Press
What the Critics Say About Andrew Drury, Drummer
“Drury is a masterful drummer...”
Stuart Broomer, NYC Jazz Record
“One of the truly visceral and imaginative drummers of our time.”
S. Victor Aaron, Something Else!
“There is no doubt that Andrew Drury is one of most innovative and bold drummers on the modern music scene.”
Hrayr Attarian, All About Jazz
“Drury is one of the most adventurous drummer/percussionists in creative music today, and a dedicated humanitarian. He has worked with Wadada Leo Smith, Brad Mehldau, Mario Pavone, Joe Fonda, Taylor Ho Bynum, Ken Filiano, Nate Wooley, and many other top avant-garde artists.”
Karl Ackerman, All About Jazz
“The drums must be the oldest musical instrument of human kind, and no one has ever confronted it with a more unbounded, yet skilled, creativity than has Drury.”
David Yearsley, Counterpunch
“...his playing nods at masters like former teacher Ed Blackwell, Steve McCall and Max Roach—clearly the work of a consummate improvising composer.”
Clifford Allen, NYC Jazz Record
“Andrew Drury is a phenomenon to watch perform as his playing often transforms the instrument itself.”
Paul Acquaro, Free Jazz Blog
“...outstanding jazz and experimental percussionist...”
Timeout NY
“Sometimes his drumming looms over the rest of the music like suspension bridge towers, but on...Clifford Brown’s ‘Daahoud,’ he swings with deliciously decadent laziness.”
Bill Meyer, Downbeat
“...a receptive, agile percussionist.”
Chris Kelsey, Jazz Times
Recordings
5 Stars (out of 5)
Mike Borella, Avant Music News, on “Content Provider”
“...one of 2015’s strongest releases” Top Ten CD of 2015
Andrey Henkin, NYC Jazz Record, on “Content Provider”
“Content Provider is an intensely gripping record.”
Hrayr Attarian, All About Jazz, on “Content Provider”
“...a dazzler... it’s an urgent, elemental journey through a mercurial landscape, with compelling pulses, zigzag melodies and squalls of John Zorn-like free jazz.”
Paul de Barros, Seattle Times, on “Content Provider”
“If this album doesn’t start getting a buzz soon, something’s wrong.”
S. Hanley, shanleyonmusicblog, on “Content Provider”
“Andrew Drury’s imagination knows no bounds.”
S. Victor Aaron, Something Else!, on “The Drum”
“...an ingenious work that highlights Drury's fertile imagination, audacious musicianship and unparalleled virtuosity.”
Hrayr Attarian, All About Jazz, on “The Drum”
“Nobody to my knowledge has done so thorough and creative a job unveiling the untraditional sound possibilities (of a single drum)(...) very primal and ultra- avant, noisy but resonantly acoustic. It is a rather amazing album...”
Grego Applegate Edwards, Gapplegate Music Review, on “The Drum”
“...Outstanding... A shoe-in contender for my top ten list... a strong innovative statement from a young, confident composer and drummer, a recording that is sure to knock the socks off, without self-conscious bombast.”
Steven A. Loewy, Cadence, on “Polish Theater Posters”
“extremely imaginative (...) expansive and intimate...something to place alongside...Burkhard Beins, Tatsuya Nakatani, and Le Quan Ninh.”
Jason Bivins, Signal to Noise, on “Renditions: Solos 2004-2007”
“A complete masterpiece.”
Eyal Hareuvni, All About Jazz, on TOTEM’s “Voices of Grain”
Live
“I caught this quartet last year live...and was blown away by them. (...) Andrew Drury has become one of the best and most in-demand drummers around. (...) what an amazing composer/bandleader (...) when this band plays again live, DO NOT MISS THEM!”
Bruce Gallanter, DMG Newsletter
“With a band as versatile and virtuosic as this, how can you not be a satisfied content provider?”
Paul Acquaro, Free Jazz Blog
“...a formidable leader as well, as these cds and his recent 50th birthday concert at Roulette have shown. (...) astounding (...) brilliant.”
Steve Dalachinsky, Brooklyn Rail
“…much of the brilliance of Friday night’s performance, it must be said, belongs to the incendiary playing of (...) Andrew Drury on drums...”
Stephen Brookes, The Washington Post
“But a restaurant can have the freshest ingredients and best recipes and still make bad meals; what is needed is a fully committed staff and a visionary chef. Chez Content Provider deserves to be Zagat rated for how they transform Drury’s pieces into lengthy excursions that never sag.”
Andrey Henkin, New York City Jazz Record
Composer
“...the epic title track successfully juggles melodic expressions of humor and grandeur, fascinating textural explorations and wooly free-jazz tangles...”
Bill Meyer, Downbeat
“remarkable band, delightful compositions and arrangements... gloriously eclectic (...) wicked sense of humor.”
Dave Wayne, All About Jazz
“...excellent...a sophisticated modern composer... He mixes the sense of rhythm and sensitivity that characterizes drummer-composers like Max Roach and Gerry Hemingway with voicing and arrangements that connect sophisticated EuroImprov sensibility with New World swing.”
Ken Waxman, Jazz Word
“As a composer, he reveals a fondness for oblique angles, extreme tonalities and unconventional structures, tempered by an awareness of tuneful song forms that provides an entryway into his idiosyncratic aesthetic.”
Troy Collins, Point of Departure
“Indeed his blend of chamber-music rigor, folkish riffs, and stop-start pacing is reminiscent of bands that populated the original Knitting Factory in the late 80s ...he crafts memorable melodies from his rhythmic figurations...”
Steve Smith, Time Out New York
“Drury with his pen and sticks is busy erasing the lines between jazz and contemporary chamber music. ...He employs the framework of an improvising jazz ensemble for music informed by classic compositional techniques. ...The very way Drury orchestrates his front line...testifies to his deftness in bringing together disparate elements.”
David Dupont, All Music Guide
“As a former student of Edward Blackwell you’d expect him to swing hard and fast, and you won’t be disappointed; even more impressive are his composition chops (...) John Zorn must be kicking himself he didn’t snaffle this one up for Tzadik.”
Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic
“Drury’s music has a sense of the theater, and though very avant, has a certain accessibility mainly because of the humor, the changes in texture and odd ways of drawing you into the rhythmic landscape. He seems never to be bound by the trappings of musical standards and yet has a solid respect for the bop, post-bop, mainstream jazz idioms, and for a host of other musical styles as well. I’m not sure there is a more interesting and diverse renaissance-styled individual whose sensibility has as much to do with the street as it does the classic confines of jazz.”
Chris Lunn, Victory Review