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 Mickey Hart
By Tom Crenshaw tom@rockom.net

As a child, Mickey Hart used to stand out in thunderstorms listening to the patterns and sounds of the rain as it fell. He recalls some of his neighbors saying quizzically to his parents, "That boy of yours, Mrs. Hart, he's a strange fellow!" That rhythmic inquisitiveness as a child led Mickey deeper into the mysteries of sound as he grew older, becoming one of the world’s most celebrated percussionists and authoritarians on world music and music's healing abilities.

For nearly three decades Mickey has performed on drums and percussion as part of the Grateful Dead (along with fellow drummer Bill Kreutzmann) but his accomplishments don't end there. Through his tireless study of world music Mickey has gone on to contribute more than most any other musician to the study of sound, rhythm and the incredible healing aspects contained within.

Mickey has also written four books documenting his lifelong fascination with the history and mythology of music. These include Drumming at the Edge of Magic, Planet Drum, Spirit into Sound: The Magic of Music, and Songcatchers: In Search of the World’s Music. He’s appeared before the United States Senate to discuss the healing powers of music and rhythm and is a member of the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function at Beth Abraham Hospital where he continues his investigation into the connection between healing and rhythm and the neural bases of rhythm. Mickey has also been appointed to the Board of Trustees of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress where he heads the subcommittee on the digitization and preservation of the Center's vast collections.

In addition, Mickey Hart has composed music for movies, television and celebrated events including Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, the PBS special Vietnam: A Television History, and The 1996 Summer Olympic Games to mention a few.

RockOm had the extraordinary opportunity to spend some time with Mickey recently to discuss his early initiation into sound and rhythm, his role in the Grateful Dead, his various Grammy Award-winning albums of percussion and world music, and the incredible reality that there are new, healing rhythms being born into the world every day.

Mickey Hart: That all depends on what you call music and what you call drumming. I was always interested in the nature of the rain, loud sounds of the city, trolley cars – so the rhythmic tattoo of New York City first captivated me, the rhythm and the noise of things – buildings being torn down, a lawn mower – pretty much "loud stuff." I love the loud in things. The rain especially was transfixing because it came down so rhythmically. I would stand out in the rain and let it beat on me and it went deep into the subconscious and inner self. It felt really good to be out there. Those were my first thoughts of rhythm and noise.

Then of course the radio would captivate me. My mother had Folkways records tucked in the middle of a Duke Ellington collection. I started listening to pygmy rainforest music and listening to indigenous musicians as the first real turn-on to membranophones, or drums. And Latin music was really taking over at that time in New York City – Tito Puente and Machito – and that was coming out of every radio and every phonograph around the city. Before Rock N’ Roll there was Latin music which was full of syncopation and  got my ear. My dad and mom were both rudimental drummers and when my dad had left when I was an infant, he left a practice pad. That practice pad was my key into the other side. When I heard the report of the practice pad, that sealed the deal. There was nothing more beautiful than the short, sharp sound from the pad; I could listen to it over and over again. It became like my radar. That was the beginning of it all. I was a strange, unsettling boy.

RO: Tell us about meeting Babatunde Olatunji and how that impressed upon you.

Mickey Hart: Olatunji came in about 1959 much later; what I’m talking about is the early and mid-50s. But when I heard Olatunji's album Drums of Passion I had never really heard drums played at that level and I certainly had never heard a talking drum – a variable pitched instrument. Here you had the powerful trance loops of Western Africa. I mean people didn’t know that’s what they were experiencing but here you had trance rhythms played in New York City in a fine recording studio with CBS. And Baba was a great vocalist so here you had chant over these powerful, magical rhythms. So when I heard that album that sealed the deal as well as far as the power of raw percussion and voice. It changed my life, no doubt.

