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 Bio Of Alvester
Garnett
"Joy
and spirited musical communication" are what characterize the
artistry of Alvester Garnett’s drumming.
Singers such as the living legend Abbey
Lincoln and the late great Betty Carter,
to instrumentalists Wynton Marsalis, James
Carter, Regina Carter, and Cyrus Chestnut
have all called on Mr. Garnett for the
energy and fire that he brings to the
bandstand.
"I believe that what we have as
musicians is a muse, a musical spirit that
resides within us as a gift from God. It
is our duty to cultivate that muse. This
allows the sounds from a higher power to
come down through us and provide healing,
entertainment and personal expression for
us and to those listening. We as musicians
are merely conduits for an art that
already exists. We just have to pave the
road, through practice and study, to let
the sounds come through in our own way.
Now, when I say ‘practice and study’,
I don’t mean only in a musical sense,
but also in a personal and spiritual
sense. Ultimately the music should still
reflect who we are as individuals. Working
with great spirits like Abbey Lincoln has
taught me this."
Drummer Alvester Garnett was born in
Richmond, Virginia at the hospital of The
Medical College of Virginia in 1970. Alvin
and Mabel Garnett adopted him at the age
of 6 months. Early on, his most memorable
musical experiences occurred while
listening to the elder members sing at Mt.
Tabor and Zion Grove Baptist Churches. His
father served as Chairman of the Deacon
Board at Mount Tabor. At Zion Grove
Baptist Church, his mother sings on the
church choir, his Grandfather was the
Pastor and two Uncles were choir directors
and pianists.
His first formal studies in the performing
arts came at the age of four with tap
dance lessons and from age 5 to 9 with the
study of piano. Throughout middle school
and into high school his most prominent
musical studies came through his
participation in various chamber choirs,
madrigals and a show choir. He figured out
the basic coordination of playing the
drums from watching a music video of the
pop band "The Police", in which
the drummer Stewart Copeland played a
simple beat. After this, his mother heeded
his requests to study percussion. At age
14, Mr. Garnett began the formal study of
percussion.
Mr. Garnett’s first exposure to the true
discipline of playing Jazz came at the age
of 16. While still a junior in High School
and participating in an All-County High
School Jazz Band, Ellis Marsalis,
introduced him to the names of Master Jazz
Drummers. Mr. Marsalis advised him to
obtain the recordings of Max Roach in
particular and many others including
"Papa" Jo Jones,
"Philly" Joe Jones, Elvin Jones,
Billy Higgins, James Black, and Ed
Blackwell.
"I don’t know where I would be
had I not met Ellis. After that first
rehearsal with Ellis I was literally in
tears. I think my band director at the
time thought he was too rough, but I think
that one encounter helped me to make up my
mind whether I was going to be serious
about music or not. It disillusioned my
perception of drumming and prepared me for
the time honored tradition of studying
those before me as a means of growth. Of
course I’m still doing that now."
During the following summer, Mr. Garnett
again studied with Mr. Marsalis. This
instance would be in a Summer Program for
gifted musicians at Virginia Commonwealth
University. This program entailed regular
listening sessions and ensemble studies
under the direction of Ellis Marsalis.
Immediately after this Mr. Garnett joined
the Malden Diplomats Drum and Bugle Corp
and went to Boston. It was with this
organization that he had his first tastes
of touring the US and Canada. This
involved furthering his studies of
rudimental drumming styles, sleeping on
gym floors, eating cold meals from a food
truck, and doing twenty pushups for
mistakes made during practice.
The summer after graduating High School he
attended Gunther Schuller’s music
training program at The Festival at
Sandpoint in Sandpoint, Idaho. Sis Tobler,
the philanthropist and gemologist,
sponsored his tuition, for Mr.
Schuller’s program. It was here that he
first met and studied with master drummer
Max Roach, leading trumpeter and educator,
Wynton Marsalis and Jazz historian Martin
Williams. Mr. Garnett would return to this
same program two years later to study with
the legendary drummer Victor Lewis.
After enrolling at Virginia Commonwealth
University, he studied, once more, with
Ellis Marsalis. This time it would be for
one year in a master class setting. Here
he also studied Arranging, Jazz History
and Big Band performance with jazz program
head Doug Richards. His private drum set
instructor was Scott Taylor. In 1992
during college under the advice of trumpet
master Clark Terry, he entered and won the
3rd place prize in the
Thelonious Monk International Jazz Drum
Competition. It was at this competition
that Betty Carter first heard Mr. Garnett.
This meeting would later serve him well.
Mr. Garnett earned his Bachelor of Arts in
Instrumental Performance/ Jazz Studies in
1993 from Virginia Commonwealth
University. Three months after graduation,
Mr. Garnett received a call coincidentally
on the same day from both Betty Carter and
Abbey Lincoln to come to New York for
auditions. After moving to New York, he
worked with Betty Carter’s trio in the
Fall of 1993 and Winter of 1994 while at
the same time becoming a member of Abbey
Lincoln’s quartet for over 2 years. He
was also a member of Cyrus Chestnut’s
trio for over two years from 1996 until
May of 1998. In November 1997 Mr. Garnett
rejoined Abbey Lincoln’s Quartet at a
legendary concert held at Columbia
University. He remained in that group up
until the Summer of 1998. Beginning in the
Spring of 1998 Mr. Garnett began touring
extensively with both Regina Carter and
James Carter.
Mr. Garnett has appeared on Great
Performances on PBS in a tribute to Kurt
Weill along with Betty Carter, a live
record with Teddy Edwards, the CD’s Earth
Stories with Cyrus Chestnut and Who
Used To Dance with Abbey Lincoln.
He also played on James Carter’s In
Carterian Fashion. Other recorded
performances include Stefon Harris’ A
Cloud of Red Dust on Blue Note
records and Abbey Lincoln’s latest
recording, Wholly Earth. He
has also performed at many notable Jazz
Festivals. Some of them are the JVC Jazz
Festivals of NY and Paris, The Newport
Jazz Festival, The North Sea Jazz
Festival, The Vienne Jazz Festival, The
Montreux Jazz Festival, The DuMaurier Jazz
Festival, The Nice Jazz Festival, The San
Francisco Jazz Festival, The Monterey Jazz
Festival, and The New Orleans Jazz and
Heritage Festival. The summer and fall of
1999 will see him touring extensively with
violin virtuoso Regina Carter.
Mr. Garnett has also worked in the bands
of many other great artists. The list
includes, Roy Hargrove’s Quintet, Benny
Golson, Al Grey, Stefon Harris, Wynton
Marsalis and Lincoln Center’s Jazz For
Young People Concerts, James Carter’s
Quartet and Quintet, Lou Donaldson’s
Quartet along with Dr. Lonnie Smith,
Jackie Terrason’s Trio, Dee Dee
Bridgewater, Rodney Jones, Kevin Mahogany,
Clark Terry, Eric Reed, Wycliffe Gordon,
Sherman Irby, Pharaoh Sanders, Jimmy
Witherspoon, Milt Hinton, Marcus Printup,
Greg Osby, John Hicks, Wes Anderson, Teddy
Edwards, Ellis Marsalis, Ron Affif, Jeff
Clayton, Ronald Westray, Fabio Morgera,
Werner "Vana" Gierig, Dr.
Michael White and the Richmond Symphony.
Currently Mr. Garnett resides in Brooklyn,
New York where he continues to grow
musically and performs throughout the
country and internationally. |