Drums | b. 1938

Daniel Humair was born in Geneva on May 23, 1938 and arrived in Paris in the late 1950s, where he quickly established himself as the drummer that American musicians visiting Europe wanted behind them: Lucky Thompson, Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Dexter Gordon, Phil Woods, Eric Dolphy and Randy Weston all worked with him across the 1960s. He moved to Paris permanently and became a central figure in the city's jazz scene, playing with Martial Solal, Eddy Louiss and Jean-Luc Ponty alongside the American visitors. The trio he formed with pianist Joachim Kühn and bassist Jean-François Jenny-Clark in 1970 became his most enduring creative partnership: a leaderless ensemble in which bass and drums were as melodically active as the piano, producing a model of collective improvisation that ran nearly three decades until Jenny-Clark's death in 1998. His own recordings as a leader, primarily for the Owl and Enja labels, include "Triple Hip Trip" (Owl, 1979) with David Friedman and Harvie Swartz, "Humair Jeanneau Texier" (Owl, 1979), and "Scratch" (Enja, 1985) with Kenny Barron and Dave Holland. He was named a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1986 and promoted to Officer in 1992. His parallel career as a painter, working in what he describes as a figurative abstract style, has brought international exhibition and academic recognition. Humair, now 87, remains active as a performer.