Then of course I was fortunate enough to run into him in 1985 and when I asked him to open up for the Grateful Dead, he didn’t know who we were. He said, “Ya, ya, ya…” and left. Someone then must have told him who I was and he called me back. We got to be friends and he opened for the Grateful Dead and the fans loved him. He became my best friend and the godfather of my daughter. So he was another major influence to me as well as to hundreds of thousands of practitioners and musicians from around the world – Coltrane knew him. All kinds of people were being sucked into this powerful rhythm snake.

RO: When did you first recognize your experience with rhythm and drumming going from beyond the ordinary into a mystical or spiritual realm?

Mickey Hart: I didn’t know what to call it when I was young but I was going into trance when I was alone. I played alone a lot and so it became a meditation and I was definitely moving in and out of trance. Looking back on it now I would play for hours and not eat. I was totally in the zone and that is a sure sign of a trance. That was unconscious. But then when I started playing in the Grateful Dead, I started really seeing the ritual unfold. It was out of control. It was a wondrous thing, going into a new soundscape that no one had ever been to. Well, I had never been to it, nor had anyone else around me. So I figure we were moving into realms of consciousness by taking psychoactive drugs simultaneously and playing for hours and hours. Again, this was a deep trance. People would just lose themselves in the groove and dance for hours and copulate and everything. It was a quite a scene. That also made a big impression on me, seeing a new ritual being born – you know, with white kids on the edge of the Western world.

Then as far as the health part of all this, I saw that music reconnected you with the infinite, vibratory universe when my grandmother had Alzheimer’s. She hadn’t spoken a word in six months and I isolated her once in the car when I taking her somewhere. I just happened to play my tar, my single-membrane tar, for her for about 20 minutes. She was looking at it and all the sudden she spoke my name and I thought, “Wow, this is powerful.” This is somebody who was disconnected from speech, who was motor-impaired saying my name. Then when I stopped, she went back into the darkness. That was a moment for me and I realized that rhythm has to do with life and the giving of life and the taking of life. When the rhythm stops, you’re dead. When the rhythm is good, you live a good life. It also can reconnect some of the connections that are broken in the brain using certain rhythms at certain volumes. It was then that rhythm therapy came into view and the music therapists started appearing. I appeared in front of the Senate in 1990 and testified on the power of rhythm in front of Harry Reid on the Committee for Aging. Harry gave me and Oliver Sacks a million bucks to kick-start music therapy here in the West.

RO: You mentioned in earlier interviews that the Grateful Dead were in the business of transportation. What was your role in transporting your fans and listeners?

Mickey Hart: I made the traps. I was in the engine room. Me and Bill Kreutzmann made that feeling that allowed you to go to those places that laid the foundation for the melody and the harmony and the song.

RO: So in a sense of the word do you and Bill Kreutzmann consider yourselves modern day shamans?

Mickey Hart: You could say that. I would say we’re more “seat-of-the-pants” kind of shamans. But we are practicing the art of shamanism for sure. We’re transporting people into other consciousness and that’s what shaman do. Yeah, we don’t have a license [laughs] but we do it!

RO: In your role of being a transporter, where are you wanting your listeners to “arrive”?

Mickey Hart: It’s certainly a state of bliss, of being centered, of happiness – where you can make sense of everything around you. That’s what consciousness is all about. Everybody has a different consciousness but the idea is to elevate the consciousness to a place where you can feel who you are and how you fit in. That’s what spirituality really is – it’s a tuning system, to tune you and the universe. Part of the universe is the people you live with, the people you love, your children, your self! If you can’t have this feeling within yourself you can’t give it to anyone else.

So it’s a constant maintenance and practice. I play every day to maintain a level that I can share with others. How do you share the precious, invisible feeling of spirit with someone? Well you have to change it into a form. In this case, it’s music; it’s vibratory. The universe is vibratory, you are vibratory, the things you create in culture are vibratory. How these rhythm worlds all work together, that’s the yoga of sound. That’s why music is such a great vehicle. It’s not really about the music, it’s what the music does to you and the feeling it creates in you and what you do with that feeling. Music is important!

