RockOm

An interview with Airto Moreira
By Tom Crenshaw, tom@RockOm.net

Airto Moreira is one of the most endearing and influential percussionists in the world today. Born in South Brazil he began playing percussion even before he could walk. By the time he was six years old Airto had won many music contests by singing and playing percussion. He moved to Sao Paulo at the age of sixteen and performed regularly in nightclubs and television as a percussionist, drummer and singer.

In 1965 he met the singer Flora Purim in Rio de Janeiro. Flora moved to the USA in 1967 with Airto following shortly after and began playing with musicians such as Reggie Workman, JJ Johnson, Cedar Walton and bassist Walter Booker. It was through Booker that Airto began playing with the greats - Cannonball Adderley, Lee Morgan, Paul Desmond and Joe Zawinul to name a few.

Mr. Moreira's impact in the drumming world has been so powerful that Downbeat Magazine added the category of Percussion to its readers' and critics' polls in 1973 because of his work. Airto has gone on to win this award over twenty times since then. In the past few years he was been voted the number one percussionist by Jazz Times, Modern Drummer, Drum Magazine, Jazzizz Magazine, Jazz Central Station's Global Jazz Poll on the Internet, as well as in many European, Latin American and Asian publications.

Airto Moreira has been advancing the cause of world and percussion music as a member of the Planet Drum percussion ensemble alongside The Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Heart, master conga player Giovanni Hidalgo, tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, Flora Purim, Babatunde Olatunji, Sikiru Adepoju and Vikku Vinayakram. Airto has contributed to two Grammy Award-winning projects, the album Planet Drum, which won in 1991 in the World Music category, as well as his work with the Dizzy Gillespie's United Nations Orchestra, which received the award for Best Live Jazz Album.

In September of 2002, Brazil's President Fernando Henrique Cardoso named Airto Moreira and Flora Purim to the Order of Rio Branco, one of Brazil's highest honors. The Order of Rio Branco was created in 1963 to formally recognize Brazilian and foreign individuals who have significantly contributed to the promotion of Brazil's international relations.

Also, Airto was a professor for three years at the Ethnomusicology department of UCLA and broke new ground in musical concepts and creative energy.

Currently he divides his time between recording studios, workshops and clinics, and creating new projects as well as researching new materials for future releases and live performances in the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America.

Airto's latest album is Life After That and was released on Narada Records.

Airto: No, not really. It probably has nothing to do with the music. There was no music. My parents didn't sing, dance, or play. [Laughs] My father was a spiritist. He, along with about 10 other mediums, would sit around a table and get in touch with the spirits and the spiritual world. They would talk to the spirits and solve problems for people. The medium, acting as a bridge between the spirit and material world, would talk with the spirit of the person and straighten a lot of things up because there's a lot of people who [after they die] feel good about their [past] lives, but most of us, we don’t. We feel like we wasted a lot of time in our life. We feel, "I shouldn’t have done that," or "maybe I should have done this instead of that." We keep those problems and other problems after life. When I say "after life," I mean after our material life. As spirits, we are immortals. We never die; we just spend some time around the spiritual world (which is actually right here) and is the universe. It's God's universe that he is creating. We might have to come back here to solve some problems we left and to learn to do other things and so on.

When I was about five years old I used to watch my father. We weren't supposed to watch but we watched anyway. [Laughs] I saw my father many times writing prescriptions for people. Some of the things he used to prescribe for others to take were from nature, from the forest. Other things he would write were to be taken from a pharmacy. He used to work with a spirit of a deceased doctor who had died 20 years earlier. My father was illiterate. He couldn't read or write but I saw him writing many times. Later on in his life he had diabetes and he lost his vision and was a blind man for about the last 10 years of his life. But he was completely happy! It was really beautiful to see that - the spiritual part of my family.

My sister does a lot of what my father used to do. She learned a lot from him. She is beautiful and happy as well. When others see her they say, "Wow, she is so nice!"

Now talking about death and music, I am in some ways a medium. I also make the bridge between the spiritual and material world. When I play, I do that. The musicians who play with me - including my wife, Flora [Purim] - they know when that comes on me and it's just a beautiful thing. We are helped by the spirits. The music becomes high as far as energy. It doesn't have to be a very fast kind of rhythm. Whatever we do is really rich in energy - universal energy that keeps all the planets and stars together and balanced. This energy is around us too; it's the primal energy that God uses to create the universe. The more you study the more you know. It's not a complicated thing; it's basic, really. I feel the energy when I change, when I am playing something and right at the beginning when it actually happens. I open up for whatever energy is there and then something happens; it clicks and the whole band knows. We look at each other, laugh and smile and we keep playing. It's a beautiful thing, man.

Tom: It seems you were bound for great things as a musician from early on. You had your own radio program in your home city as a preteen and then at 13 you began drumming and singing in local dance bands. Where did this drive, this passion for music come from?

Airto: I don’t know because we didn't have that many musicians in our family. My mother's side of the family was from Italy. I always loved music and I started playing some percussion instruments that my grandmother gave to me and that was it. I just kept playing. My mom gave me other percussion instruments and I just kept playing. This is what I do today; I keep doing the same thing that I use to do when I was a little kid. Now I have a lot of knowledge about different kinds of music - commercial, non-commercial, playing for money or not. Thank God I don't have to play for money. I did when I was younger but if the music wasn't good, if I didn't like it, I didn't play.

Tom: Your wife Flora moved to the USA in 1967 and you followed soon thereafter. Was that a move you intended to make no matter what or were you waiting to see what Flora discovered as far as the music scene was concerned before you decided to leave?

