Ulysses Owens Jr.
“a legitimate jazz triple threat... Ulysses Owens Jr. is indeed the real deal.””
Three time GRAMMY™ Award-Winning Drummer Ulysses Owens Jr., is known for being a drummer who “take[s] a back seat to no one,” and “a musician who balances excitement gracefully and shines with innovation.” (The New York Times)
Performer, producer and educator Ulysses Owens Jr. goes the limit in the jazz world and beyond; claiming eight successful albums of his own. Owens has also gained special attention for his performances on GRAMMY Award-winning albums by Kurt Elling and The Christian McBride Big Band. In 2023; he received his 3rd GRAMMY Award for his participation on the album featuring Steven Feiftke, Bijon Watson and the Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra.
His eighth and recent album release, A New Beat features his new “Generation Y” Band on the Cellar Live Record label. The album was produced by Jeremy Pelt and recorded at the legendary Rudy Van Gelder Studios. Jazziz Magazine voted “A New Beat” as one of “10 Albums You Need to Know in 2024;” Downbeat Magazine voted the album, “Best Albums of 2024,” and the Music Top Ten blog voted the album “Top Best Jazz Albums of 2024.” The album has been added to multiple playlists on Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Tidal streaming platforms. “A New Beat,” was also #1 on the Jazz Week Radio Charts for 8 Weeks from mid February-April. The band toured in support of the album, including performances at the Cotton Club in Tokyo, a Summer Canadian Jazz Festival Tour, and the 2024 Monterey Jazz Festival.
Most recently “Gen Y” just created the viral video “COVERS/Gen Y Plays Nirvana” for Musora Media on Youtube garnering over 5 Million views. Due to the success of the video, Cellar Live released their arrangement of the cover song “Heart-Shaped Box” by Nirvana in November.
As an author, Ulysses has published two books titled Jazz Brushes for the Modern Drummer: An Essential Guide to the Art of Keeping Time, and The Musicians Career Guide: Turning Your Talent into Sustained Success, distributed by Simon and Schuster. His third book, Jazz Big Band for the Modern Drummer: The Essential Guide to the Large Ensemble, for Hal Leonard Publications was released in January, 2024 and won the “Editor’s Pick” award for Musicians Inc Magazine at NAMM 2024 in Anaheim California. His writing was recently featured in the New York Times (May 2024) article by Marcus J. Moore titled 5 Things That Will Make You Love Jazz Bass, where he wrote about his long-time musical relationship with Christian McBride. He was fortunate to be asked by acclaimed writer Giovanni Russonello to pen his second article for the New York Times (September 2024) titled 5 Minutes that Will Make You Love Big Band Jazz.
As an educator Ulysses has been part time jazz faculty at The Juilliard School as Small Ensemble Director for over seven years ; served on the EDIB (Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging) committee. He has also served on multiple panels, and taught various workshops within the Alan D. Marks Entrepreneurship division. He is also the Artistic Director for his family’s arts non-profit organization in Jacksonville, Florida called “Don’t Miss A Beat,” whose mission is to enlighten and activate kids through Musical Theatre and Civic Engagement at the DMAB Community Arts Center in Jacksonville Florida. He has also recently been asked to join the Drumeo Online Educational Platform as their Inaugural Jazz Drum Instructor and is developing the curriculum for his interactive course, “30 Day Jazz Drummer,” that launched in November, 2024.
Ulysses made his Broadway Debut at the request of Grammy Award Winning Musician, Composer, and Orchestrator, Branford Marsalis and producer David Lai; as the Drummer for the production “A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical. This award-winning musical ran from November 2024 to February 2025 at Studio 54 Theatre in New York City and received rave reviews from the Chicago Tribune, Variety Magazine, New York Times.
Ulysses is also the creator of multiple online jazz drum video courses: Jazz Drumming 101 (Mini-Course) for Drumeo; “Finding Your Beat,” “The Art of Swing” and "Jazz Drumming 101” for Open Studio. Ulysses was also host of the highly successful weekly live YouTube series, “From The Drummer’s Perspective.” He was recently selected as Jazz Drummer of 2024 by Modern Drum Magazine Readers Poll and featured on the cover of their December Magazine issue; and also won the “Jazz Drummer of the Year” 2024 Drumeo Award.
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