Kobie Watkins

Watkins, who has three brothers and four sisters, was born in Chicago on

July 26, 1975. His interest in music was sparked at around age three when

he first saw his father playing drums at a local Apostolic Overcoming Holy

Church of God. Prior to devoting himself to religion, Alious C. Watkins Jr.

had played trap drums and other percussion instruments with the

Pharaohs, a now-legendary jazz-funk group in which Earth, Wind & Fire

leader Maurice White had been the original drummer, and he also backed

the Dells on local engagements. His dad’s drumming led Kobie and his

brothers to bang on pots and pans around the house. Kobie took up

trumpet in fourth grade, played it in the jazz band while attending Orr

High School, and later used it in his work as an elementary school music

teacher in Joliet, Illinois, where he also played oboe, flute, clarinet,

trombone, tuba, and French horn in order to demonstrate them to his

fourth- and fifth-grade students.

Alious bought a toy drum set for Kobie when he was nine and a real one

when he was 12. Kobie shared the set with his younger brother Asa (who

remains active as a drummer in Los Angeles), and they began playing it in

church, where their father had become pastor. The lessons learned from

playing for a Pentecostal church choir continue to inform Kobie’s playing.

“The intuitive part that goes with gospel drumming is making sure your

eyes and ears are in tune with whatever’s happening in front of you,”

Watkins explains. “Those are probably the most important things that I

have learned with music in general, especially in jazz. When people tell me

that jazz is all you need, I’m, like, wow!

“A lot of times with gospel music, it had to be in the moment. You had to be

there spiritually and musically. That was probably the hardest musical

experience I feel I’ve ever had, especially as a kid. If you don’t play

correctly, they will put you off the drums right in mid-song. They will point

to someone else and tell them to get on the drums. It’s happened to me. If

the shout beat is not right, they’ll throw you off. It’s one of the most

devastating things that can happen to you as a kid, but you also learn and

your skin toughens. It’s worse than being out in the jazz community, or

being out in the world anywhere, because at least they give you a better

chance.”

Watkins’s early heroes were all professional gospel drummers: Dana David

with the Winans, Michael Williams with Commissioned, Joel Smith with

the Hawkins family, and Kevin Brunson with the Thompson Community

Choir. He also cites Chicago gospel, blues, and jazz drummer Kenny

Coleman as an early favorite. It wasn’t until Watkins was in high school

that he started listening to Buddy Rich, Art Blakey, Dave Weckl, Dennis

Chambers, and other jazz drummers.

Watkins played his first professional engagement in 1997 with pianist

Bethany Pickens and went on to play and record with her, her father Willie

Kobie Watkins

Drummer• Pecussionist•Composer

Pickens, trumpeter Orbert Davis, saxophonist Jarrard Harris, pianist Ryan

Cohan, guitarist Bobby Broom, and other Chicagoans. Watkins also played

reggae with James Cameron and the Sunshine Festival, gospel music with

Kim Burrell, and R&B and neo-soul with Julie Dexter, Kendra Ross, and

Javier. He balanced his gigs, which averaged three nights per week, with

his studies at Vandercook College of Music (from which he earned a B.A. in

music education in 1999), his three years as a elementary school music

teacher, and his graduate studies at Northwestern University (from which

he earned an M.A. in jazz pedagogy in 2003). He has also taught at Chicago

State University, the Thelonious Monk Institute, and Christian Teen Camp

in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

Recommended to Sonny Rollins by Bobby Broom, Watkins auditioned for

the legendary saxophonist in February 2006 while in New York City

attending a conference of the International Association of Jazz Educators.

Besides Rollins, the musicians at the audition were trombonist Clifton

Anderson and bassist Bob Cranshaw.

Watkins arrived an hour and a half early to the audition. “I was somewhat

nervous and somewhat curious,” he recalls. “Once we started, there was no

tension from anyone. Everyone was just playing like we had been playing

for awhile. It was a very comfortable situation.

“Bob Cranshaw got off his stool and gave me a big hug. And then Sonny

took me out into the hall and talked to me. He said I should work on the

calypso and listen to his recordings. He said, ‘Keep thinking about the

music.’ That was really inspirational. He was like, ‘I will be calling you.’ It

seemed as if he was saying, ‘Wait by the phone.’”

The phone rang more than a half year later, and Rollins hired Watkins for

two engagements in November 2006. There were a few more dates in

2007, until Rollins let him go in July of that year. “I didn’t leave on bad

terms,” the drummer says. “It was like a musical decision he was making.

He was able to explain what he was looking for.”

Then, in 2008, Watkins got “the call,” as he puts it, and he’s been Rollins’s

regular drummer ever since. “It is very intense, very energetic,” he says of

playing with Rollins. “You have to have a lot of energy. You should always

come prepared to listen. You have to come in with intense, focused energy

all the time. That way he knows that you’re on board.”