes by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Leon Russell and others. The congenial session opens with a pair of well-traveled standards--"Bye Bye Blackbird," and “Star Eyes"--and closes with two more- -"Night and ...
Continue ReadingJoe Syrian's Motor City Jazz Octet: Sanctuary
by Jack Bowers
The Motor City Jazz Octet numbers in its ranks thirty or more of the Detroit metropolitan area's most accomplished musicians, eight of whom actually perform together at any given moment. Because of that, and some other quirks, the octet's debut album, Sanctuary, is in some respects a study in confusion. A press release accompanying the album, which was recorded in May 2013, names three guest artists--organist Jimmy Smith, guitarist George Benson, tenor saxophonist Rick Margitza--none of whom appears on the ...
Continue Reading“Joe Syrian’s Motor City Jazz Octet is a kick-ass little big band.” — Thomas Conrad, Stereophile
“Stellar, sophisticated, wildly adventurous.” — Jonathan Widran, JW Vibe
“One of the hottest jazz-fusion albums of the past year.” — Robert Silverstein, Root Music Report
“The intersection of jazz and pop music isn't new. Yet there's something fresh about Secret Message…” — The Toledo Blade
“The ensemble itself is the album’s central asset.” — Thierry De Clemensat, Paris Move
