If you’ve spent any time around contemporary jazz in Tel Aviv or New York lately, David Sirkis is a name that keeps showing up in the places that matter — not as a guest cameo, but as the person at the center of the night. His work is built on a particular combination: physical control and endurance on the drum set, plus the compositional mindset of a bandleader who treats rhythm, form, and interaction as the actual subject of the music.
On March 20, that approach gets captured on record with Look Up!, a live album recorded at The Jazz Gallery in NYC. The Gallery is the kind of room where you can hear whether a band has real internal logic or just good soloists taking turns. Sirkis leads the session on drums and original compositions/arrangements, alongside Vinicius Gomes (guitar), Gabriel Chakarji (piano), and Dan Montgomery (bass), with Andrew High handling recording/mixing/mastering and Xavier Kim filming. A live record from this setting isn’t just a souvenir; it’s a stress test. Mic bleed, dynamic range, and audience noise force the band to play with precision and intention.
What stands out with Sirkis is how the rhythmic design stays legible even when the band pushes density and tempo. He writes in a way that assigns each player a distinct function, counterlines, harmonic ballast, rhythmic displacement, timbral color — while keeping the ensemble’s through-line intact. That’s why his projects don’t feel like “drummer records” in the cliché sense. They feel like systems: modular forms, tight transitions, and a clear hierarchy of cues that allows improvisation without the music losing its shape.
That leadership role is already established onstage. Sirkis performs and headlines many notable festivals including the Red Sea Jazz Festival, Tel Aviv Jazz Festival, the EFG London Jazz Festival ecosystem (including Guildhall Jazz Festival x EFG London Jazz Festival programming), the Cambridge Jazz Festival, and the Jerusalem Oud Festival. He also headlines notable concerts at venues in both markets, including Smalls Jazz Club, Mezzrow, The Jazz Gallery, and Ornithology in New York, alongside key stages in Israel such as Beit Ha’amudim, Ozen Bar, The Zone TLV, Kissa Tel Aviv, and Ra’anana Music Center. In jazz terms, that matters: those rooms book leaders who can carry a full set, shape a band, and deliver a coherent artistic statement night after night.