"Tomer Tzur’s limber syncopations combine with influences from the Sahara to the shtetl to the Delta" - Pamela Grossman, The Village Voice
Growing up in Israel was like any other teenage experience: going to friends in a middle of a school day to listen to records. We grew up listening to the Doors, Led Zeppelin, the Police, The Who, Bob Dylan, Neal Young, world music, Ravi Shankar. My first drum teacher Rudi J, who I'm in touch with to this day, introduced me to progressive and experimental rock bands: Yes, king Crimson, Can, Gong and the electronic cosmic music of Tangerine Dream. We used to sit for hours and listen to records, and argue who was the best drummer, guitarist or band, and whether the style of a particular band was psychedelic or blues, or what? When I was 13 my parents bought me for my bar-mitzvah a white Yamaha drum set, which is in my living room to this day. One of my first play along to a blasting tape cassette was Billie Jean.
In college I started listening to jazz, and my plan was to go to New York, the Mecca of jazz. I got accepted to Mannes College of music, and started my study for a music diploma in the fall semester of 1993. I rented a room at Kenwood Denard's (the renowned drummer) mother, Gloria, in east Harlem, and she was kind enough to include in my rent a drums practice room in Manna House, a music center that she managed. In Woody's loft I met Kristina Kanders who had a samba band 'The Sambanditos'. We went every Sunday to play Batucada in Central Park, from morning to evening. Five or six musicians would pile into one car, with our drums, Surdos, caixas… Once you settled in your seat, it was almost impossible to scratch your nose. The money we earned from the bucket was spent on food over the next week. I remember grocery store owners used to get very impatient as I would unfold a bag of quarters and one dollar bills. This lasted until the new mayor Giuliani decided to clean up the streets and parks from street musicians. It became pretty annoying to get a permit to play music and for less hours.
One day I got a phone call from a blues guitarist, who asked me if I would like to join his band 'the Sway Machinery'. From the baritone voice on the other side of the line I figured that I was speaking to an old blues street musician. I thought: wow, that’s cool! We set up a meeting in one of the practice rooms of our loft on the Lower East Side, where I was happily residing with three other drummers. When he stepped in the house I realized that he was only sixteen years old. That’s how I met my dear friend Jeremiah Lockwood. From that day, and for the next decade, we got together almost every week to play music. Jeremiah is an Amazing finger style blues Guitarist/singer. The first song he played for me that day was Olam Haba (the world to come) - a Nigun. It was Cantorial singing accompanied by an edgy and overdriven blues guitar. When he plays, one might think that Lightnin' Hopkins and Zavel Kwartin grew up in the same neighborhood. He blew me away: I never heard such a seamless fusion of blues and eastern European klezmer. The next session Sean Kupizs, a Flamenco Bass player who played with Jeremiah, joined us. That was the beginning of 'the Sway Machinery'.
I was honored to play and record with amazing musicians, such as: Cyro Baptista, Harel Shachal, Amos Hoffman, Avishai Cohen (Bass), Tal Hefter, the singer Dikla, Omer Avital, Pharaoh’s Daughter, East of the River Ensemble, WhiteFlag Project, Daniel Freedman, …among others.
Recieved a BA from 'The New School Jazz Program'