Ai Murakami

Ai Murakami is a jazz drummer who found her musical home at Smalls Jazz Club in Greenwich Village after moving from Japan to New York City in 1998. Born in Japan, she began playing taiko drums at age four and later immersed herself in jazz after hearing Thelonious Monk's Monk's Dream, launching her professional career while a student at Waseda University. In New York she studied privately with drummers Leroy Williams, Jimmy Wormworth, Billy Kaye, Mark Taylor, and Tim Pleasant, and has performed at venues including the Blue Note, Fat Cat, and Smoke alongside musicians such as Joe Magnarelli, Grant Stewart, and Warren Vache. She released her debut album, Conception, in 2014 on Gut String Records, leading a quartet with alto saxophonist Zaid Nasser, pianist Tardo Hammer, and bassist Hassan Shakur. She leads her own quartet on the New York club circuit.