Airto: I had a plan, you see. I was in love with Flora. Really in love with Flora, mainly because she was a fine human being and she had a good education. She was from a family in Rio and I was from a family in South Brazil and we were very poor in our little village. When I met Flora I had never met a woman like her before. She was incredible! She was like a princess. She liked me and we started taking. It was like “Wow.” In the beginning the only thing I would talk to her about would be music. [Laughs] We used to talk a lot about music; she was a singer already. I was thinking this is something very, very special - this is incredible. I couldn’t believe it. We stayed together two years and she decided to go to the States and spend some time there, meet some people, say hello to her friends from Rio who were already there like Sivuca [Dias de Oliveira] who played accordion and was musical director for Miriam Makeba (a great African singer) and Sérgio Mendes. She told me, "I'm going to go and try and sing for a while. I'm really not sure what is going to happen." I said, "Well, I can't go right now. I’m playing with this great band, the New Quartet, and we're successful." I told her I was sorry but I couldn't go.

She went anyway, so we would write to each other. Sometimes we would talk on the phone, but we would write every day. I was so much in love with this woman that I decided to go to California, stay for a couple of weeks, and then bring her back to Brazil. So, I went - and here I am! I'm not in Brazil. [Laughs] Of course, we went back to Brazil often. I don't like the word "career" because I think music is much more than career - music is a lifetime commitment.

Tom: Who were the first musicians you met upon arriving in the states?

Airto: I met Moacir Santos, who was a master teacher from Brazil and a great arranger and tenor saxophonist. I did some gigs with him and studied with him, but not enough. I never really liked study. Unfortunately I can't read music. I started playing in LA with some Brazilian bands and then Flora was invited to go New York to sing with Miriam Makeba.  A few days after Flora went to New York, I followed her there and we lived in New York for almost nine years.

It was in New York that I met everybody. I met Cannonball Adderley and we liked each other so much, even though we didn't understand each other. I was speaking Portuguese and he was speaking English. He was our mentor and sponsor in the states and signed our working papers and told his manager, "I want Airto and Flora here legally." I started playing with Cannonball, Lee Morgan and Paul Desmond. Then everything started to happen.

Two and a half years later I met Miles Davis. I met Miles through Joe Zawinul, who was very close friends with Miles.  One day Miles said to Joe, "Joe, I’m recording this album - a new kind of music. It’s more electric. I need a percussionist that plays something different." Joe said to Miles, "Well I know somebody that I met at Walter Booker's house." Miles asked Joe what kind of person I was - if I was old, young, or what. Joe told Miles, "He's kind of young, but he has some incredible percussion instruments that no one's seen before. He plays them all, plays jazz, bossa nova, samba; he plays anything. He's able to hear something and just play it." So, I started playing with Miles and recorded Bitches Brew with him.

Tom: Did you believe Bitches Brew was going to be the phenomenon it became?

Airto: No. I knew practically nothing. It was all like a dream to me, a movie that I was in. Everything was happening and I didn't speak English. I came to understand English better soon after. The first three years was like I was on an acid trip and being in a crazy movie. It was a very strange feeling; I was not afraid at all. It was like I knew these musicians for a long time and we were just going to play some music - that was it. All the other musicians warned me about Miles and said, "Listen, Miles can be real nasty but go and play with him. He's going to like you. But never get into any kind of negative stuff with him because he likes to play with you and try and scare you." I was careful in that area. I had two and a half years with Miles. One of the greatest experiences in my life.

Tom: The sidemen on Bitches Brew were extraordinary: Wayne Shorter, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, and Chick Corea.

Airto: Yeah, I played for probably a year and a half with those guys. Then Miles started changing the sound. He wanted to get into the "funk/wah-wah" thing. He loved Jimi Hendrix actually. They were going to do an album together. Gil Evans was going to write the arrangements but it never happened because Jimi died. Yeah, we used to go down to the Village in New York with Miles, into Jimi Hendrix's Electric Lady Studios and jam there. Miles would be talking with Jimi about the wah-wah pedal; He was crazy about it. He wanted to use it with the trumpet.

Tom: Following your stint with Miles Davis, you jumped right into Weather Report with Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, Miroslav Vitous and Alphonse Mouzon.

Airto: Actually it was during my time with Miles. I was still playing with Miles when Joe Zawinul invited me to form the band. Joe said, "This is going to be the best group in the world. You’re going to play with us." But I told him, "I'm still playing with Miles. Some people are leaving the band and I think Miles needs me." Joe said, "No, Miles doesn't need anybody. Come and play with us." It wasn't that I was skeptical about Weather Report, I just didn't want to leave Miles' band. I wanted to go into that change with him and give him my sounds and soul. I never went on the road with Weather Report. I recorded with them and I played one concert at CBS for the release of our first album on CBS Records. I told Joe after that concert that I was not going to leave Miles.

Tom: In our interview with your wife, Flora gave us her thoughts of Chick Corea and Return to Forever. I want to hear from you about your experience with Chick and Return To Forever. You all pretty much made history in this band.

Airto: Chick had a drummer before me. But he asked Flora to ask me to come in on the next rehearsal they had so I could show some patterns to his drummer and I said, "Sure." I met them all, met the drummer and showed him some stuff. The drummer asked me to take a break with him, go next door to a bar and have a drink. When we got next door he said to me, "Do you want to play this gig with Chick?" I said, "Yeah, I want to play drums for Chick but you're already playing with him." "I’m a jazz drummer; I don’t want to play this gig," he said. I told him, "Well, we have to talk with Chick because he never really invited me to play with him." So we went back to the practice and the drummer said to Chick, "Chick, Airto and I were just talking and you've got a new drummer." [Laughs]

Tom: When we interviewed Mickey Hart and spoke with him about the Planet Drum album and his intention in recording it he said he realized on day he was "sitting on top of the mountain" with regards to his percussion friends. You and Flora joined him on the Planet Drum album and were in fact co-producers, along with the other musicians performing on the album. What are your thoughts on how this all came to be?

