Jason McKenzie

 
A touchstone of the Austin music scene, with a particular fluidity on tablas, Jason McKenzie combines extensive schooling in jazz education at the University of North Texas with drum corps participation and teaching at the Austin School of Music. Musical influences range from jazz to classical Indian music, country and western, folk, pop, and just about anything else you can shake a stick at. McKenzie played skins for the Austin band Shaver, fronted by Texas songwriting legend Billy Joe Shaver, with whom McKenzie toured Europe in July 1997, sharing stages with the likes of Johnny Cash in Germany, as well as Little Richard, Bo Diddley, and Chuck Berry in Belgium, culminating in such notable gigs as two appearances in the summers of 1998 and 1999 at Willie Nelson's Annual Fourth of July Picnic in Luckenbach, Texas.

McKenzie toured Europe extensively in 2000 and 2001 with the Gypsies and with Ginger & Sarah, played separate SXSW appearances with Aloke Dutta, Juliet Turner, and Tom Fruend, then dedicated his schedule through a great part of the summer of 2001 to tabla studies with Swapan Chowduri at the Ali Akbar College of Music in the Bay Area and with Gourishankar Karmakar in Calcutta, India.

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