Kim Garey-Trujillo plays drums with a variety of ensembles and is the house drummer at Roxy’s Downtown.
“Jazz was more clear for me to express, musically, what I wanted to express. It was more fun and more interactive and I think those are aspects of it that are in my personality anyway—fun and interactive.
Drums are extremely melodic and I think the jazz idiom gives you the flexibility to do present yourself as a musician of a melodic instrument, which people do not get that out of drums, normally.
I think there’s a new accessibility about jazz, I think partially through the education system. I know when I was going to college, it was, like, ‘You can study jazz in school? Alright!’
I talked to guys out in New York that were a couple generations older—Junior Mance—he would say that in college they would kicked out if they played jazz. They couldn’t make that happen. My theory is that will happen next to the rock genre. It’s already kind of happening in middle schools and high schools, band directors are saying, ‘Let’s have a rock band after school,’ to keep the kids interested in it.”
