Bio

"He is the 'swingingest' drummer in the (San Francisco) Bay Area."

-Joshua Redman

At the tender age of three, Derrek C. Phillips had already amassed a deep passion for music. He was born in 1975 in San Francisco, California. As an infant, his family made Newark, California their home, a small railroad town in the East Bay. His young ears grew accustomed to the sounds of Swing and Bebop, R&B and Soul classics, the funky and hard rocking 70’s, punk rock, heavy metal, and hip-hop. His Mother and Father were trained musicians and his two older brothers were avid listeners to the music of their respective generations. Derrek could hardly contain his musical expression, which often consisted of banging on pots and pans while seated on the kitchen floor; or even his own body, the same habits that have given Bobby McFerrin fame. Since then, he has carved out an exciting musical career as a performer, composer, and educator.

By the time he was six, his parents deemed it necessary to introduce their youngest son to formal music training. After a few months of regular lessons, Derrek became “bored” with the private tutoring. His love for music was still found in his passionate songwriting, avid listening, and diligent practicing. By the time he was ten, the case of boredom subsided and he would be back for more tutoring.

With proficient reading skills and raw talent, he began to excel in the elementary and junior high school music programs. As an eighth grader, he was asked to be a part of the high school marching band. In marching band, he learned about an organization called Drum Corps International. As a freshman in junior high, he joined the record ten time champion Concord Blue Devils drum and bugle corps. He spent the rest of his high school playing snare drum there, perfecting his marching technique and grasp of rudiments.

When Derrek graduated high school, he was ready to take on the San Francisco music scene. He felt the need to sharpen his skills and spent his freshman year at Los Medanos College, Pittsburg, California, studying orchestral percussion. His focus was timpani and later switched to vibraphone. Unfortunately, the dedication needed to excel at orchestral percussion took Derrek away from the drum set. While starting his second year of school, he chose to take the knowledge of timpani and vibraphone and apply it to the set. In addition, he furthered his education in Latin Jazz, studying with Pete Riso (Cal Tjader), and Paul Van Wageningen (of Pete Escovedo). He was also able to spend a focused amount of time with the late, great Tony Williams (of Miles Davis Quintet). “That was one of greatest experiences of my life. Here I was, some little chump who could barely drum, hanging with Tony Williams. Even my Dad was jealous of me.”

After two years of college, Derrek started to feel the call of the east coast; namely New York. He decided to continue his undergrad work close to New York City. He received his bachelor's degree in jazz studies at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey, in 1998. He took private lessons with Horace Arnold (Chick Corea), Yoron Israel (Joe Lovano), and John Riley (Village Vanguard Orchestra), who each helped to deepen his understanding and proficiency of jazz drumming.

After returning home from college, He spent two years with the Tony award winning San Francisco Mime Troupe, a political activist group specializing in original theatrical satire. There, he was allowed to enhance his acting skills, while drumming and adding vocals. With this group, he traveled all over California as well as Korea and Belgium. When he wasn’t spending time as a theatre musician, he was slowly finding his way in the San Francisco Bay Area. His relationships with guitarist Liberty Ellman and pianist/composer Vijay Iyer enabled him to establish himself as a serious musician in the Bay. Derrek found himself anchoring the drum chair in both Ellman and Iyer’s respectively led ensembles. His abilities encouraged them to add him to the live-theatrical hip-hop band Midnight Voices featuring Mohammed Bilal of MTV's Real World.

In May of 1999, Derrek and his family decided to move back to the East Coast, landing right back in New Jersey. Until Derrek’s career was able to get off of the ground, he spent much of his time teaching. He shared his gifts and knowledge with many institutions as a music instructor. His biggest teaching assignment was being the director of both the marching band and jazz ensemble at River Dell High School in Oradell, New Jersey. With this job, Derrek discovered his second love: teaching. He has also worked with several school bands and drums corps as a percussion and marching instructor, jazz and drum set clinician, composer, marching drill designer, and private tutor. He is presently a certified substitute teacher in New Jersey, teaching various subjects to students from kindergarten through twelfth grade.

