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Jeff 'Tain' Watts

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Jeff 'Tain' Watts · Jeff Watts, known worldwide as Tain, is an American jazz drummer and composer, born in 1960 in Pittsburgh. He studied classical percussion technique at Duquesne University and jazz at the Berklee College of Music, where he met Branford Marsalis. He got the nickname Tain from the pianist Kenny Kirkland, when they drove past a Chieftain petrol station on tour in Florida.

Music and breakthrough

Watts played in Wynton Marsalis's quintet until 1988 and made Grammy-winning albums with it. A year later he joined Branford Marsalis's quartet, with which he again recorded Grammy-winning records. He also played with Michael Brecker, McCoy Tyner, Alice Coltrane, Kenny Garrett, Ravi Coltrane, Betty Carter and many others, and contributed to records by the Mingus Big Band and The Metropolitan Opera. He was also drummer of The Tonight Show for three years and played the jazz musician Rhythm Jones in Spike Lee's Mo' Better Blues.

Influence

As a bandleader he writes most of his music himself. His records have appeared since 2007 on his own label Dark Key Music, including Watts, The Impaler and Wattify. In 2017 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for composition. He is regarded as one of the most influential drummers of the generation after the 1980s.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to a recording by the Branford Marsalis Quartet with Watts and notice his drumming: he responds constantly to the soloist and lets the rhythms shift against one another.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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Categories: Artists