Biography
Harris Eisenstadt works as a drummer, percussionist, and composer across jazz, freely improvised, and African music settings. Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1975, he followed his father’s drumming path yet also pursued athletics in baseball and hockey. Although his parents ran a public relations firm, he was drawn to music and began playing a drum kit at age ten in the basement of Upper Canada College, from which he later graduated. His initial inspirations included Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham along with the jazz drummers Tony Williams, Elvin Jones, Tony Oxley, and John Stevens. As his studies advanced he received instruction from Toronto composer David Mott, then relocated to New York City for lessons with Barry Altschul while also associating with the Knitting Factory. He earned a B.A. cum laude in literature and music from Colby College in Maine in 1988 and, on scholarship, completed a Master of Fine Arts degree in African-American improvisational music at the California Institute of the Arts in 2001. During his time in Los Angeles he performed with KOLA, the Kreative Orchestra of Los Angeles, collaborated with Adam Rudolph, and joined Rudolph and Sam Rivers on the recording Vista. His extensive list of collaborators further includes Yusef Lateef, Vinny Golia, Elton Dean, James Newton, Tony Malaby, Bennie Maupin, Wayne Horvitz, Nels Cline, Marty Ehrlich, Urban Bushwomen, and numerous others. He resided in Gambia for several months and, from 1999 to 2003, appeared with traditional West African dance ensembles; in Northern California he also accompanied poet laureate Al Young with the Ralph Jones/Kenn Cox combo. In theater he served as percussionist for the one-man adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth that starred Tony Award winner Stephen Dillane and participated in the 2005 Los Angeles world premiere of Anne LeBaron’s opera Wet. Among his grants and commissions are a Meet the Composer Global Connections Grant awarded in 2006, American Composers Forum Subito Grants in 2004 and 2005, and a Durfee Foundation Grant in 2004. He acted as SOCAN composer-in-residence at the Sonic Courage Festival held in Halifax, Canada, during June 2006. While studying with Wadada Leo Smith at Cal Arts he played in groups featuring musicians from Bali, Gambia, Ghana, Morocco, Iran, and Senegal, and he contributed to the soundtracks of several films, among them Perfect Film, Work, The Wedding Crashers, The Hebrew Hammer, and Dahmer. After relocating first to Jersey City, New Jersey, and later to Brooklyn, New York, his professional profile expanded markedly. His recorded output encompasses the 2002 New Sonic release Fight or Flight, the 2004 Nine Winds album by the Ahisma Orchestra, and his own CIMP project Jalolu together with The Soul and Gone on the 482 label. The All Seeing Eye appeared on Poo-Bah in 2007, while Guewel, which offers creative adaptations of African pop material, and Canada Day both came out on Clean Feed in 2009.
Albums
