Jon Deitemyer is a dork. He plays Scrabble. He looks forward to reading the New Yorker every week, and doesn’t even skip articles such as "Rebuilding Serbia’s postal service after the Balkan recession of 1974." He’ll spend an entire afternoon playing Bach chorales into a Casio keyboard. And yet the one redeeming quality that ultimately overshadows such raging dorkdom is the fact that Jon is a... musician. (Cue leering supermodels)

JAZZ musician, nonetheless. Not some hoity-toity, 401K carrying orchestral cellist who summers in the mountains; nor the Guitar Center heroes that quietly retreat to their CPA gigs in the suburbs. I’m talking about your Ramen-eating, first 8 bars of the Giant Steps solo singing, sulk all day until the pro-bono "jazz but it’s kind of avant-garde with a little Icelandic pop and a tinge of Kenny Kirkland" gig at night. (People are gonna LOVE this shit, man....) You know; the REAL deal. So how was it that this life of absolute artistic purity came to be for Jon Deitemyer? Simple. His angry daddy is living vicariously through him....

Just kidding. Jon’s father is actually quite nice, as is his mum. His parents were instrumental in Jon’s early interest in music, as David was a high school band/orchestra director with a massive collection of classical music, and Joan was an ex-opera singer. Early influences included oldies radio with John "Records" Landecker, marching band promotional tapes from Hal Leonard (as any band director can empathize), and waking up on Saturday mornings to the sound of whatever Broadway musical made that weekend’s cut. While he dabbled with a borrowed snare drum as a tot, it was only in the 5th grade when Jon joined the elementary school band as a "percussionist". (The PC term for drummer, and a moniker that seems silly at best. Would launching mortars qualify one as being a percussionist? What about a trumpet player that drops his horn?)

Fast forward to high school, where Jon studied with an incredible teacher and musician named Jerry Steinhilber. Jerry made a living as a jazz drummer, which seemed both horrifying and intriguing. (So, like... do you have a day job?) After a bit of investigation and auditioning, Jon was awarded a scholarship to the University of North Texas to further his musical studies with the master drummer Ed Soph. His time spent in college served as an incredible period of development, as Jon performed in big bands, small groups, classical percussion ensembles, and countless projects in Denton and Dallas. Additionally, Jon was invited to the Banff Improvised and Creative Music Workshop in 2004 led by Dave Douglas. After graduating Summa Cum Laude with a Jazz degree in 2004, Jon relocated to the great city of Chicago, where he currently resides. Please check out the Projects Page for a synopsis of my current musical involvement.

Performances: Zach Brock and the Coffee Achievers, Sam Barsh, Grazyna Auguscik, Patricia Barber, Greg Osby, Lynn Seaton, Stefan Karlsson, Jackie Allen, Jangeun Bae, Russ Nolan, Goran Ivanovic, Kelly Sill, Kelly Brand, John McLean, Ron Perillo, Matt Ulery, Jordan Baskin, Matt Holman, Matt Wigton, Ben Paterson, Jim Gailloreto, Dennis Carroll.