“Everything you wanted to know about groove but were afraid to ask.”
This year marks thirty-five years of Jim Black traveling around the world teaching, sharing, and speaking about music with other musicians by way private lessons, single day to week-long workshops, and academic classroom courses in the university setting.
Jim’s clinics cover a full range of musical topics which are crucial to understand for the modern improvising artist. Along with exploring the elements of composition and improvisation, Jim will be explaining and demonstrating the many ways rhythm can be shaped and sculpted, while improving one’s time feel, swing, and groove.
All topics and ideas are up for discussion, investigation, and demonstration. Jim looks forward to the active participation of the students – please bring your questions and your curiosity, and your instrument is also welcome.

Drummer, composer, and educator Jim Black has become one of the most in-demand drummers in avant-garde jazz and experimental rock since emerging as a key member of the New York downtown scene during the '90s. He graduated from Berklee College of Music by 1989. During that time Black and his Seattle colleagues Chris Speed and Andrew D’Angelo formed the band Human Feel with guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel.
By 1991, Black and the other members of Human Feel had moved to Brooklyn, NY, where they found a home in the Downtown music scene then centered around the Knitting Factory and rapidly became among the city's busiest sidemen. Black's early years in New York saw him take featured roles in some of the most critically acclaimed bands of the time, like Tim Berne's Bloodcount, Ellery Eskelin's trio, Pachora, and Dave Douglas' Tiny Bell Trio. Thus began thirty years of near-constant touring and recording, with the above bands as well as artists like Uri Caine, Dave Liebman, Lee Konitz, Steve Coleman, Tomasz Stanko, Nels Cline, and Laurie Anderson.
In 2000, Black started the rock inspired quartet AlasNoAxis, recording six albums of his compositions for the German label Winter & Winter. In 2010 he formed the Jim Black Trio with pianist Elias Stemeseder and Thomas Morgan on bass, recording a total of four albums, their latest award-winning release Reckon is available on the Swiss label Intakt. He currently leads the band Jim Black & The Schrimps, which also records for Intakt and tours around Europe.