Masumi Jones

I remember when I was three years old, I asked my mother to get me a keyboard so I could start taking piano lessons. I was too lazy to practice, but my mother said if I quit piano, I would end up regretting it. I stuck with it until I was 15, and now I do regret that I ever stopped playing piano.

When I entered middle school, I joined the school wind ensemble as a clarinet player. I wanted to be a harpist, but there were no opportunities to study harp around my hometown of Fukuyama, a small city in Hiroshima prefecture. I am still thinking about taking some harp lessons one of these days....

When I was 14, I wanted to play in a rockabilly pop band with some of my friends. I got picked to play drums somehow, and I went to try out a group drum lesson with my drummer friend. I could play drums much better than anyone there, and my friend soon quit playing drums. I started to play in a Japanese punk cover band and a pop rock cover band. My first teacher was a big band drummer, so I started listening to Count Basie.

I went to Waseda University in Tokyo, because that school has one of the best college big bands in Japan. The band was gigging more often than most professional ones. I couldn't get the regular drummer position for my first 3 years in school, so I went to jam everywhere to get better.  I started to like all kinds of jazz, not only big band. My heroes were first Butch Miles, Sonny Payne and Mel Lewis, which expanded to Philly Joe Jones, Max Roach, Jimmy Cobb, Art Taylor and Elvin Jones.

After I graduated from Waseda with a degree in dramatic arts, I came to the U.S. to study music at the Berklee College of Music. I was a film scoring major, but my English and technology skills were poor, and people started giving me gigs playing drums, so I became a jazz musician. I studied with Joe Hunt, Ron Savage, Jamie Haddad, Kenwood Dennard, and George Garzone. I was also influenced by other Berklee students such as Steve Hass and Antonio Sanchez, and John Lamkin.