If you talk to Michael Jordan, he will tell you that going to the basket and being up there for four or five seconds -- that’s God. He’s in an absolutely perfect, rhythmic entrainment with himself, the people around him and the universe. It doesn’t happen all the time; it only happens in moments. It’s not like you can tune yourself in and stay in this place forever, it’s a constant ebb and flow in and out of these wonderful states of consciousness. But if you don’t go for these moments, then you’re just in the music business and I never thought of myself in the music business. It wasn’t about that. When I went after a groove and the music, it wasn’t necessarily to entertain. When I get lost in it, it might not even be interesting on some levels, it may be self-serving. But I’m trying to create some kind of a feeling that’s relevant to the moment.

You can’t really judge these things in those terms of good or bad, you have to judge them in other ways such as what do they do? Are they positive? Are they negative? Like love, compassion, all those good things are positive. War, hate, racism, murder, people who take more than they give – that’s bad rhythm. Health is good rhythm. Disease means you’re out of rhythm. I’m sure all musicians want to play technically good and so do I, but I try to separate the ritual from the technical. You have to be technically good to create good ritual. These are very gray lines – one person’s spirit is another person’s non-spirit. So this is a very individual thing.

RO: You’ve been exposed to a wide variety of spiritual influences from that found in Indian and African music, to Tibetan monks, to the shamanistic spirituality of Carlos Santana to the mythological and bigger picture spirituality of Joseph Campbell. How would you describe your current spiritual worldview.

Mickey Hart: Well I know who my God is. If there is a Creator, it’s a rhythm. In the vibratory universe, the seed sound is the creation of everything. And in that sound, in that rhythm, you find what some people would call spirituality or the sacred dimension. There was nobody up there that said, “make this [life] happen.” This came out an arrhythmic event 10 billion years ago like I write about in the books. Now I’m really starting to really study the planet and listening to what they say through radio telescopes – making music with the universe. It’s led me back to the seed sound and that’s what I’m exploring now – dealing with the fabric of the universe and how to make contact with it and interact with it intelligently.

RO: Last year we spoke with your friend Zakir Hussain and he went into some details about rituals and cleansing before performing. You say you practice every day to stay in shape, is there anything ritualistic or ceremonial in regards to your warm-ups or preparations to perform that you’d be willing to share with us?

Mickey Hart: Sure. I always feel my heartbeat. I work out in the morning doing my cardio routine and then on the way to the studio (which I go to everyday) I start focusing on me and my heart beat, my rate. Even when I’m walking I feel the pulse. That gives me a place to start. Like as I’m talking to you now, I’m feeling my pulse. It’s something that I refer to from time to time. I always try to start there. I warm up a lot for long periods of time before I actually commit to the drum. I prepare myself and warm up really slow and long. I like taking an hour and half in my warm-up before I really go after a drum.

RO: Let’s talk about 1991’s Planet Drum CD where you convened some the world’s finest percussionists and musicians together. What were your intentions in gathering these particular artists to record that groundbreaking album?

Mickey Hart: I knew them all individually but they didn’t know each other. One night in the middle of the night I popped up and realized that I’m sitting on top of the mountain here. This is the Promised Land. I made the calls and one by one I introduced them to each other. They all showed up, turned on the microphones and let it all pour out. It was certainly musical magic. All the tracks were first takes, one person started playing and the next person related to it. I told them the mission was that we weren’t going for solos, we were going for the deep drumming groove and to entrain. They all could relate to that and that was history. That was really percussive history.

RO: Was it surprising the response the CD received?

Mickey Hart: Not in my world! [laughs] I thought everything we did could sell a million records. No… yes, of course it was. Winning the Grammy and being 26 weeks at #1 and touring and selling hundreds of thousands of CDs was gratifying. It also elevated percussion into a whole new realm where it was respected as an instrument equal to melody and harmony. It was musical.

