Misha started his drumming chops as military musician in the Red Army. After that, drumming became a way of life. A few years of college bands followed: from classical, to jazz to rock. The college stretch included immigration to the United States and cultural transformation.

Once in the US, Misha got the Afro-Caribbean rhythms bug and switched to hand drums: frame drums, box drums, skin drums, electronic trigger drums, steel pan. His favorite music style is Afro-Beat. His favorite instrument to play is West African shekere. His favorite dance is salsa!

When I was 7, I learned to play a little cane whistle, as part of an ensemble in a boarding school run by Irish Christian Brothers in the Himalayan foothills. When I was 17, with my first earnings, I bought a Yamaha concert flute and tortured everyone at home with my incessant warbling. One day my father smashed it in a rage. Seeing my devastation, my elder brother quietly bought me another and I was able to continue with my passion whenever my father was absent. I wasn’t naturally musical, but made up for this lack with sheer persistence. Years later, when my playing had improved, the same people who had once shouted for me to stop would actually ask me to play. I’m convinced that if someone as completely inept as I could learn to produce beauty this way, anyone can.

Later, I travelled the world as a wandering minstrel. One night, as I wandered the streets of London with no place to lay my head, I came upon the statue of Charlie Chaplin in Leicester Square, and played for the spirit of the eternal tramp. Hours passed unnoticed. At dawn, a young couple out for a stroll stopped, enthralled, while I regaled them with melody after melody as the eastern sky glowed. When I had exhausted my repertoire, they pressed a 20 pound note into my hand, thanked me, wished me well, and sauntered on. For a musician, there can be no greater pleasure than to know that you have touched someone’s heart with music. I have played with bands throughout my life. Now, at 70, I feel I’ve found the band I’ve been yearning for my whole life. My brothers in Jambient are like a force of nature. When we play together, we flow like a powerful torrent, reaching for the sublime.

Jeff (he/him) was born on the Great Plains in the ancestral lands of the Kiowa and the Kansa peoples, where bison once roamed free and where towering thunderstorms roll across the prairie bringing wondrous lightning shows.  Salina, Kansas is his hometown and is where he was raised.  At Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, Jeff trained in the vocation of computer programming and discovered a lasting spirit source: flying discs, Ultimate frisbee, and the Ultimate tribe.

In Wichita Kansas Jeff met his anam cara, Jane. Together Jeff and Jane followed their hearts and traveled to the other side of the earth, Aotearoa – land of the long white cloud, New Zealand, ancestral home of the Maori people, and new home to the Zimmerman family.  There, in that beautiful place, they started a life together and gave birth to two Kiwi-American kids.  Four years later, they returned to the northern hemisphere and found their way to Edmonds, Washington.

Since 1989, Jeff and Jane have worked, and played, and thrived in the Great Pacific Northwest.  They love their Edmonds community and are deeply rooted there. Their children are now adults and live in Oregon with their partners.  Jeff still works in technology as a vocation but  about 10 years ago he discovered the Fremont Drum school and community lead by master drum teacher Will Matthews.  Jeff dove deep into rhythm realizing it integrates powerfully with his own energy.

Since then drumming and percussion and rhythms have become his prime passion and avocation.   As a part of Jambient, Jeff feels he has found a true rhythmic sweet spot.  A place where he can integrate his entire self into the world of rhythm.  Learning and growing and sharing with his band mates and with others.  Inviting love, fun, energy, spirit, and other nuances that will emerge in his playing with time and attention.

Kurt pursued his natural affinity for Latin music and culture living in Costa Rica where he learned to move to the rhythms in neighborhood salsa dance halls. He has played rhythm guitar and percussion in an Argentine Nueva Cancion folk group and has studied the shekere, a West African beaded gourd percussion instrument exploring the deep roots of Afro-Latin rhythms.

A lifelong career guiding adventure trips throughout the world and following global sacred music festivals have presented ongoing opportunities to pursue diverse music traditions and genres from ancestral song and indigenous rhythms to contemporary world music and electronic sound lifting the spirit.

Roderick began singing over 25 years ago, first as a solo singer/songwriter on guitar. He also enjoyed performing as a chorus member in the comic opera The Abduction from the Seraglio and was one of four vocalist to perform in A Tribute to Freddy Mercury & Queen.

From there Roderick transitioned into singing lead vocals for larger bands. That journey has included Joe DaddyO (Swing), The Work Band (Variety), Indy Nile (Classic Rock), Emerald City Horns & Co. (Funk), and Boris Can Dance (Classic Motown/R&B).

Roderick began playing and studying afro-caribbean drumming in 2013 with master hand drum teacher Will Matthews at the Fremont Drum drum school in Ballard (Seattle).  In 2014 Will  invited him to join the teaching staff as a “student teacher” and Roderick taught classes every week from 2014 – 2020 until covid shut the school down in 2020.  During that time Roderick led drum circles at the Moab Mountain Biking Adventure retreat in Moab, UT, Songaia Co-Housing community, and for private drum circles and events around the Puget Sound.

In 2022 Roderick began teaching rhythm classes for Gina Salā at her Chant, Raga, Rhythm & Yoga Retreats, and began rehearsing with a new  group called Jambient.  The group formed to express both the ambient, groovy nature of afro-caribbean rhythms, as well as the high energy, uptempo, danceable nature of these rhythms.