Drummer, composer and sound designer Andrew Munsey is among the emergence of musicians finding inspiration not in any single format or medium but in the new aggregation of musics and aesthetics. Though certainly originating in the language and forms of jazz, his own music departs from the traditional sound and arrives somewhere else, though still sonically familiar. His melodies are deceptively simple and his desire for provocative but intuitive harmony come from a place of intrigue. His drumming is sensitive and thoughtful and is the improvised counterpart to his compositions. You won’t hear some grab for the most-est, first-est, best-est—you’ll hear a true expression. And hopefully a common expression.
Andrew began his musical journey as a young child, fortunate enough to have discovered a love for rhythm (and the drums) under the encouragement of patient (and tolerant) parents. His musical world began in gospel, but his adolescence guided him along a path from punk to jazz with many stops along the way. He received his BFA in Jazz Studies from the California Institute of the Arts under the direction of the renown Joe LaBarbera but having also studied under Ghanaian Master Drummer Alfred Ladzekpo, Aaron Serfati, David Roitstein, Larry Koonse, Charlie Haden, Wadada Leo Smith, and Vinny Golia among others. Here he also embraced the larger family of improvised musics that don’t start or end at the American Songbook but take up sizable space in the territories of post-modern and new music. His inspirations as a drummer are drawn from such divergent streams as the early works of Elvin Jones to latest works of Paul Motian, not to mention the equally rich traditions of drumset altogether outside of improvised music. His compositional influences range from the oeuvres of Bartók to the Beatles. As for his own music, it is somewhere in the space between any or all of these influences, however certainly and distinctly modern his sound is.
As a sound designer and audio engineer, Andrew has worked both inside and outside his own medium of music with great success. In 2010, Andrew completed work on the feature length documentary Black February (Vipal Monga) as the sound designer and mix engineer, which centered on the work of composer and conductor Lawrence “Butch” Morris. He also mixed two albums for commercial release—When A Duck Loves A Jellyfish by the improvising collective Dirty Squid as well as The Oven Fresh, the self-titled debut album lead by composer and pianist Adam Bravo. Andrew continues to work as a sound mixer in the television industry.
Andrew currently co-leads his group with trumpeter Stephanie Richards and is a member of Bedstuy Ewe, a percussion ensemble performing traditional West African pieces from the Anlo-Ewe speaking people of Ghana, Togo and Benin. He now resides next to the big, big park in Brooklyn, NY.
