SONOR Drums Partners With Acclaimed Percussionist and Educator Jamey Haddad

Few percussionists carry a résumé that spans Paul Simon's band, the Oberlin Conservatory, and South Indian Carnatic music studies. Jamey Haddad has officially joined the artist roster of SONOR Drums, bringing decades of cross-cultural musical experience to the company's community of celebrated performers.

Born July 2, 1952 in Cleveland, Ohio, Haddad works primarily in the fields of jazz and world music and specializes in hand drums. From the age of four, he began playing Lebanese percussion instruments, such as the goblet drum. That early grounding in rhythm from outside the Western kit tradition would define everything that followed. Haddad performed with Paul Simon as his percussionist from 1998 to 2019, and he appears on more than 225 audio recordings and movie soundtracks.

A Fulbright Scholar who studied Carnatic music in South India, Haddad has received multiple grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and honors including the Cleveland Arts Prize and recognition as a "Legend of Jazz" from the Cleveland Jazz Society. He has also been consistently acknowledged in the percussion world, including being named Top World Percussionist by DRUM! Magazine as well as one of the top four world percussionists by Modern Drummer.

The classroom has been as central to Haddad's identity as the stage. He recently stepped down after two decades as a full professor at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he led the Performance and Improvisation program. His teaching has also included long tenures at Berklee College of Music, New England Conservatory, and The New School, and he continues to mentor musicians through workshops and programs around the world.

On the gear side, the fit with SONOR appears to have grown organically. Haddad currently performs on SONOR's SQ1 Series and Vintage Series drums. Haddad described his experience with the Vintage drums in the studio: "Over the years I have had a chance to perform on various models of SONOR drums, but over the past year I had my first chance to play the VINTAGE drums with an 18-inch bass drum in the studio. They had a controlled, punchy sound that did not ring too long. It really spoke to me, that simply! The look and the feel were outstanding, and I know the attention to detail with all the shells and the hardware are world famous for their thoughtful design."

SONOR, one of the leading manufacturers of drums from Bad Berleburg, Germany, has a history making percussion instruments dating back to 1875. For a company built on that kind of longevity, adding a percussionist whose playing has shaped recordings across jazz, world music, and orchestral film scores signals a deliberate push beyond the kit-drummer market and deeper into the global percussion conversation.