After a year of very little playing and a short time working for Starbuck’s Coffee, Greg Osby caught wind of Derrek’s abilities. He spent a two-year stint with Greg Osby as part of his quartet, which featured Jason Moran. With Greg, Derrek was able to travel to Brazil, Japan and all over Europe as well as the U.S. Due to their rapport in Greg Osby’s group, Derrek got to perform with Jason Moran’s trio on many occasions, including a live television performance on BET’s Jazz Central. “One of my favorite gigs I have done since coming to New York was playing duo with Jason Moran. He is so dynamic on the piano; we hardly missed the bass player.”

In 2001, he began to develop a relationship with Grammy Award nominated guitarist, Ronny Jordan. This led to appearances at the J&R Music Festival (featured on BET), Newport Beach Jazz Festival, Osaka and Fukuoka, Japan and the Caribbean (Lakasa, Guadalupe). 2001 would be his busiest year since moving to the east coast. Such highlights included playing at the Blue Note Jazz clubs in New York and Japan, Iridium, and the legendary Village Vanguard, all for the first time.

However, by early 2002, things started to slow down in Derrek’s career. Gigs were few and far in between and times became hard for him and his family. In the aftermath of losing his mother and close aunt, in a matter of months of each other, he found himself at a crossroads. While contemplating a full time career in teaching, Derrek got a call that would change his mind. “Charlie Hunter called me up out of the blue. He had just moved to Jersey and wanted to get together and play some time. I thought he forgot all about me. The first time we ever played together was at a photo shoot for his self-titled record. And that was almost two years before this.” This call would eventually lead to Derrek touring with Charlie’s quintet and recording on the widely acclaimed “Right Now Move” album. While promoting the album in 2003, he also found time to play with Dave Douglas’ “Freak In” Band, traveling throughout the U.S. and Europe.

Derrek can be heard on Charlie’s Rope-a-dope Records releases, “Friends Seen and Unseen” and latest album "Copperopolis". He currently spends the bulk of his time playing with young, singer and songwriter Erin Bode. She is enjoying the early makings of a successful career with her latest release, “Little Garden” on Native Language and “On a Cold December Night”. This young recording artist has been featured the CBS Early Morning Show and A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor.

Derrek has recently become immersed with his own solo project entitled Derrek Phillips’ Manufactory. The music is a musical group that believes in pushing the envelope. While finding highly innovative ways of creating sound, they give incessant nods to their predecessors. Their music is a unique blend of hip-hop, rock, improv, electronica, drum-n-bass, jazz, and spoken word. The band features Adam Agati (Marc Broussard, Joe Lovano) on guitar and Paul Horton (Jeff Coffin, Victor Goines) on keyboard. Their first outing, “Offering” is currently out on Rope-a-dope Records.

Derrek Phillips now lives in the Nashville, Tennessee area and has become a fixture in the diverse music scene. He has also made appearances and recordings with Vanessa Williams, Michael McDonald, Tommy Sims, Jonny Lang, Marc Broussard, Mike Farris, Charlie Peacock, DJ Logic, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Viktor Kraus (Lyle Lovett), Angela Kaset, Seamus Blake, Sam Newsome, Michael Brecker, Christian McBride, Adam Levy (of Norah Jones and the Handsome Band), Chris Potter, Rufus Reid, Michele Rosewoman, Lucian Ban, Oliver Lake, Marcus Belgrave, Eric Krasno (of Soulive), and Joshua Redman. He has been blessed with opportunities of performing on BET (Black Entertainment Television) and throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe, as well as Brazil, Korea, South Africa, Turkey, India, Panama, the Caribbean, and Japan. Many of these experiences enabled him to share billing with John Mayer, Living Colour, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Jack DeJohnette, Chris Botti, Widespread Panic, John Scofield, String Cheese Incident, Joe Lovano, Karl Denson's Tiny Universe, Fourplay, Danilo Perez, John Patitucci, Janis Siegel, and WAR.

Derrek Phillips is currently endorsed by Spaun Drums, Istanbul Cymbals and Vater Sticks. He is also a loving and devoted husband and father to his wife, Mariah, and four beautiful children, Zoë Indiya, Zavior Imani, Sienna Dajia-Nicole, and Isaiah Sanele..