A Master Percussionist
Blending World-Renowned Style with Refreshing Individuality
Thurman Barker is a celebrated percussionist who built his career on innovation. In his work as a professional musician, composer, and college professor, he brings endless passion and decades of experience together to entertain, educate, and expand the horizons of his art. His career has spanned decades, and his talent encompasses and crosses over into many musical genres. From jazz and blues to contemporary, classical, and beyond, he aims for a unique experience that blurs traditionally rigid lines to the delight of his audiences. His percussion performances strike home with a force that can’t be pigeonholed by anything as limiting as a label.
Barker’s wealth of knowledge was built through countless incredible collaborations. He was the house drummer at the Schubert Theater in Chicago for ten years and has played behind the likes of Bette Midler, Marvin Gaye, Billy Eckstein, Vicky Carr, and blues legend Mighty Joe Young. He was a founding member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and is an ASCAP member. He has seven recordings under his own label, Uptee Productions, including his most recent recording entitled Impact and dedicated to Dr. Muhal Richard Abrams. He has recorded as a sideman on 50+ albums. In addition he recently finished a new composition for chamber orchestra entitled South Side Suite.
Keeping Music Alive for Future Generations
Taking his passion beyond the boundaries of the recording studio, Barker has also made his mark in education for more than 35 years. After embracing the legacy left behind by musicians before him, he understands the life-defining impact that every note carries forward in time. As he works with students, he aims to inspire the same enduring love of the craft that created his unique career — and to keep percussive beats like his own flowing well into the future.
Even after 50 years of creating new music, the famous drummer still finds surprising new ways to innovate his art. By teaching children about tradition and still keeping an open mind that falls in love with each new iteration of form, he hopes to preserve percussion’s rich history and continue to play a role in defining how it moves forward. You can learn more about his work by contacting Thurman Barker & Uptee Productions today.
Read What Others Have to Say
"What a treat! Not only are drummer Rasheed Bakr and bassist Lisle Ellis in pianist Cecil Taylor's group which opened Tuesday at Yoshi's - also on stage, front and center, is the remarkable, brilliant and empathetic percussionist and marimba player Thurman Barker. And although Taylor even as a soloist can be, and usually is, among the most inventive, fascinating and frustrating keyboardists of our time, his whole musical universe seems to expand with the addition of Barker, who has played with him sporadically for a number of years. The addition of the mellow-toned marimba, especially when Barker uses two mallets in each hand, creates another "keyboard" in the group - a sound, a timbre that can (and does, in Barker's hands) weave in and out of Taylor's astonishing piano lines. The mixing of rhythms, of counter-melodies, of harmonic patterns between Taylor and Barker is provocative, exciting and often surprising."
— The San Francisco Examiner