Friday Concert Series: Tariq Gardner & Evening Star

Tariq Gardner leads the Evening Star, a band of longtime collaborators who blend Detroit’s jazz tradition with global rhythms and modern grooves.

Tariq Gardner grew up in Detroit surrounded by music. His mother is renowned bassist Marion Hayden. Jazz was in the house and his hands from an early age.

He studied jazz and contemporary improvisation at the University of Michigan. Gardner has played everything from straight-ahead jazz to neo-soul, hip-hop, gospel, and Afro-Cuban. He’s performed at the Detroit Jazz Festival, the Cape May Jazz Festival, and with artists across the country.

Tariq Gardner is an electrifying drummer, composer, and educator, steeped in the rich music traditions of his home city, Detroit, MI. Reared in an artistic family, his mother, bassist Marion Hayden, and father, painter/sculptor M. Saffell Gardner, greatly impacted his musical knowledge and artistic vision. Tariq’s creative practice centers the Black American Music traditions of Jazz, Neo-Soul, and Hip-Hop as compositional vehicles with an emphasis on explorative live performance with his group Evening Star.

Tariq is a graduate of the Department of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation at the University of Michigan. He served as the drummer for the John Douglas Quartet from 2017-19. His group, Evening Star, has been featured at the Charles H. Wright Museum’s African World Fest, Jazzin’ at the Vanity Music Festival, The Alluvion, Detroit Jazz Festival, the Blue Llama, and Cliff Bells Jazz Clubs. He has performed with the Detroit Jazz Fest All-Star Alumni Band, including residencies with pianist Cameron Graves and trumpeter Keyon Herald. An in-demand drummer, he has toured throughout the US.

As an educator, Tariq is a performance facilitator and Teaching Artist for the University Musical Society at the University of Michigan. He is a resident artist for Building Bridges with Music, Traverse City, MI. He is an affiliated staff member with the Detroit Sound Conservancy as well as managing his own private drum studio. He continues to work as a drummer, producer, composer, educator, and bandleader.

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