Airto: Flora and I met Mickey Hart with the Grateful Dead. We went to see the Dead one time at the Oakland Coliseum just to see what everyone was talking about with this band. That was some "down to earth" music: singing, playing and tripping. It was a big party with thousands of people! Flora and I went backstage after the concert and they were like, "Oh, Airto and Flora!" They invited us to perform with them the next two nights, to jam with them. Ornette Coleman was sitting in with them, playing this crazy stuff on saxophone. Flora picked up a microphone and started singing with Ornette Coleman, doing free-form stuff, really beautiful stuff. That's how we met Mickey. Mickey then called me and Flora to play on the Apocalypse Now soundtrack and we worked in the Dead’s studio in Marin County for six days and nights straight.

Tom: Was this the first time you had worked with Zakir Hussain?

Airto: Yes. [Pause] Maybe I played with him in the Rhythm Devils. I wasn't a part of that group; I just sat in with them. Apocalypse Now was the first time we collaborated and it was just beautiful. Zakir is one of the most incredible players on earth.

Tom: We agree, but I must add that when we spoke with Zakir Hussain last year in San Anselmo one of the first things he spoke about was Bitches Brew and how that was so inspirational to him and everyone, and how it changed everything. He was taken with your work as well.

Airto: Zakir told me he was a classical percussionist playing classical Hindu music, and that's what he did. Then he saw me play with Miles Davis and said, "Wow, I can do that too. I can play some other stuff." Zakir can do anything, really. He's an incredible musician. Then Zakir started opening up, playing with different people. He's one of the most respected musicians in the world.

Tom: Tell me about your album The Other Side of This, from 1988. It was an exploration into the healing powers of music and the spiritual world.

Airto: I always have ideas for sound. I have a lot of ideas for things I haven't played yet. I am young; I'm only 67. [Laughs] Some of the sounds I had been thinking about for many years were sounds for healing, for relaxing and for energy. I never really thought of myself as a shaman to be working with spirits. Spirits are free to come and visit when I am playing and each day when I jump in, they are welcome.

One day when were working on Planet Drum with Mickey and all the great percussionists who performed on that album I said to Mickey, "Remember that project that we talked about of co-producing, that healing music album?" He was about to head out of town and said, "Why don't you start it while I'm gone." So, I stayed in the studio and did about half of the album in five days. When Mickey returned we began rehearsing Planet Drum again and he asked, "Well what have you been doing while I've been gone?" So I had the engineer play the recordings in the studio and Mickey said, "What? What is this?" I said, "That's our project that you are producing." [Laughs] He said, "Oh, you bet I am! Let's keep working on this!" So we would rehearse Planet Drum in the day and then work on The Other Side of This until the early mornings.

Tom: How do you see music and especially percussion evolving in the near future?

Airto: Percussion was probably the first ever instrument. People would play and not even know they were making music. I think it is always going to be a part of humanity. Right now there's a lot of synthesized music and percussion, but at the same time there are percussionists and drummers such as Mickey Hart, Zakir Hussain, myself and others who are playing all over the world. There is space for acoustic percussion, for the real thing. It will never die. I think that percussion will always grow together with the music. It doesn't matter what kind of music it is because the percussion will always be there. Percussion evolves with the music and with the human race. One doesn't need to be a professional - you can go and play some with the guys and it's OK. Percussion started the music, in the beginning. Percussion is a beautiful exchange, a melting pot. It will always exist and if they keep sampling, they're going to be sampling forever.

LINKS: www.airto.com

An Interview with Brazilian Jazz legend Flora Purim
By Tom Crenshaw, tom@rockom.net

For those who know Flora, an introduction is unnecessary. Her music has interwoven the life fabric of anyone with a passing interest in Latin and American jazz music for over 25 years.

Flora's once-in-a-generation six-octave voice has earned her two Grammy nominations for Best Female Jazz Performance and Downbeat Magazine's Best Female Singer accolade on four occasions. Her musical partners have included Gil Evans, Stan Getz, Chick Corea, Dizzy Gillespie and her husband Airto Moreira, with whom she has collaborated on over 30 albums since moving with him from her native Rio to New York in 1967. In New York, she and Airto became central to the period of musical expression and creativity which produced the first commercially successful electric jazz groups of the 70s.

Shortly after, Flora became instrumental in opening the world up to new notions of what jazz can sound like by linking up with Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke and Joe Farrell to form Return To Forever in late 1971. She went on to contribute to some of the greatest recordings of the seventies - Carlos Santana, Hermeto Pascoal, Gil Evans, Chick Corea and Mickey Hart - with all benefiting from her vocal and arranging skills. In the mid-Eighties, Flora and Airto resumed their musical partnership to record two albums for Concord - Humble People and The Magicians - for which she received Grammy nominations. In 1992 she went one better by singing on two Grammy-winning albums - Planet Drum with Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart (Best World Music Album) and the Dizzy Gillespie United Nations Orchestra (Best Jazz Album).

In September of 2002, Brazil's President Fernando Henrique Cardoso named Flora Purim and Airto Moreira to the "Order of Rio Branco", one of Brazil's highest honors. Her latest album, Flora's Song, was released by Narada Records on June 28th, 2005.

RockOm had the honor and privilege to spend an extended period of time with Flora Purim recently while she was in Lisbon, Portugal touring with her husband. In this in-depth interview Flora Purim speaks with us regarding her early years in America, her close association with the greats in jazz music, how music transcends race, creed, and culture and an upcoming movie and book based on her life and career.

Tom:  Tell us what you, your family and friends felt on that March evening in 1964 when the Brazilian military staged a coup overthrowing President Goulart sending Brazil into a totalitarian regime. There was widespread systematic repression of artistic freedom and free speech. Did this play a role in your decision to become an artist and do you ever regret leaving Brazil for America?

