Niko Schauble
Drums, percussion
photo credit: Matthew Stanton
Niko is an internationally celebrated musician and was named the Best Jazz Drummer in Australia in 1992. A versatile and prolific musician and composer, he successfully works across many genres including jazz, television and film. For the last 2 years, Niko was the composer for the award-winning Channel 9 show Stingers.
Niko was born in Stuttgart, Germany. In 1981, he moved to Berlin where he established himself as a percussionist and composer, recording and performing with many Berlin Ensembles and musicians such as Christof Griese, Gebhard Ullmann, Die Elefanten, Tibetan Dixie, Enrico Rava and Teo Macero.
In 1989 Niko moved to Melbourne, Australia. He has recorded, performed and toured throughout Australia with the Vince Jones Band, Paul Grabowsky Trio, Dale Barlow and Arthur Blythe and has composed for TV.
Niko was also a founding member of the Australian Art Orchestra composing The Ferryman for Into the Fire and the Crucifixion Arrangement of the St.Matthew Passion by J.S.Bach for Passion.
As a composer and / or musician Niko has worked with Sam Rivers, Lee Konitz, Trilok Gurtu, Mike Nock, Wynton Marsalis, Dewey Redman, Gunther Schuller, Palle Mikkelborg, Ed Schuller, Deborah Conway, Billy Jenkins, Berliner Saxophon Quartett, Robyn Archer, Sruthi Laya Ensemble (Madras), Guru Kaaraikkudi Mani, Tanzfabrik Berlin, Jugend Jazz Band Charlottenburg, ABC-TV, SBS-TV, Channel 7 and Channel 10 Australia, the Australian Children's Television Foundation and the Radio Symphonie Orchester Frankfurt.
You can visit Niko's website at www.niko-music.com
Discography
Minimal Kidds (with Trilok Gurtu, Glen Moore, u.a.), EMI/Capitol Rec.
Tibetan Dixie 'Nothing Too Serious', Larrikin Records (LRJ 261)
Tibetan Dixie 'Ya-It-Ma Thang' (with Arthur Blythe), Timeless Records (SJP 412)
Night Music (with Enrico Rava), Origin Records (OR 012)
On The Other Hand (with Paul Grabowsky), Naxos Jazz 86011-2
Press quotes
‘Anyone who has yet to discover Melbourne’s Niko Schauble is missing out on one of the planet’s more imaginative drummers. He can be heard to great effect in the Australian Art Orchestra or in such intimate settings as his magical live duets with Mike Nock. Night Music is a collection of ambient pieces which drip with moody summer-night humidity...With the lights off late at night, this will have you drifting into a zone your parents warned you about.’
Sydney Morning Herald 26/2/96
‘This is electric jazz of the highest order, ...Schauble’s rhythm section as about as subtle as you can possibly get,...you feel as so you’ve traveled somewhere and then returned home again.’ Jazz Notes on Night Music 9/96
‘...possesses a talent for composition and arranging that threatens to put him up there with the world’s best.'
Drum Media 6/2/96
‘The flexibility of drummer Niko Schauble is quite remarkable...from the antic funk of his Tibetan Dixie to the hard bop of Dale Barlow,..he has brought to each a unique personality while playing perfectly within context. ...his rhythmic intricacy - which is possibly unpreceeded in this country - was expressed with a dry economy, except in a sustained solo late in the evening, where he created a kind of willy-willy of rushing sound that veered about over an immaculate underlying pulse.’
Sydney Morning Herald 8/12/90
The Band
- Stephen Magnusson
- Carl Dewhurst
- Alex Pertout
- Adrian Sherriff
- Lachlan Davidson
- Julien Wilson
- James Greening
- John O'Donnell
- John Rodgers
- Niko Schauble
- Paul Cutlan
- Paul Grabowsky
- Elliott Dalgleish
- Philip Rex
- Phillip Slater
- Sandy Evans
- Scott Tinkler
- Vanessa Tomlinson
- Simon Barker
- Alister Spence
- Tony Hicks
- Eugene Ball
- Erkki Veltheim