RO: So you repeated it again this year with your Grammy for Global Drum Project?

Mickey Hart: Yeah, we did it again this year and now we’re working on a new one. That’s what I’ll be doing as soon as finish this interview.

RO: Earlier this year the Tibetan Chants for World Peace album you produced with the Gyoto Monks Tantric Choir was at the top of the Amazon and iTunes charts…

Mickey Hart: [laughs] Yeah, can you imagine that! I thought when that happened, I had seen everything. Here we’ve got a choir of monks from Tibet singing three notes each that is on the top of the charts. I never thought I’d live to see this. It made my day!

RO: What did that experience teach you, bringing the monks into the studio?

Mickey Hart: Well I’ve been doing it since 1987 and it’s rewarding beyond words, sitting there letting the chants wash over you. I think it’s very self-serving on my part. In some ways isolating them and listening to them for hours, having the privilege of being with these wonderful people, turns you into a speck of dust. It puts you in your proper perspective in the universe and is always a thrill. But this one was over the top because they allowed me to overdub themselves on themselves. We created a choir of over 110 or 120 voices. That hasn’t been heard outside the monasteries of Tibet since the 50s because there aren’t that many chanting monks now and they don’t do these giant rituals in Dharamsala, where most of them reside. Any day listening to the chants of the Gyoto Tantric Choir is a good day for me.

RO: Do you believe there’s still music and rhythms on the planet that we haven’t been made aware of yet?

Mickey Hart: There are rhythms being born as we speak - new rhythms being born in places we know of and places we don’t know of. That’s the way of music. That’s the way of things – they either grow and become relevant and serve the community or they die. Yes, there are new rhythms being born constantly and they’re mutations actually. Almost all music on this planet is a mutation or hybrid of something else that came before.

RO: What’s next for you, Mickey?

Mickey Hart: I’m after the sound of the universe, that’s where I’m going now.

www.mickeyhart.net

www.facebook.com/mickeyhart

Special thanks to Rose Soloman and Dennis McNally

Mickey Hart photo by John Werner

An Interview with Medeski, Martin and Wood drummer Billy Martin
By Trevor Harden and Tom Crenshaw

The earth is populated with thousands upon thousands of musical acts who write, record and perform within their comfort zones, using the live stage to rehash their recorded music. Sparse are the bands willing to experiment, improvise and truly "play" in the playing of their music. Medeski, Martin and Wood, however, are one of those bands.

With as broad of a musical palette as any ensemble, MMW explores and experiments with sound, rhythm, and melody, unafraid to take chances or even to fall on their faces. But don't expect that often, as the group's well-honed skills and superb musicianship are the envy of musicians and fans worldwide.

Now in their eighteenth year together, MMW has completed a new series of albums entitled The Radiolarians Series (the last of which, Radiolarians III, was released on August 4th). The project itself was innovative in that it thwarted the tired, age-old pattern of touring in support of an already recorded album. Instead, they wrote the music on tour, performing (or even creating) fresh pieces for live audiences, only to return later to the studio to record the new pieces.

In this interview, drummer Billy Martin talks about the Radiolarians process, the band's openness to change, the "motherly" power in creating something new and tapping into higher dimensions through music.

RockOm: We recently spent some time with Brazilian vocalist Flora Purim and her percussionist husband Airto Moreira talking with them about their heritage, Brazilian rhythm and sound and how they’ve contributed to its evolution. Before becoming part of Medeski, Martin & Wood, you were a part of the NYC Brazilian scene in the 1980s. What led to your discovery and joining into that scene and why do you think the Brazilians seem to know something intrinsic about rhythm that the rest of the world envies?

Billy: The Brazilians have a unique rhythmic vocabulary unlike any other, which for me was very magical. When I was younger I discovered and fell in love with it so I dropped everything and for two years only played Brazilian music. It changed my life. It's a different way of being and a whole different world. I still love it and I learned a lot about African rhythms through Brazilian rhythms, really. The way I phrase and play drums is heavily influenced by that style. But once I learned to play Brazilian-style, I realized I couldn't only be a Brazilian drummer or percussionist. I had to take it my own way and reinterpret it.