Flora:  Sure I regret leaving Brazil because it is a paradise and the outpouring of Brazilian music is so big that wherever I go, all over the world there is always a group playing Brazilian music. I am very proud to be Brazilian, but Brazil was a military dictatorship and the Government was censoring the lyrics of music and songs. I was only 20 years old and in the beginning of my career then. I felt if I didn’t leave the country I couldn't be a singer. I made the decision and since I loved jazz, I decided to go to the USA.

Tom:  When you arrived in New York City in 1967, you immediately jumped into the American jazz scene with the artists of the day such as Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis. Then a few short years later you met Chick Corea, Stan Getz, Gil Evans, Stanley Clarke, Joe Farrell and others. What did you think when you landed in New York and were able to be yourself and express yourself in the midst of such an eclectic music scene?

Flora: I thought I had died and was in paradise. I didn't know how I was going to find other musicians. I asked around at the hotel where I was staying in New York and was told I shouldn't be going into the heart of Harlem because I was white and it was a dangerous place to go. I said, "Well I come from Brazil and we don't discriminate, so I'm going to take my chance. I must go to Harlem; I have to go." So the concierge wrote an address on a piece of paper and I was dropped off at Club Baron.

I tried to pay my ticket to get in but the doorman started to speak to me and I didn't understand what he was saying. He was laughing, making jokes and wasn't going to sell me a ticket. The only thing I understood was that he called me Snow White. In the meantime, a very tall man was standing in the entranceway going from one side of the bar to the other. He saw the scene, reprimanded the man and he gave me his big hand and told me not to be afraid and to sit down with his lady. He invited me inside and I sat down with a white lady. She was very popular inside of the club. Everyone was arriving and kissing her hand and kissing her on the cheek. Later on, I found out she was a famous Baroness - Baroness Nika. She used to help Coltrane and Charlie Parker when they got sick. She was so loved by everyone because she had no prejudice and loved jazz to the point that she would offer space in her house when musicians got sick from time to time.

Then, when I finally sat down and felt more at ease I looked over at the bar and saw Wayne Shorter sitting there along with Art Blakey, Carmen McRae, Richard Davis, and Mongo Santamaria. I saw the creme of the creme all together in the same place. After Mongo Santamaria played his set - in which Chick Corea was the pianist - the second band came in. I didn't know what Thelonious Monk looked like. He was the guy that helped me get into the club. He walked on stage, sat down at the piano and played. I realized I was the luckiest person in the world. The second day in town I found the place where everyone converged after their gigs, talked with each other and jammed. Afterward, we all went to the house of bass player Walter Booker and played more until the early morning.

Tom: Tell me about the events leading up to meeting Chick Corea and later becoming a part of his fusion band Return to Forever.

Flora: I arrived in the US in December of '67, stayed in New York and later I got a call from an ex-boyfriend, Dom Um Romao, who  went on to perform with Weather Report and he said, "Come to California." So I flew out to California and stayed for about six months. I didn't have a work permit but I was going to the clubs. I saw Miles Davis for the first time along with Gary Barton and several of the young, up-and-coming musicians. Gary Barton was only 16 or 17 years old and he was playing free form jazz. A month afterward, my husband Airto (Moreira) arrived. We both went to see Miles Davis together. It was a dream for Airto.  Something happened to him when he first saw Miles.

I received an invitation from the drummer who was performing with South African singer Miriam Makeba who was singing Brazilian music. She had a choir behind her of three or four girls trying to sing in Portuguese. I went back to New York and was hired by Miriam Makeba to be a backup singer and help the girls learn to pronounce the lyrics correctly. Afterward, I sang two concerts with Miriam and she called me up and said, "You are too good to be just a background singer. I’m going to give you the name of my manager. Please look him up. I’m calling him to say I’m sending  you." Miriam's manger took me in and got me a record deal. I signed with the label that was owned by the comedian Bill Cosby. After the record was recorded and was about to be pressed and released the warehouse caught fire. My work was burned and that record never came out. It was a shock. I thought to myself, "It is not my time yet."

I stayed in New York and continued hanging out at the clubs. In the Village there were a lot of jazz clubs with great musicians and I always managed to get in for free.  I met Chick Corea then. At that time, Chick was playing for Miles Davis and Miles was looking to change the band. Joe Zawinul told Miles there was a Brazilian percussionist who was crazy and that he should check him out. Airto then received a call from Miles' manager. I'll let Airto tell you the rest in his own words and then I’ll tell you how it really was. [Laughs]

Later Chick decided to leave Miles and form a group with Dave Holland, Anthony Blackstone, and Barry Altschul [the group Circle]. They were just playing free form and Chick wanted his music to be more popular. He said that people loved the music but it was hard to duplicate the melodies they heard. He became obsessed to have his music sung and duplicated. He was looking for a person to sing his melodies, because if a person could sing melodies the public would understand that they could sing it too. He offered the music to Ella Fitzgerald and several others vocalists. The vocalists returned the music saying they were already well established on the Bebop jazz scene and didn’t want to take a risk of singing fusion because the music was not mainstream. It was fused with different rhythms.

I met Chick at Walter Booker's apartment after a concert. He asked me to come to his home and try some of his music because he was dying to hear someone sing some of his melodies. I said, "Yes, of course." The next day I went to Chick’s home and the first song he played for me was "What Game Shall We Play Today", and then others. I was overwhelmed with the beauty of the music and couldn’t believe I was having a chance to hear it first hand. So he asked me if I would like to sing those songs with him and to be part of the group that he was forming. He met a very young bass player just out of high School who was 17 years old. His name was Stanley Clarke. He invited flutist-saxophonist  Joe Farrell to join as well. Chick asked me to ask Airto to sit in until he found a drummer so we could keep rehearsing. Airto wasn't doing anything since Miles was taking a break, so I brought Airto in and Chick loved him so much that he decided not to look for another drummer.

