Hearn Gadbois

Biography

Hearn Gadbois grew up in Minnesota, picked up the conga at fifteen and was working professionally by eighteen. He moved to New York in 1980 and joined the downtown club scene, co-founding Saqqara Dogs with guitarist Bond Bergland and multi-instrumentalist Chris Cunningham; the band's psychedelic, drum-driven records World Crunch (1986) and Thirst (1987) appeared on Pathfinder. Over four decades he has performed or recorded with Patti Smith, Yoko Ono, Meredith Monk and Suzanne Vega, played percussion on They Might Be Giants' "Yeh Yeh," and worked with filmmaker Wim Wenders. Study trips to Brazil, Morocco, India, Turkey, Iran and Central Asia shaped his playing, and in the 1990s he apprenticed with instrument maker Ben Hume; since then he has built most of the drums he plays, including goblet drums, wooden jug drums, shakers and woodblocks.

He lived in Prague for about twenty years, performing, teaching, touring Central Europe and composing for theater, dance and film. His solo releases include The Clearing (2014), Ghost Notation (2020), which features bansuri player Steve Gorn, and Rara Avis (2022, Abstrakce Records), a collection of home recordings from 1983 to 2020. Now settled in the Hudson Valley, he played Holland Tunnel Gallery's 25th-anniversary evening in 2022, a July 2023 closing reception, and "World Rhythms and Music for the Mind" with Steve Gorn on November 11, 2023.

Practice. World hand drumming on self-built instruments, with emphasis on the Persian zarb (tombak), frame drums, goblet and jug drums, plus mbira and analog synth; trance rhythms from Middle Eastern and Central Asian traditions.