RockOm: You’re also a visual artist with your printmaking, painting, pencil and pastel drawings, and other mediums. Do any of the creative attributes of visual artistry help with your creating musically?

Billy: Absolutely. It comes from the same place of exploration and experimentation. When I make art, it's usually through an improvising technique where I'm not sure what I'm going to end up with, which is the same way that I create music.

RockOm: Medeski, Martin & Wood has successfully experimented and reinvented itself many times over the years. What do you think has contributed to your being open for change - which seems to be a problem for many other bands?

Billy: I think it's just our personalities, where we're coming from and where we're going, and the chemistry we have. It's also the love we share for creating new things, keeping it fresh, being involved with growing and learning, and not being afraid to take chances. We all share that in this band. There's no real strong personality that says, "I just want to play the same thing every night. I don't want to be challenged. I just want to make the money. I just want to play the same thing and play the same little trick I do every night that makes people go 'Ooh, ahh!' Let's collect the check and play it safe." For us, that's like the fuckin' devil. It's just not the way we work.

RockOm: Many of your songs are thematic in that the song title and the composition or expressed feeling all seem to be communicating a certain theme. How much of your writing starts with a non-musical idea - where you want to write a song about a certain subject and then you put music to that idea - as opposed to just writing music and naming it later?

Billy: Only a very, very small percentage of anything is conceptual where we say, "Let's do something that's about this or let's take this title and create a piece of music." It's more that we want to communicate with sound and use our musical vocabulary to see what happens. We just get together and see what happens when we have a musical discussion. Then we will take notes on it, record it or just think about it. But there's only about 5% of our music that comes in [conceptually].

RockOm: Reflecting back now that the Radiolarians project is complete, would you say you and the group have accomplished your objectives with what you were aiming for in this collection of albums and tours?

Billy: Definitely. I think originally we were going for four different "seasons" but to me this is even better. I like the number three: we're a trio, three is a powerful number, and three volumes of music is perfect. It's asymmetrical; I like that. I am really happy with what happened. We didn't know where it was going to end up and each record evolved out of the previous one. And that was the whole point, that it was an evolving process of writing. That theme is in there: evolution, revolution, re-evolution.

RockOm: What would you say you learned most about the band or just in general through the Radiolarians process?

Billy: It's hard to say; we've been together for eighteen years. Musically, we're changing all the time and so as far as what we learn, it's almost hard to put words to it. I guess patience, learning how to be patient and how not to repeat ourselves. But that's an ongoing theme. On a more technical level, I'd say we're learning about making records and releasing them ourselves. We're learning how to be a record company. The things we've dreamt about are becoming true now because we've been involved with other labels and this is now our own thing. We're also learning to do more with less, financially. With Blue Note, Capitol or Indirecto there was some money there. I mean it wasn't our money... but then we didn't own the end product. It was our music but physically the recording wasn't ours and that kind of sucked. The trade-off was investing in ourselves and taking the money out of our own pockets and all the sudden you get more serious about it in a way, because now it's our responsibility to package this thing and get it out there. We've become a little more careful how much time we've spent on recording, mastering, editing or whatever.

RockOm: There’s a freedom inherent in music as well as a long history of cutting edge, innovative jazz that touches on or hints at a higher dimension in music besides the norm. What’s your experience with sound as a vehicle to higher dimensions, or higher levels of consciousness, and would you describe MMW’s music as a means to reaching those states?