"Music has no prejudices. Music does not ask you what color you are, where you come from or what your creed is. Music itself becomes God to us whenever we play it."

It was like magic. Sometimes you put five musicians together and they are great, but the magic doesn't happen. But this time it all melded together and became one. We were very excited to be playing and singing original music written especially for us. From that point on Chick wrote more and more and the music aimed at my voice or Stanley’s bass or Airto’s drumming or Joe Farrell’s flute and saxophone. The first album was called Return to Forever and the second was called Light as a Feather, which happens to contain a composition by Stanley Clark and me.

These two albums defined Return To Forever and in America we were not sure if they accepted us or not. But when we arrived in Japan or anywhere else around the world we were so famous we need a police escort. So many people were waiting at the airports screaming and giving us gifts. From that point on I understood there were certain prejudices and maybe the musicians that were dedicated to swing, mainstream, and Bebop were guardians of that style of music, which prevailed at the time. They were not giving in even if our music was nice. The rest of the world embraced Chick’s music. Some first started listening to jazz after Return To Forever and then started looking for other records that we were involved in as well and learning more and more about the other forms of jazz. You were right about one thing - because of my association with Chick Corea I became very, very popular all over the world.

Tom: In 1973 you released your first solo album, Butterfly Dreams, and went on to work with Carlos Santana on his album Welcome (1973) which also featured John McLaughlin, Tom Coster, Leon Thomas and John Coltrane's widow, Alice. Tell us about the vibe in the air working on that album.

Flora: Well Carlos was incredible. We were playing at the Keystone Korner in San Francisco and one night Carlos walked in for the second show. I saw him come in but I had never met him before. After the show he said he was recording that night and invited us to come to Columbia Studios. He played some of the songs for us and asked if we could do something to enhance the songs. He offered me two songs and Airto worked on another two or three songs. The next week he had a concert at the Museum of Modern Art and I sat in with the band. A very famous writer Ralph Gleason wrote a review of the show and said I was great and raved about me. The next day I got a call from Fantasy Records and they invited me to sign a contract with them.

Tom: You were involved as a co-producer along with Mickey Hart and your husband Airto on the 1992 Grammy Award winning Planet Drum album. In speaking with Mickey Hart and Zakir Hussain they both spoke about the spiritual nature and healing qualities in music. Do you feel the same way? Does rhythm and music have unifying and healing properties?

Flora: I would say yes. When Mickey Hart’s wife was about to have a baby and was in labor for hours nothing would help. Mickey put on a track from Planet Drum and she relaxed and gave birth right away. I also learned from Babatunji Olantundi that drums are not made from just any tree. In Nigeria, to cut the tree to make a drum you have to talk to that tree for months and get an affinity and have the tree recognize you - even tell stories to the tree. You and the tree become friends. So when the time comes to make a drum from that tree, the tree is ready and understands it’s not going to stop "being nature", that it would actually be helping the world to know that the first language between men was drumming.

Tom: Through your close friendship with Dizzy Gillespie, who was a devotee of the Bahá'í faith, you came to adopt that faith. How has Bahá'í influence you?

Flora: Bahá'í was a young religion when I met Dizzy. Dizzy used to carry his praying book, which was different than everyone else's.  All the pages were embossed in gold and his name was written on the front in gold. I used to sit next to him in first class, so once I asked him, "You are always reading this book. What is so good about it." He said, "This book is my Bible and I know every single prayer by memory."  I challenged him and he said, "OK, I’ll give you the book and you can open it to any page and ask me." I took the book, opened it to one page, and by chance it was the Prayer of the Traveler. He said, "Which one out of the five?" I chose, thinking it would be difficult for him. He recited the prayer fluently. I thought  to myself "He’s lucky, the Prayer of the Traveler is one he must read most often." I opened up another page, I challenged him again, and he recited the prayer perfectly. He read that book for 30 years every day. He read to remind himself that men should help other men, that a universal language should be created so that people could communicate and that women should be treated equal to men.

I told Dizzy, "I want to be a Bahá'í." He said, "You can’t be a Bahá'í yet." I asked him why. He said, "Before you decide you want to be a Bahá'í you have to read a couple of books to see if you agree with it." I was given several books to read, loved them and said, "I still want to be a Bahá'í." So we were leaving Australia and the family that was receiving all the Bahá'í in the town ran to the airport and gave me the book of prayers, just like Dizzy's book. Inside of the book was an Australian ten-dollar bill. I said, "Wait, I think you forgot the money." The lady who gave me the book said, "No we, didn't forget. You always keep this note inside of the book because this is to bring you more money and it could save you in a difficult situation." I kept it and never spent that money.

Tom: Sometimes music brings people together in ways that nothing else can. What is it about music that bridges barriers and put us in touch with that which we call the Divine?

Flora: Music has no prejudices. Music does not ask you what color you are, where you come from or what your creed is. Music itself becomes God to us whenever we play it. As musicians we only communicate through notes and rhythms. We hardly talk with each other unless it's to give a new idea for direction. At the time we are playing it doesn't count what color you are, where you come from, or which religion you practice. I love that.

Tom: What does the future hold for you?

Flora: I have lots of work ahead of me. I've been in Portugal working with a screenwriter and with another writer to do a book of my trials and tribulations along with a film based on a Brazilian singer who wanted to sing Jazz. This project is very big, is sponsored by the Brazilian Government, and is entitled "Brazilian Flora". I am singing all Brazilian music by Brazilian musicians. Because of my popularity around the world I can bring the new Brazilian music to the rest of the world as long as I keep singing.

www.florapurim.com

Watch for an interview with Flora's husband, Airto Moreira, next week right here at RockOm.

