Baby Dodds, Max Roach, Elvin Jones, Art Blakey, Philly Joe Jones, Tony Williams, Ed Blackwell, Hamid Drake, Milford Graves, Gerry Hemingway, Harry Partch, John Cage, James Tenney, George Lewis, David Mott...
Jesse Stewart is a percussionist, improviser, composer, visual artist, instrument builder, and writer. As a musician, he works primarily in the areas of jazz, new music, and free improvisation. He has performed with musical luminaries including George Lewis, Roswell Rudd, Evan Parker, Bill Dixon, William Parker, Joe McPhee, Pauline Oliveros, Evan Ziporyn (of the Bang on a Can All Stars), and many others. He is currently a member of the David Mott quintet and Tallboys (with virtuoso musicians Matt Brubeck and Kevin Breit) in addition to leading his own groups and performing regularly as a soloist.
He has performed at many festivals throughout Canada and in Europe including the Guelph Jazz Festival and the Guelph Spring Festival, the Hillside Festival, the Open Ears Festival, the 416 and Beaches International Jazz Festivals in Toronto, the Atlantic International Jazz Festival, the Ottawa International Jazz Festival, the Ottawa International Blues Festival, and the Vancouver International Jazz Festival.
His playing has been described as “truly exciting” (_Musicworks_ 76), “exceptional” (_Cadence_ Oct. 2002), “phenomenal” (_Cadence_ Nov. 1999), and “ingenious” (_Exclaim!_ June 2006). In a 2002 review, Texas-based music critic Frank Rubolino described him as "...one of the finest young drummers and percussionists on the scene today" (_One Final Note_ Summer/Fall 2002).
He has made several compact disc recordings including a duo recording with pianist Ajay Heble and a quartet recording featuring violinist Jacques Israelievitch, the former concert master of the Toronto Symphony. In March of 2006, the C3R label released a solo record entitled “Music for Found Objects” on which Stewart plays various found objects ranging from stones to canoe paddles, from steel bowls to saw blades. Vish Khanna of _Exclaim!_ describes Music For Found Objects as “an endlessly fascinating exploration of sound.” In 2009, the C3R label released a live duo recording titled "Collisions" that features Jesse performing with guitar wizard Kevin Breit.
In addition to playing drum set, found objects, and instruments of his own design, he is one of the few people in the world to play solo waterphone extensively. Richard Waters, the instrument's inventor, writes: "I consider Jesse to be a very creative and inventive forerunner of others who will
follow. He is in short, a Master Waterphone Player."
After majoring in both visual art and in music as an undergraduate student at the University of Guelph, Jesse went on to complete two Master of Arts degrees concurrently at York University in Toronto: one in ethnomusicology and another in music composition. His composition teachers included James Tenney and David Mott. In 2008, he completed his doctorate at the University of Guelph where he was the first recipient of the Brock Doctoral Scholarship, the University's most prestigious graduate scholarship. He is now a professor of music composition at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario.
Also an award-winning visual artist, Stewart has exhibited work in over a dozen solo, group, and juried art exhibitions at major private and public art galleries including the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, the Glenhyrst Gallery of Brant, the Thames Gallery, and the Peterborough Art Gallery. Much of his creative work crosses disciplinary boundaries, exploring the links between the visual and the sonic arts. In the year 2000, for example, he was commissioned by the Guelph Jazz Festival to create a ‘multi-media improvised jazz opera’ entitled Passages with celebrated poet Paul Haines.
His writings on music and art have appeared in various publications including Musicworks and Canadian Theatre Review, as well as in several catalogues related to visual art exhibitions. He also contributed an essay titled “Freedom Music: Jazz and Human Rights” to the book Rebel Musics: Human Rights, Resistant Sounds, and the Politics of Music Making co-edited by Daniel Fischlin and Ajay Heble. He is in the process of writing a book on intersections and dialogue between jazz and hip hop cultures.
