Since the 1990s, when he surfaced as a central participant in New York’s downtown music community, drummer and percussionist Jim Black has ranked among the most sought-after players across avant-garde jazz and experimental rock. Raised in Seattle, he shifted to Boston to study at Berklee and launched his recording and performing career inside Human Feel, whose roster also contained guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel and reed players Chris Speed and Andrew D’Angelo. In 1991 Black relocated from Boston to New York City, joining a wave of musicians who would later define the city’s avant-garde jazz milieu. He entered Tim Berne’s Bloodcount, Dave Douglas’ Tiny Bell Trio, the Ellery Eskelin Trio, and Pachora. Alongside those steady affiliations he worked with Ben Monder, Ned Rothenberg, Stephane Furic, Dave Binney, Cuong Vu, and numerous additional artists. Black refined a multitasking percussion style built on an unbroken current of sound that folded in objects ranging from bells and bowls to hand drums, electrifying live audiences and drawing a fresh cohort of listeners toward jazz and improvised music.
Entering the 2000s, Black startled some jazz followers by launching the rock-leaning AlasNoAxis quartet, which reunited him with longtime colleague Speed on tenor saxophone and clarinet, Skuli Sverrisson on bass, and Hilmar Jensson on guitar. Operating as bandleader, Black remained inventive, now probing post-rock and experimental terrain while still mining his avant-garde jazz foundation. Seemingly fusing Seattle and Icelandic rock currents with Brooklyn jazz sensibilities, the AlasNoAxis quartet merged abrasive textures with an approachable melodicism, all propelled by Black’s forceful and frequently asymmetrical rhythmic base. Across the following decade the quartet issued five forward-looking albums on the Winter & Winter label.
Black simultaneously sustained membership in several active ensembles, above all Chris Speed’s yeah NO, the Ellery Eskelin Trio, Hilmar Jensson’s Tyft, and the Satoko Fujii Four, plus a reconstituted Human Feel that released a new album in 2007 on Speed’s Skirl Records imprint. One of his more prominent assignments placed him behind the drum kit in Laurie Anderson’s touring band, which also included bassist Sverrisson. Continuing into the next decade, Black stayed busy, issuing a 2011 live document of his trio with Tim Berne and guitarist Nels Cline, issued under the name BB&C and titled The Veil. Two years later he delivered AlasNoAxis’ sixth album, Antiheroes, and performed on Uri Caine’s treatment of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. In 2015 he joined pianist Kris Davis’ Infrasound octet to record the album Save Your Breath.