"If I can get out of the way, if I can be pure enough, if I can be selfless enough, and if I can be generous and loving and caring enough to abandon what I have and my own preconceived, silly notions of what I think I am - and become truly who in fact I am, which is really just another child of God - then the music can really use me. And therein lies my fulfillment. That's when the music starts to happen." [John McLaughlin, source: Zen Guitar]

[See Part I of this interview, "Every Instrument Has a Spirit," here.]

Trevor: As we at RockOm have been exploring the bond between music and spirituality and deeper meanings, percussion keeps coming up. Do you think there's some sort of essence about drumming or rhythm that's different?

Zakir: I guess rhythm is part of us from the time we're in our mother's womb. The heart is pumping, there is a pulse, so we respond to that. If you notice, most of the songs that are a hit are songs that you can tap your feet to or you can sing while you're walking. The tempos of the songs that have become hits are the tempos that either you walk in, you breathe in, or you make love in. So the rhythm is a central part of music which leaves an imprint on your mind. It's a very important part simply because you as a human being naturally respond to rhythm more quickly than you do to melody. Composers over the past many years have simplified and watered-down the melodies enough so that you can just as quickly relate to melody as well [sings “Na Na, Hey Hey, Kiss Them Goodbye” and the end of “Hey Jude”]. The composers have brought the melodies to the point where they almost are rhythmic. That's why rap is a big hit.

Shiva is shown with the damaru. He is the destroyer, but also the creator. His son, Lord Ganesha is shown with the pakhawaj, he's the protector. So the two very important gods in India are shown with drums. It is said that when Lord Shiva was called upon by the gods to go down to the earth and kill all the asuras (demons) he came down and he did what they call the “dance of destruction,” tandava. Now, Lord Shiva probably smoked a lot of weed. Because when he got into doing something, he just kept on doing it. (laughs) The point was that he started to destroy the demons and then there were not too many demons left, so he kept on destroying whatever was out there. And the gods got very worried and went, “Ok, pretty soon there's going to be no planet earth. So what to do?” So they sent out Parvati and her other name is Lasya, which means lust, romance, whatever you want to call it. She did the dance of lasya to calm down Shiva and established a balance, an order to all the chaos. Now it is believed that since the first word of the dance of destruction, tandava, is ta – and the first word of lasia, the dance of love and peace and order, is la - that's where the word “tala” comes from, which is rhythm.

So it is really written into the whole source of creation and because of that, I guess human beings are born with that connection, that connection of rhythm. The earth, when it rotates, creates a tone and that tone is Bb. When I hit this [hits table], there's no note, but if it's played a million times fast, it becomes a tone - “mmmm” - and that's Bb.

In the old days they used to bang the temple bells and the old drums to call people to prayers. When the king wanted a new law passed people went around the town, beating the drums and having people come and then explain to them what's going to happen next, who was going to get killed. Messages were sent on the law drums and there are talking drums in Africa to talk to. I guess it's all part of our process of living. And rhythm, pulse, heartbeat, and drums are an essential part of it – not just an important part of it. It is necessary to have that.

Tom: Would you say there could be an analogy in “ta-la” and, from the Bible, “in the Beginning was the Word”?

Zakir: Or in the word Om? We all draw upon something that we've heard and appeals to us. For instance, the growing up process of a musician in India is, OK now you want to become a professional artist. So you're to do the Chilla where you go away into the forest by yourself into that little hut where all the old gurus have gone before you. You live off the land, it doesn't matter how old you are - 15, 18, 20, whatever – and for forty days, you play your music. Where did the number 40 come from? And of course when you're living off the land, you're alone, you're with just your music, you're playing your music 16, 18, 20 hours a day. The vibration of it, the sound of it, the tone of it hypnotizes you. You see things; revelations come. You discover many things – what's inside of you. If there's ugliness inside of you, it will emerge, it will manifest and it may frighten you and tear your mind apart. It's like having an LSD experience of the most negative kind. Or if there's honesty and purity inside of you, that will emerge and enlighten you. So, the forty day period – the 40 days of Moses – the 40 days of flood or rain – that's what I wanted to say, that yes, there is this connection where 40 becomes a very important thing.

Why do we all have the same 12 notes whether we are in deep Africa or on the river in China or anywhere? Why do we have do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do and the flats and the sharps? It's the same in India and here and everywhere. And we say our music has been around for over 2,000 years, but we tuned our sitars and tablas to the machine 440, what the pianos are tuned to now. Why is that? Who knows? 4/4 is the same, 6/8 is the same all over the world. It has not changed or mutated into something else. Some people have gone further with the rhythmic signs, but in the west they've mainly still remained with 4/4 and 6/8. Dave Brubeck came in with “Take 5” and then that became known, while we have about 360 different ones in India which we play. The dance of destruction from Lord Shiva was supposed to be 14 beats; Lasya is supposed to be 8 beats.

Tom: Let's talk about some of your work with other instruments. You've worked with some unusual pairings before, pairing the tabla with the banjo, the bass, cello...

Zakir: It's not so unusual to me and I'll tell you why. Growing up as a young kid, our apprenticeship was in the Bollywood orchestras in India, film orchestras. Bollywood orchestras were all in one large room. At one end of the room was the string section: violins, violas, cellos, basses. Next to them on this side was the piano. Opposite the piano on this side of the room was a big riser which set the sitar player, the sarangi player, flute player, sarod player and there were two mics in there in between them. At this end, on the side of the indian musicians were the indian drums, tablas and all that. Opposite side on the piano line were the (western) drums. So, that's where we were and that's where we played. Under the baton of the conductor or composer, we all played together. That's what I grew up doing, playing with western musicians. Some days there would be a horn section there while we were doing the background score for a film. In those days the composer did not arrive with a complete, composed chart. He would look at the film and would see what the timing was and write the music there. So all of us had to be present because then he knew what he had at his command and what he could write for, what he needed at that time. At that time while he was doing that, we were jamming. The sitar player was sitting with the guitar playing and saying, “What do you got there?” – or the flute player is hanging out with the oboe player (coming up with ideas). So this was a common happening, day in and day out. For me, there wasn't anything unusual about these pairings.