Billy: Yes, it's the quickest way for me to "get there," as far as reaching another level of communication. I'm not very good with words and I've developed my own way of making music and using sound that is my own. It's been an inspirational and spiritual self-discovery that I've gone through. There's magic in there; it's real magic. Sometimes I'm doing it and I don't take it so seriously. I mean I'm always focused and trying to do my best but there's times when I don't take myself so seriously that I say, "Check me out, I'm a master and you're going to learn from me." I don't do that unless I'm teaching. I'm only going to say, "This is who I am when I'm being sincere. I'm going to do some stuff - some of it is going to work and some of it isn't - and I'm not going to be so serious about myself." But then people come up to me and they say, "Oh my God, you changed my life." To me that's the magic, the power of that stuff. Sometimes maybe when I'm not witnessing this spiritual thing that's happening, other people may be getting it. It's really cool in that way. Sometimes I'm conscious of what I'm doing and what's happening and other times other people see it.

RockOm: Do you notice those magical or mystical moments when improvising with your bandmates and you lock into a groove that seems to have come from beyond yourself?

Billy: Yes and a lot of it comes through the improvising when we make these discoveries. We look at each other like, "Oh my God, how in the hell did we just decide to do that? We didn't plan this; it just happened." We look at each other with our mouths open sometimes and that's the beautiful thing about it. Just being creative and not repeating yourself note for note is probably one of the greatest things you can do because you're creating something that hasn't been done before. When you're doing that you're creating a new thing and putting a new thing into the world; it's very powerful. Not powerful in a warrior way, more in a motherly way of creating a new being. That's a spiritual thing.

RockOm: Camp MMW has wrapped it's 2nd year. Tell us about the camp and what you've learned in working with musicians of varying levels.

Billy: We do it upstate New York in the Catskills which is in this area called the Full Moon Resort. It's a beautiful spot on hundreds of acres and the way it's set up is just perfect. We have the barn for master classes where we show films and there's other spaces in which we teach. John, Chris and I will have workshops at the same time so some of the student body comes to my thing because I'm going to do Afro-Brazilian rhythms or I'm going to talk about improvising and soloing or they'll go to John's where he's going to talk about his keyboard setup or what it means to improvise. It's a very intimate setting where we're getting hands on with the students, we're creating ensembles and they're getting to play with people they've never played with before under our direction. They also get their own time to do jam sessions at night with other people and cross-pollinate. We give them the juice and the ideas or concepts they can use and we end up having a really good time. It's only our second year but I'm confident that it's something we'll keep going.

RockOm: You're about to embark on a new string of fall tour dates. What are you anticipating about this coming tour?

Billy: We're always into writing new music but now that we have all three volumes of Radiolarians, we'll throw those out. We'll sprinkle the set with Radiolarians tunes and improvise on that and then we'll start experimenting with some new ideas. We may even get into a little more visual stuff too - video that relates to the Radiolarians - if it works out. But basically it's going to be the same guys up there trying to do some new shit. [laughs]

http://www.mmw.net

Thanks to Myles Grosovsky and Sneak Attack Media

By Tom Crenshaw, tom@RockOm.net

Yesterday I interviewed the legendary percussionist Airto Moreira for an upcoming feature planned at RockOm. For those who may not know of Moreira, Arito has worked with Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Francis Ford Coppola, Mickey Hart, Zakir Hussain and Flora Purim (Moreira’s wife who is a celebrated Brazilian jazz singer herself) to mention a few. I can only say his unpretentious viewpoint of his accomplishments precedes his reputation as a musician - quite impressive for someone who has contributed some of music's greatest rhythms. I was particularly struck by how Moreira expressed his acting as a channel from which a rich spiritual joy pours forth. It was when joy overtook him that he knew he was creating and performing music of the most extraordinary kind.

How can we, as Moreira, become a channel or a vessel for Spirit to express joy in the carrying out of our obligations - be it creating or performing music, or simply performing our daily work, no matter how mundane our tasks may seem?

One of the most effective ways to “get out of our own way” and express joy in the moment is to recognize the moment for what it is: it is sacred. This moment is, as the greatest teachers of spiritual enlightenment have taught for thousands of years, all that we can truly exist in. In recognizing the moment, instead of reliving the past or anticipating the future, we can begin to witness our being carrying out what it is we are doing in a new light. We become present and capable of being a channel to express joy.

