Jo Beyer (*1991) is a German drummer and composer, who reached and delighted a wide audience across the globe with his unique energetic manner of playing drums, composing and collaborating with different musicians.
As child he started playing the piano and switched to drums later on, which he studied at Hochschule Osnabrück (Germany) as well as Royal Academy of Music Arhus (Denmark). With the experimental trio Malstrom and his own quartet JO he works primarily as bandleader. During international touring Jo Beyer was invited to renown festivals such as Int. Jazzwoche Burghausen (Germany), Elbjazz (Germany), Jazzfest Bonn (Germany), Oslo Jazzfestival (Norway), OCT Jazz Festival Shenzhen (China), B-Jazz Festival (Belgium), Krokus Jazz Festiwal (Poland), World Youth Jazz Festival (Malaysia), Getxo Jazzfestival (Spain), Jazzfestival Avignon (France) etc.
His own band JO, which he founded in 2015 and composes the music for, recently released their second album and plays with all elements of musicals parameter, which combines his unique way of playing drums and expressing his music to arrive at a very communicative interpretation as well as uncompromised fun with his own catchy compositions.
Since Jo Beyer started playing drums and got in contact with jazzmusic he worked a lot with the extreme dynamic range of playing highly energetic music and did research in creating experimental sounds on the drumset. Entering in offensive and open musical dialogue with musicians, who share the same idea of improvisation and creating music, which also has some concrete and catchy character, is one of the components characterizing his music.
The experimental quality of Jo Beyer’s music coupled with his signature emotive expression, has led jazz-award juries to recognize him as being disruptive and innovative in the contemporary scene and supported his musical idea with awarding him a bunch of renowned international new comer jazz prizes. Next to touring all over the world during the last years in about 15 countries in Europe and Asia he participates regulary in radio- and television productions. Additionally to his work as bandleader he plays a lot in different bands and projects as sideman and recorded a bunch of CDs.