100 years back, or even 60 years back, before that period, it was not so common for Indian musicians to play with musicians of other origins. But my generation, yes. My father was traveling with Ravi Shankar all over the world and would come home with records, LPs, of all varieties. That's where I first heard the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Starship, Yusuf Latif, Duke Ellington, The Doors, Bitches Brew or all these milestone albums. Having arrived here (in America) it was like walking right into the recording room with all those (Bollywood studio) musicians – the only thing was that the faces were different, the language was different and the approaches to the instruments were different.

When you pair with people, that's all one aspect of it – the other one is whether you get along. You can be with the greatest of musicians and sitting on the stage together and nothing happens. You just don't see eye to eye. Nothing's wrong with that, it just happens. So the pairings happen only because there's a connection, you see the same lighted path and you walk that path together so that connection is made and never broken.

Trevor: What do you have ahead of you, do you have new pairings you're working at, or what other adventures lie ahead?

Zakir: I'm still trying to strengthen the old pairings. Say, Mickey Hart for instance; I've known him since 1972 – that's when we did our first record called Rolling Thunder and I'm still working with him. The thing is after 10 or 12 years of working with someone, the valleys, the little corners and nooks and all, start to reveal themselves. I was a punk Indian musician wanting to impress the daylights out of everybody; I was gonna get on that drum and play as strong and as fast as possible. And I did that, but by the time I reached John McLaughlin and those guys, I understood that I needed to get to know them as people; I needed to go live where they lived, eat what they ate, go for walks with them, you know? Just be there, day in and day out. I went to the Shaman villages in South America with Airto (Moreira) to hang out there to just learn and to learn what Airto was all about, what Babatunde (Olantunji) was all about. That whole tradition – you can't just learn by listening to a record and saying hello to a person. That's just the surface; you've got to get to know them, then once you get to know them, that's when you can start finding the connection. Unless your hearts meet, your minds connect, and your eyes see the same lighted path, it's not possible to be paired together and make music together. I've been paired with a hundred different musicians over the years but there have been 2 or 3 that I am still working with because that walk has been taken. Sadly, some of those I have not been able to revist and maybe find that road and so the pairings didn't continue. But hopefully there are some more – like working with Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer. This is something that just began two years ago and has the makings of a very special brotherhood, so let's see what happens.

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More about Zakir

Moment Records

Photography by Susana Millman

Thanks to Regina Grande

Zakir Hussain is a world-renowned, Grammy award-winning percussionist, world musician, and master of the tabla, the popular Indian drum. Zakir has amassed a wealth of awards and accolades and has recorded and performed with many of the world's greatest musicians, including Yo Yo Ma, Bela Fleck, George Harrison, and John McLaughlin, just to name a few.

Mr. Hussain met up with RockOm's Trevor Harden and Tom Crenshaw in the tiny mountain community of San Anselmo outside of San Francisco in September. While leisurely strolling through downtown, Zakir shared about the town's rich musical history and the feeling of community that has led many musicians and Hollywood celebrities to make San Anselmo their home. This interview begins about an hour later with a conversation already in progress as Zakir, Trevor, and Tom, settle in for a longer discussion in Zakir's office at Moment! Records. As the RockOm guys share about a concert they caught the night before featuring Bonnie Raitt, Crosby and Nash, Jackson Browne, and others, Zakir reminisces about his past interactions with several of these performers…

Zakir: We'd be all converging at Mickey's [Mickey Hart, The Grateful Dead] ranch in Nevada in '71-'73 for jam sessions. David Crosby would be walking in and Steven Stills would be there and Gracie Slick, everyone would show up and hang out. Some were just sunning naked outside the barn where the studio was; some were just walking in the fields. It was an interesting time.

Tom: Most of my musical interests come from that period, the '60s and early '70s.

Zakir: For me it was a major change because I came from India, which in terms of visibility is a conservative country. Even when people have to step out to go to the store, they have to put on proper clothes. You did not step out in your "jammies." [laughs] Here [in America] you just stepped out whether you were wearing anything or not.

We'd just play music anywhere. This was so unusual for me. [In India] I would have to take a shower, say my proper prayers, light the incense and everything in front of my instrument by the altar, and then sit down to play the drums. Not in jeans or t-shirts, but in proper garb. No shoes, no nothing – just sit down and focus and play the instrument. Here you're around in the sun and you have your drum or guitar in your hand. And you're walking around naked or topless, with a glass of wine or beer in your hand… it was a whole different connection to creativity than what I was used to in India. It took a little getting used to - just to relax. The condition at the [ranch's] swimming pool was that everybody had to be swimming naked - no bathing suits. So I never swam. I just could not relax like that. It just was not in my upbringing.

One thing that was interesting about the creative part of it was that you got to know your music and your instruments intimately. They were not just modes of worship or meditation or yoga. They were also friends, twins, buddies, lovers. There was that whole concept of getting to know your instrument in a different manner so that your mindset changed. So you could relax into your interaction and connection and plug in with your instrument and your music.

Trevor: And you don't feel like you lost anything by taking this more casual approach?

Zakir: No, because I had been practicing day in and day out for hours in front of my teacher and away from my teacher, for hours on end for 16 years before I arrived here. So that was already in there. I was open to suggestions, I was open to the idea of relaxing and allowing a different kind of thinking into music. And I think that helped me in the long run because it was an interesting balance between a connection with the tradition - and what went with that package in terms with your connection with it, your treatment of the instrument, the music, your behavior – and the relaxed part of it, where the instrument had a voice as well. In India, the idea was: here's your instrument, here's the repertoire, learn this, play this repertoire on the instrument and see how you can embellish it, within the required rules and drawn up dos and don'ts.

