Born in San Jose, California, Joe has been playing the drums since the age of five. He was first taught at home by his older brother, Gino, then later by the late great Karl “Animal” Carter. Joe has also had the honor of studying with such greats as Louie Bellson, Joe Porcaro, Freddie Grubber, John Ramsay, Kenwood Denard, Chad Wackerman, and many others! 

Joe is a Berklee College of Music Graduate ,1998, with a Bachelors in Performance, Magna Cum Laude. Since then Joe has toured and recorded with such greats as Jazz vocalist, Robin McKelle, Boston Blues-Diva, Toni Lynn Washington, Hip-Hop extraordinaire Kofy Brown, Guitar virtuoso, Hristo Vitchev, and Samoan Reggae Artist, Geno and The Blue Island Band.

Throughout the years’ Joe has appeared in some of the most prestigious music venues all around the world, including the Monterey Jazz Festival (Monterey, CA), Yoshi’s Jazz Club (Oakland, CA), Kuumbwa Jazz Center (Santa Cruz, CA), Leader Bank Pavilion (Boston, MA), San Jose Jazz Summer Fest (San Jose, CA), Leopold Museum (Vienna, Austria), Center For Performing Arts (San Jose, CA), Okazaki Jazz Festival (Okazaki, Japan), Far Out Jazz Club (Yokohama, Japan), Harvest Jazz & Blues Festival (New Brunswick, Canada), Herbst Theater (San Francisco, CA), Montgomery Theater (San Jose, CA), House of Blues (Boston, MA), Moods Jazz Club (Zurich, Switzerland), Flavors of Jazz Concert Series (San Jose, CA), Flint Center (Cupertino, CA), Mama Kin (San Jose, CA), and many more!

Joe is also a composer and bandleader. He has two all original Jazz-Fusion CD’s out under the band name, Joe DeRose and Amici. The two recordings out are titled “Sounds for the Soul” and “Peace Stree
ts”, which was on the ballot for a Grammy for “Best Instrumental Jazz”.

Education is also one of Joe’s passions as well as performing and composing. Joe is an acclaimed educational drum author as well. Joe’s educational book titled, “16th note possibilities” is available digitally on Hudson Music and is also available in hardcopy form on Joe’s site (www.joederosedrums.com) in the store. 

Joe has been proudly educating and mentoring privately for over 25 years now and currently teaches at The Rhythm Academy in San Jose, California. Along with gifted author Matt Diggs, Joe is writing a revolutionary instructional book specifically aimed for drummers of all ages and special children.


Joe has been playing Pearl drums since the of 13 and has been honored to be apart of the Pearl family for over 20 years now!