Billy Martin

Billy Martin is a drummer, percussionist, and composer best known as one third of Medeski Martin & Wood, the genre-crossing trio he formed with keyboardist John Medeski and bassist Chris Wood in the early 1990s. Rooted in New York's downtown scene, his playing moves across jazz, funk, avant-garde, and Afro-Brazilian rhythms, shaped by years in the city's Brazilian percussion circles and work with Bob Moses and Chuck Mangione. Born in 1963 in New York City, he first sat in with Medeski and Wood for a 1992 run at the Village Gate, and the instant chemistry launched a partnership that spanned decades. In 1995 he founded Amulet Records, a label devoted to percussion and experimental music, and he is also a visual artist whose prints and paintings have appeared on many of the trio's album covers.