Following the recent news of Cindy Blackman appearing on the main stage at The UK Drum Show 2023, organisers Gold Media & Events are thrilled to welcome another drumming legend, Jojo Mayer to the main stage in association with Sonor.

Swiss born Jojo Mayer started playing drums at an early age and had his first public performance at 2 sitting in with his dad’s band.

At age 18 he received his first international exposure when touring with Monty Alexander and backing up Jazz legends such as Dizzy Gillespie and Nina Simone.

In the early 90’s he moved from Europe to NYC where he worked as a first call sideman for a wide range of artists and styles.

As a leader he created his seminal work with NERVE which established him as one of the great performers and innovators on the instrument. His concepts and techniques of reverse engineering electronic drumbeats in real time on a acoustic drum set introduced a new paradigm and opened the door for an entire generation of musicians to follow.

In 2014 Modern Drummer Magazines listed him as one of the 50 Greatest Drummers of All Time.

Jojo to perform latest solo project ME/MACHINE

ME/MACHINE is an adventure where human performance and the archaic power of drums interact with cutting edge generative music technology in real-time.

Jojo Mayer explores new possibilities, narratives and syntax of how humans could coexist with digital technology in a symbiotic way. An artistic response to face an increasingly unpredictable and fast approaching future, where reliance on familiar protocol and planning could become more difficult – and improvisation more important instead.

As with his band NERVE, electronic music has been a central influence in Jojo Mayer’s seminal work for the past decades. He spearheaded the movement of an entire generation of drummers to reverse engineer machine rhythms on acoustic drum set. ME/MACHINE constitutes the next chapter in this love affair.

“The initial impulse for ME/MACHINE came during an experimental recording session with Brian Eno shortly before the onset of the pandemic. I got struck by the ramifications generative, algorithmic technologies and AI will have on the future of music and thought: If only I had a year off, I would get down with this. And when all over sudden the world stood still and international touring came to a halt, it created an unexpected opportunity to fully immerse myself with these new tools to develop a music engine that acknowledges, follows, interprets and mutates input from my drumming. It’s my Corona baby.” – Jojo Mayer

ME/MACHINE – an improvisational duet between a machine imitating human behavior and a human imitating idiosyncrasies of a machine.
Creating a closed loop interplay between the innovations of man and machine, ME/MACHINE expands notions of cause, effect and simultaneity – ultimately evoking a form of analytic fourth–dimensional perception.

For companies wishing to exhibit at The UK Drum Show 2023, please contact organiser@theukdrumshow.com or call +44 (0) 7717 404 243.