About
Franklin Kiermyer
Drummer ~ Composer ~ Bandleader
“Music can open our awareness - open our hearts. That’s its purpose. Our goal is to rest in that openness and let go. The more we practice this, the more our natural faith develops. The music finds its strength in that. That’s what we want to share. Music changes people. The rhythms and melodies of all people share a feeling of urgent longing - our natural desire for freedom”
Spirit and Magic - what lies beyond mere intellect. The soul, the heart, the qualities that set us free ... this transformative power of music is what drummer, composer & bandleader Franklin Kiermyer is all about.
Born and raised in Montreal, Kiermyer first gained attention in 1994 - during his long beat in New York - with his album Solomon's Daughter featuring tenor saxophonist and former John Coltrane bandmate Pharoah Sanders. He is known mostly for the spiritual focus of his music and the expansive style, distinct sound and intense passionate energy of his drumming,
“Drummer Franklin Kiermyer is that rare jazzman - blessed with the ecstatic quality of his free-bop attack.” Rolling Stone Magazine “Kiermyer plays (and composes) with an almost evangelical belief in jazz as a form of pure inspiration.” Entertainment Weekly "Kiermyer supercharges spiritual modality…he plays with volcanic authority.” Down Beat Magazine
Mostly self-taught, it was drummers Baby Dodds, Sid Catlett, Minor Hall, and Gene Krupa that first grabbed his attention. His father's record collection favored New Orleans music and the swing bands of the 30's and 40's,
Later on, Bela Bartok, Stravinsky and other 20th-century composers also became great inspirations as did the music of root traditions like the Baka, Babenzele and Efe people of the African rainforest and the nadaswaram and rudra-veena music of India.
Mostly self-taught, it was drummers Baby Dodds, Sid Catlett, Minor Hall, and Gene Krupa that first grabbed his attention. His father's record collection favored New Orleans music and the swing bands of the 30's and 40's,
Later on, Bela Bartok, Stravinsky and other 20th-century composers also became great inspirations as did the music of root traditions like the Baka, Babenzele and Efe people of the African rainforest and the nadaswaram and rudra-veena music of India.
"All musicians come up playing from a stylistic tradition, but to go further, you need to find a way that will work for you as an individual. I’ve always learned a lot from my contemporaries and the great musicians that have come before, but I’ve been more interested in how the music felt, rather than its history. I looked for the music that moved me the most and tried to understand how it worked. My goal was always to feel both free and rooted – to get the music to feel both spontaneous and grounded at the same time. I knew that I’d have to find my own way to have that feeling when I play."
When he was fourteen, his older brother gave him a book about Tibetan Buddhism that led him to a life-long practice of meditation that would intensify over the years.
Franklin's first professional experience was playing standards and show tunes with his high-school music teacher at legion dances and supper clubs.
Growing up in the last part of the hippie days, in the environment of the revolution, Kiermyer was inspired by the incredible freedom music of the 60's and 70's.
The psychedelic sounds of Jimi Hendrix and the ritual music of many of the world’s indigenous cultures surrounded him, but it was his encounter with the ecstatic music of John Coltrane and his quartet of McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones and Jimmy Garrison that had an immediate, profound and lasting impact and brought all these influences together, focusing his intentions.
“At this point, the albums Transition, Sun Ship and First Meditations became the greatest inspirations for me. This felt like real spiritual music using honesty and faith to transcend concepts and get to the heart of things. That openness, honesty and faith became my goal.” fk
Leaving school at eighteen to go on the road with an r&b band, Kiermyer began to develop his own way of playing the drums. After a year-and-a-half, he moved back to Montreal to spend up to ten hours a day practising.
Playing jazz gigs around town was often less than satisfying. That forced him deeper into researching the psycho-spiritual physics of what moved him the most. By his mid-20s, he had a set of compositions and a way of playing the drums that needed wider experience to grow.
Moving to New York City, Kiermyer began a residency that lasted more than twenty years. During this time he had the great good fortune to perform and/or record with many wonderful artists, including Pharoah Sanders, Sam Rivers, Joe Lovano, Dewey Redman, Chris Gekker, John Esposito, John Abercrombie, Tisziji Muñoz, John Stubblefield, Vernon Reid, Dave Fiuzcynski, Debashish Battacharya, Reggie Workman, Juini Booth, Drew Gress, Umdze Lodro Samphel, Hassan Hakmoun, T.V. Gopalakrishnan, Daniel Ponce and Don Alias to name a few.
His first eight albums were recorded then: Break Down The Walls, In The House Of My Fathers, Solomon’s Daughter, Kairos, Auspicious Blazing Sun, Between Joy & Consequence, Sanctification and Great Drum of the Secret Mirror.
Along with his musical life, spiritual practice and meditation had always been a constant. Having reached a turning point in his evolution, Franklin recognized that to go further required an even greater devotion to the direct experience of freedom.
“This is when I really started to understand the deeper elements behind the music. I started to see that I’d have to address the personal underlying conditions that allow music like that to manifest. I realized I had to open my heart and mind more. I had been looking around me for what was holding the music back, but ultimately it was me."
He would spend most of the next ten years focused mainly on meditation and practice, much of this in remote solitary retreats in the Himalayas and other parts of Southeast Asia.
"I have become freer in my conception. I present very simple themes for us to play on as a kind of invocation. Over the years, I never gave up on my goals. I shifted my focus to more directly working through what was holding the music back. Things have changed for me. The part of my life where I was chasing was ending and the part where I was finding was beginning. "
Scatter The Atoms That Remain is Kiermyer's new album and the name of his present band. Scatter The Atoms' first release, Exultation, was co-produced by Kiermyer and legendary producer Michael Cuscuna, as was Kiermyer's albums Closer to the Sun and Further.
Cuscuna has gone on record praising Kiermyer's music: "Franklin Kiermyer conveys a spiritual feeling through his music that reaches each listener in different ways. It's the urgency you feel when you listen ... Franklin got beyond his influences and comes through with him as an original player - his feel, his rhythmic patterns ... He has his own way of playing the drums, his own way of organizing music, his own way of unfolding a performance."
Emancipation Suite, released in 2022 as a limited edition LP, was chosen as one of Down Beat Magazine's best albums of the year. "Scatter the Atoms That Remain calls for universal freedoms such as it enacts." Howard Mandel, Down Beat Magazine
Franklin KIermyer's forthcoming new album SCATTER THE ATOMS THAT REMAIN is co-produced with Jason Olaine and features performances from Davis Whitfield, Jeff Bhasker, Isaiah Collier, Jasbir Jassi, Keyon Harrold, Rakalam Bob Moses, Aaron Parks, Carlos Niño, Linda Sikhakhane, Nate Mercereau, Géraud Portal, Otto Gardner, Melanie Charles & Temitope Momorebe Gospel Singers.
Over the past few years, Kiermyer has expanded his circle of collaborators to include performances and/or recordings with Billy Harper, Gary Bartz, Azar Lawrence, Randy Brecker, Leo Genovese, Michael Troy, George Garzone, Isaiah Collier, Géraud Portal, Linda Sikhakhane, Lawrence Clark, Keyon Harold, Jeff Bhasker, Davis Whitfield, Emilio Modeste, Rakalam Bob Moses, Aaron Parks, Carlos Niño, Nate Mercereau, Gene Perla and Nat Reeves among others
Franklin Kiermyer plays Istanbul Agop cymbals & R-Stick drumsticks exclusively