Biography

Barrett Martin is an American drummer, composer, producer, artist, and writer who has performed around the world with various rock and jazz groups since the alternative music explosion of the 1990's. He currently plays with the Seattle rock band Big High, and some of his previous bands include Skin Yard, The Screaming Trees, Mad Season, and Tuatara. He has also been a session musician and producer on over 70 albums to date, including three solo albums and numerous film soundtracks. Over the years, Barrett has collaborated with several highly regarded musicians and poets including REM guitarist Peter Buck, Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready, Alice In Chains vocalist Layne Stayley, Delta Blues legend CeDell Davis, Iraqi master musician Rahim Alhaj, African master musician Foday Musa Suso, Sufi poet Coleman Barks, and Native American poet Joy Harjo.

 

As well as being recognized as a world class drummer with great diversity in rock, world, and jazz music, Barrett is also an essayist, as well as a painter and sculptor in the Zen arts tradition. His first book on music will be published in 2011, and his  Zen art has been shown in various galleries around the United States. The PBS short documentary on Barrett's drumming and Zen art titled, "Zenga and the Art of Percussion", won a 2009 Emmy in the New Media Arts category.

 

As a long time student of Anthropology, Music and Zen, Barrett has earned bachelors and masters degrees in anthropology, linguistics, and ethnomusicology, and he is also ordained in the Zen Soto tradition. He has traveled the world extensively, doing music projects in several different countries, including work with Garifuna drummers in Belize, Wolof drummers in Senegal, Ewe drummers in Ghana, Santeria drummers in Cuba, Candomble drummers in Brazil, the singing Shipibo shamans of the Peruvian Amazon, and other recording projects in Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and Jerusalem. In 2002 he founded his own record label, Fast Horse Music, to release many of these projects. Over the course of his 20+ year career, he has been interviewed by NPR's "All Things Considered", Rolling Stone, and many other magazines, newspapers, and websites.

 

Barrett's third and newest solo album, "Zenga" (August 2009, Fast Horse Recordings), is a collection of eleven original compositions recorded with a classic Jazz quintet. The album showcases Barrett's Zen-like compositional style, and features some of the top players from the Seattle and New Mexico Jazz scenes. As with previous solo albums, the rhythmic foundation is built upon Barrett's powerful and hypnotic drumming, where the American drum set merges with African, Cuban, and Brazilian drums. Melodic horn lines are delivered courtesy of Dave Carter's trumpet and Kanoa Kaluhiwa's tenor saxophone. Shimmering vibraphone lines underscore the elegant, impressionistic piano playing of John Rangel and Joe Doria, and upright bassist Luis Guerra appears again for his third album with Barrett. Chris Golden and Kevin Hudson contribute additional upright bass to four songs, and Grammy-nominated Iraqi master musician Rahim Alhaj provides enchanting Arabic oud on two tracks, giving those songs a "Jazz Arabesque" feel.

 

Barrett is currently putting the finishing touches on his fourth solo album, "Skyline", as well as his first book and accompanying CD , which will be released in 2011. His solo band and his rock band Big High continue to play select shows around the world.

 

DISCOGRAPHY * Indicates albums produced or co-produced

 

2010 RUSTY WILLOUGHBY - "CoBirds Unite" (Spark & Shine)

 

2010 BIG HIGH - "Big High" (Big High Music)*

 

2009 UNDER THE ROSE - "Under The Rose" (UR/30 Tigers/Sony)

 

2009 BARRETT MARTIN - "Zenga" (Fast Horse)*

 

2009 TUATARA & COLEMAN BARKS - "The Here And The Gone" (Fast Horse)*

 

2008 DAVE CARTER - "Commitment And Change" (Fast Horse)*

 

2007 TUATARA - "East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon" (Fast Horse)*

 

2006 SHIPIBO SHAMANS - "Woven Songs Of The Amazon" (Fast Horse)*

 

2006 BARRETT MARTIN - "Earthspeaker" (Fast Horse)*

 

2006 BOLA ABIMBOLA - "Ara Kenge" (Fast Horse)*

 

2005 JACK ENDINO - "Permanent Fatal Error" (Wondertaker)

 

2004 ROGER GREENAWAY - "Wayt" (New Zealand)

 

2004 BARRETT MARTIN - "The Painted Desert" (Fast Horse)*

 

2003 TUATARA - "The Loading Program" (Fast Horse)*

 

2003 NANDO REIS - "A Letra A" (Universal)

 

2003 NERO - "Confession #1" (Ireland)*

 

2002 CEDELL DAVIS - "When Lightning Struck The Pine" (Fast Horse)

 

2002 TUATARA - "Cinemathique" (Fast Horse)*

 

2001 NANDO REIS - "Infernal" (Warner Bros.)

 

2001 QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE - "Rated R" (Interscope)

 

2001 THE MINUS 5 - "Let The War Against Music Begin" (Mammoth)

 

2001 THERAPY? - "Shameless" (Ark 21)

 

2000 NANDO REIS - "Para Quando O Arco" (Warner Bros.)

 

2000 THE MINUS 5 - "In Rock" (Book Records)

 

2000 VICTORIA WILLIAMS - "Water To Drink" (Atlantic)

 

2000 MARK OLSON - "My Own Jo Ellen"

 

2000 THE TWILIGHT SINGERS - "As Played By The Twilight Singers" (Columbia)

 

1999 MARK LANEGAN - "I'll Take Care Of You" (Sub Pop)

 

1999 STONE TEMPLE PILOTS - "No. 4" (Atlantic)

 

1999 VARIOUS ARTISTS - "More Oar" (Birdman)

 

1998 REM - "Up" (Warner Bros.)

 

1998 TUATARA - "Trading With The Enemy" (Epic)*

 

1997 LUNA - "Pup Tent" (Elektra)

 

1997 THE MINUS 5 - "The Lonesome Death Of Buck McCoy" (Hollywood)

 

1997 MARK EITZEL - "West" (Warner Bros.)

 

1997 TUATARA - "Breaking The Ethers" (Epic)*

 

1997 PROTEIN - "Ever Since I was A Kid" (Hollywood)

 

1997 VARIOUS ARTISTS - "Flying Traps" (Hollywood)*

 

1996 MIKE JOHNSON - "Year Of Mondays" (Atlantic)

 

1996 SCREAMING TREES - "Dust" (Epic)

 

1995 VARIOUS ARTISTS - "Working Class Hero" (Hollywood)*

 

1995 SEAWEED - "Spanaway" (Hollywood)

 

1994 MAD SEASON - "Above" (Columbia)*

 

1994 MIKE JOHNSON - "Where Am I" (Up)

 

1993 SKIN YARD - "Inside The Eye" (SST/Cruz)

 

1992 SCREAMING TREES - "Sweet Oblivion" (Epic)

 

1991 SKIN YARD - "1000 Smiling Knuckles" (SST/Cruz)

 

1989 THIN MEN - "A Round Hear" (Ensign)

 

 

FILM SOUNDTRACKS

 

2006 WOVEN SONGS OF THE AMAZON - Documentary on the Shipibo musical system (Green Spider Films)

 

2006 AUSANGATE - Documentary on the Quechua weavers of Peru (Kontent Reel)

 

2003 THE FOG RAVENS - Documentary on New Mexico artists (Fog Raven Productions)

 

2000 LUSH - Feature film, debuted at 2000 Sundance Film Festival (Lion's Gate)

 

1999 BEST MEN - Feature film (MGM)

 

1998 DECEIVER - Feature film (MGM)