Jeremy Cunningham

ABOUT

Jeremy Cunningham is a composer, drummer, and producer. His music is shaped through improvisation, storytelling, and his deep connection to the Chicago creative music community. His long-standing creative relationships and a belief in collective music-making have shaped his work to make music from fragments of ideas, lines of his poetry, and a rhythmic language derived from years of working in a variety of genres. Vice Magazine described Cunningham’s album The Weather Up There as “one of the most affecting jazz albums in recent memory.”

Based in Chicago since 2009, Cunningham has been an integral part of the creative music community and the so-called “New Chicago Sound,” collaborating with such luminaries as Jeff Parker, Josh Johnson, Makaya McCraven, Nick Mazzarella, Dustin Laurenzi, Sen Morimoto, Marquis Hill, Katie Ernst, Will Miller, and Dave Rempis among many others. He currently performs with Resavoir, Laurenzi/Bryan/Cunningham, Greg Ward, Christian Dillingham, Dave Rempis, Josh Berman/Jason Stein Quartet, and his own projects that feature Jeff Parker, Sen Morimoto, Josh Johnson, and Paul Bryan.

Cunningham's forthcoming work, Passing Fires, is an album that grew slowly from years of close collaboration with musicians Jeff Parker, Makaya McCraven, Josh Johnson, Sen Morimoto, Paul Bryan, Will Miller, and Dustin Laurenzi. Beginning as home recordings and piano sketches before expanding into richly textured ensemble performances, the album explores memory, family, love, and change through songs that invite improvisation as much as they embrace melody. Rather than showcasing individual virtuosity, Passing Fires reflects Cunningham's belief that music becomes its most meaningful through trust, shared listening, and collective creation.

Passing Fires follows Cunningham's critically acclaimed 2020 Northern Spy debut, The Weather Up There, a deeply personal work inspired by interviews with his family following the tagic loss of his brother Andrew to gun violence. Produced by Jeff Parker and Paul Bryan, the album received wide-spread critical acclaim and was recognized among the best releases of the year by Time, Bandcamp, and Vice. Alongside his own projects, Cunningham remains an active collaborator, recently performing with Jeff Parker's New Breed at the Chicago Jazz Festival, and with Resavoir at the Montreal International Jazz Festival. He also appears on recordings by Resavoir, Marquis Hill, Nick Mazzarella, and Christian Dillingham.