You arrive here [in America] and you look at the instrument and say, "Okay, so I'm doing this, but what is the instrument capable of? What else can it do?" In other words, let's take it around the corner and see what is possible with the instrument. The instrument wants to speak. It was a kind of a contradiction because we believe in India that every instrument has a spirit. But in setting up parameters to our discipline, we were not allowing that spirit to have a say. The spirit just sat in the instrument, or slept in the instrument, and watched all this stuff being played and improvised on it. But it itself had no say in how it should be done or what else it could be and so on. There's that concept of looking into the instrument, say in a Zen method of meditation on a flower and seeing the whole world in it, that kind of connection into the instrument, where you not only touch the instrument but you do not tell the instrument what to do. You allow the instrument to transmit to you what should be happening and you make a connection that way.

That was the kind of atmosphere here: a sense of wanting to discover, wanting to find more, wanting to see what else is out there. So a three day jam session was not out of the question. The longest I remember was four days – really, four days! We were just playing constantly, there were at least 2 or 3 people playing, keeping the music going and people drifted in and out. I remember waking up, I was in the barn and had fallen asleep. I woke up and Jerry [Garcia] was playing the guitar, and Crosby was on the rhythm guitar, and Mickey was in the corner on the drums. There were other people asleep or relaxing when I woke up… that's what was happening. I woke up and immediately went on the instrument and starting playing. The discovery, the trying to find out, trying to get to "the more," getting the instrument to speak to you, that's a whole different way of looking at creativity which did not exist in India. That's a major lesson I learned and also was a break-out of the old way of praying and meditating and worshiping.

Trevor: You had mentioned the spirit in the instrument; could you elaborate on how Indian spirituality and classical Indian music are intertwined?

Zakir: I have to say that when it comes to playing a concert or performing for a number of people or being on stage, I do not impose the idea of spirituality through music onto the audience. I simply don't do that. For me, it's a very personal thing. My connection to the beings that have gone before, that have touched that instrument before, that have laid their blessings on it, it's just between me and them. And I hope that my connection with them is so strong that an aura of it appears anyway when I'm on the stage and playing and if people are so attuned, will lock into it and feel it the way I'm feeling it. Because my main function as a musician on stage is to entertain. So, I will do that. If I am to seek spiritual enlightenment through music with others, then it will be with my students, my fellow brothers of music who I'm playing with in a room, like the Sufis call "zikir." We will play and it will get to a point where people see the same light at the same time and that magical moment will be arrived at and experienced and the connection will be made between us that will never be broken, ever.

That being said, our great gurus of old have taught us that this music has its roots in divinity. That means that music emerged or was given as a boon to mankind, at least in India, by the gods and goddesses who existed at that time and so have become a constant part of our lives. Like Lord Krishna with his flute, Saraswati with her vina, Lord Shiva with his damaru. If you look through the statues and the paintings of gods and goddesses in their various forms, they all have at least one little instrument with them. So we believe this is a boon, it comes from them, it is a blessing and must be treated as such – this is why you take a shower, you go to the altar, you sit and practice, you do it that way. For great many centuries, the music stayed in the temples. And then, it somehow found its way to the courts and struggled between being a connection to God and an entertainment art form. It kept struggling until 1947 when India achieved independence from Britain and all the principalities were gone. And so now there were no jobs for court musicians anymore. So what do they do? They had to find a way to live so they brought the music to the stage; so Indian music as an entertainment art form is only that old. It really started to find its way in front of the audience, to communicate to them, to interact with them, to connect with them and to simplify things enough for them to be able to understand and attach themselves to the music in the '50s. It is still trying to find a balance between being a spiritual form of music and being an entertainment form of music. The old gurus and masters, they still want to keep themselves connected to that old way of thinking. What the new generation wants to be able to play the music for the sake of playing the music.

But, if you look at me, when I get on the stage to perform my music, whether I'm playing in a night club, in a concert at Golden Gate Park, a big festival outdoors, or anywhere, my preparation towards arriving at that point where I will hit my first note on the instrument is the same as it has always been. That has not changed. I will still go through that whole process of cleansing myself, focusing myself, and putting on my traditional garb. I will not allow shoes on the stage, I will not allow any kind of outside influence. I want to approach my instrument with the idea that I am in the presence of those beings. And then, once I have approached the instrument and established that connection with myself and them and paid my respects to them, then I open up and start to enjoy the music in a more open manner. That's why you find Indian music is very meditative in the beginning. It's within itself, it develops and then it opens up because that whole first part is for the gods, the gurus, or the masters. [You] establish that connection, pay those respects, and then move on.

I have worked with a hell of lot of musicians and have seen them observing and also diligently following the traditional ways of connection. It's the same: they will wear what's required of them, they will get on the stage and they will start in that manner… and then they will boogie [laughs]. We are still in that transitional zone but the connection of each individual musician with the spirits, it's something that I said earlier: when you make that contact and you see that same lighted path and you walk down that path with your fellow brothers and musicians, that contact cannot be severed ever. It's made. That's why I'm playing with Airto Moreira, the late Hamza Al-Din, Mickey Hart – those guys, for the last 30 years. That connection was made! That connection was made with John McLoughlin 34 years ago and it's still there – and with all the other old musicians of India whom I've been working with. And I'm still working with them because that light was seen, that connection made, and it will never be severed.

Click here to see PART TWO of this interview with Zakir Hussain, where he speaks about the spirituality of rhythm and the drum, the blend of Eastern and Western music, and much more.

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Article edited by Andrew Hoogheem

Photography by Susana Millman