Savannah Harris, who we profile elsewhere in this issue, sits with the remarkably daring drummer, who’s commanded our attention with Herbie Hancock, Robert Glasper, and so many other movers and shakers. Among the things we discover? Sometimes it’s about more than the drums.
In a crowd, Justin Tyson is unassuming. He’s not the loudest in the room, and his uniform of laid-back crewnecks and sneakers suggests a man for whom flashiness is not a priority—until he sits down at the drums.
Unleashing a deluge of turbo-speed chops, and piling meters on top of meters, Tyson is a master at condensing all of that technical prowess and fierce innovation to simply serve the music.