Franklin Kiermyer

Franklin Kiermyer (* 21st July 1956 in Montreal , Quebec ) is a Canadian jazz - drummer , composer and bandleader.

Franklin Kiermyer comes from a Jewish family and began playing drums when he was twelve. He came to jazz through his father's record collection; early influences were the big band and New Orleans jazz drummers Sid Catlett , Baby Dodds , Minor Hall and Gene Krupa . He began his professional career in clubs and at private parties. After studying Béla Bartók's music, Tibetan Buddhism became an important basis for his musical development. After graduating from college, he first played in rhythm and blues bands .

Influenced by the music of the late John Coltrane Quartet with Elvin Jones and late Coltrane albums such as Transition , Sun Ship and First Meditations , Kiermyer became known in the New York free jazz scene in the early 1990s through several albums. 1992 appeared on Konnex his first album Break Down the Walls , which was recorded with a larger horn section ; Peter Madsen was the pianist . The album contained echoes of Coltrane works such as Africa / Brass or A Love Supreme . In 1994 he released his album Solomon's Daughter for the Evidence label , on which the tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders played an important role with his intense playing, other players were the pianist John Esposito and the drummer Drew Gress . His second Evidence album Kairos (1995) also refers to Coltrane's music from around 1965/66; his teammates were the tenor / soprano Michael Stuart, John Esposito and the bassist Dom Richards; Sam Rivers was guest on the soprano of a title. In 1995 he performed with his quartet at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal .

In 1999 he recorded the unusual work "Auspicious Blazing Sun" (1999) with Umdze Lordo Samphel from the Tibetan monastery Rumtek.

Discographic notes

• Breakdown the Walls (1992, Konnex)
• In the House of My Fathers (1993, Konnex) with Dave Douglas , John Stubblefield , Anthony Cox
• Solomon's Daughter (1994, Evidence)
• Kairos (1995, Evidence)
• Auspicious Blazing Sun (1999, Sunship)
• Sanctification (1999, Sunship)
• Great Drum of the Secret Mirror (2002, Sunship)
• Scatter the Atoms That Remain: Exultation (Dot Time. 2019), with Davis Whitfield , Jovan Alexandre , Otto Gardner

Web links

• Official site
• MySpace site
• Portrait at Jazzdimensions (German)

swell

• Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, LP and Cassette . 2nd Edition. Penguin, London 1994, ISBN 0-14-017949-6 .