Jason McKenzie: Bio

Jason McKenzie

I grew up in Tallahassee, Fl where I took drum set lessons from Butch Trucks from the Allman Brothers Band when I was 15 and started playing in bars when I was 16. After high school, I studied symphonic percussion at Florida State and then transferred to the University of North Texas to focus on jazz.

After graduation, I moved from Denton, TX to the burgeoning music scene of Austin where I met my first tabla instructor, Aloke Dutta. After he moved to L.A. a year later, I began studying with various professional tabla players who came through town like Anindo Chatterjee, Gouri Shankar, Subhen Chatterjee, Samir Chaterjee, Subrata Bhattacharya, and Suhkvinder Singh. Later on, I attended the Ali Akbar College of Music and studied with Swapan Choudhuri.

I have traveled to India twice. The first time I studied tabla with Gouri Shankar in Kolkata and the second time I studied kanjira from Sathish Pathakota, Ganesh Kumar, and Subash Chandran in Bangalore and Chennai.

I play drum set for Texas songwriting legend, Billy Joe Shaver. I have also toured in Taiwan, Mexico, and Spain with the ground-breaking world fusion group Atash

I lived in Los Angeles from 2003-2005 where I performed with Alexi Murdoch, Pedestrian, Terra Naomi, and a fusion project with Frank Zappa veterans Mike Keneally and Bruce Fowler.

In 2004, I began touring and recording with singer/songwriter Matt Nathanson and in the following two years spent my time off the road between L.A., India, Austin, and San Francisco where I attended the Ali Akbar College of Music and performed on the tabla with Jef Stott and Cheb i Sabbah from the electronica world music label 'Six Degrees'. In February 2007, I moved back to Austin, Texas to focus on my band Atash and to further my education in audio engineering and sound synthesis to become a producer.

I recently performed on drum set in Oman with the Indian fusion group NAAD featuring jazz legends Fareed Haque and Kai Eckhardt and in the last few years I have been focusing on electronic music with Sunray Project.

Sunray Project

The Sunray Project is an eclectic blend of electronic music and live performance. I perform solo incorporating my live tabla and kanjira playing.

Occasionally the Sunray Project will also feature a guest artist selected from an array of world music talent living in Austin, TX. Regular guests include sitar maestro Indrajit Banerjee, Indian folk singer/multi-instrumentalist Oliver Rajamani, Persian singer/setar & santoor player Fared Shafinury (Tehranosaurus), Atash front man Mohammad Firoozi, Sufi master Ustad Ghulam Farid Nizami, and occasionally tabla maestro Subrata Bhattacharya (when he visits from Calcutta).

Sunray Project has performed at the Hookahdome at Burning Man with Fared Shafinury and at Art Outside with Oliver Rajamani. Look for a new album soon.

Atash

Aficionados of jazz, progressive rock, ethnic, classical and instrumental music will delight to the rich modalities, melodies and rhythms of this unique style of world music in which the singer's voice, chanting in Farsi, serves as the centerpiece, an instrument in and of itself.

The members include Roberto Riggio and John Moon on violins, Mohammad Firoozi on vocals, Dylan Jones on upright bass, Christian Fernandez on flamenco guitar, Indrajit Banerjee on sitar, Alseny Sylla on djembe, and Jason McKenzie on drum set, tabla, kanjira, and dumbek.

The texts sung have a basis in modern and traditional Sufi poetry, and carry a message of peace and global harmony. Although Atash is an all-acoustic ensemble, audiences with a taste for electronica are also devout fans of this world-class group.

Atash calls Austin, TX their home where they have been awarded "World Music Band of the Year" by the Austin Chronicle Reader's Poll four years in a row since 2008. They have toured the U.S. West Coast, Taiwan, Spain, and Mexico.

To view the website go here: http://www.atash.com