Another way we can express joy is to not judge what it is we are doing in the moment so quickly. We tend to jump right in, right away at any given moment and define what we think is going on before Spirit has the opportunity to color our awareness and shed its light on our being. Take for example playing music. There isn’t a right way or a wrong way to play a note in music- there is simply the most effective way to communicate how you are feeling in the moment. How can we perform passionately while we're worrying about the last note that just tanked and anticipating the notes to come, hoping they won’t turn out like the notes before?

The same can be said for experiencing music as a listener. Upon hearing new music we tend to anticipate where we think the music is going.  Again, we’re not in the moment but referencing experiences from the past (“this sounds like such and such song”). We can’t experience the full joy of the music because we aren’t present – we’re anticipating or judging what it is we think we’re going to hear.

Today, spend some time being fully present in the moment in whatever you are doing and open up your being to become a channel for expressing joy. You’ll know when you are recognizing this sacred moment when you’re quickly filled with all that is good and joyous. When you can’t contain anymore, all that goodness will spill over and out, out into those around you and into the world.

You are designed from joy, to be filled with joy and to share that joy with those around you. Be present and open, don’t judge and become a channel. You have beautiful music inside you that is already in-tune with all that is good.

Watch for RockOm’s interview and podcast featuring percussionist Airto Moreira coming in September.

Through changing times, powwow drum still the heartbeat of the people
Written by JoKAY DOWELL for Nativetimes.com

Positive or not, change has come to the powwow arena and probably will continue to do so. But, some standards must be kept in order not to lose the culture entirely.

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – To those lacking knowledge of Indian ways, the powwow drum in the center of the dance circle is an inanimate object made from stretched rawhide and wood used by singers who beat it to the rhythm of an unintelligible ‘chant.’ But to those who were reared in that circle, the drum is the heartbeat and spirit of the people, a living thing to be respected, for it holds healing power and carries ancient songs further into the future.

“In the Ottawa language, the words drum and heart are very close,” said respected Ottawa drummer and singer, Dr. Kevin Dawes. “When I first started (backyard) singing, long before I ever went out at a dance, I was told ‘Don’t just sit there and tap on it, being silly; that when I hit the drum I was talking to God.”

Like Dawes, Sac and Fox, Euchee and Pawnee men’s straight dancer Rusty Tiger remembers his first encounters with the instrument central to the powwow culture and the responsibility for its care.

“It involved ceremony,” he explained, “There were drum keepers in charge of this drum to cedar it off and pray…to take it out and let the sun shine on it, just like other living things that take their energy from the sun. When there was no sun they used the warmth of a fire to achieve a certain tone which enhanced the overall effect of the song and the drumbeat, giving life to the intent of the song by the composer. Have you ever heard a flat drum?”

Though powwows are social gatherings not held to the strict decorum of traditional ceremonies, there is a presumption of protocol, based on the beliefs and practices of the community in which the event is held. In one’s approach to the drum, there is an expectation of behavior that sometimes seems to be lost on some of the younger generation.

“We were told to watch the man leading the song, never raise our sticks higher than his; this is so foreign to the kids nowadays,” Dawes said. Tiger also noted that some of the youth who dance seem to be more interested in just their own particular contest than in the overall dance.

“This is also going to the way side due to the non-interest of the young dancers today, too busy visiting and conserving energy for their particular contest, most are just walking around. I was always taught to dance each song as if you were contesting, you are there to dance, sit down and be quiet, until it was time to get up again. If you wanted to visit or half-dance don’t even get dressed,” he was taught.

Dennis Zotigh, Kiowa, San Juan Pueblo and Santee Dakota singer and dancer, now the community events coordinator at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian is in a position to continue to teach the ways of his family and emphasizes the potential for teaching respect around the drum.

“If I am going to the drum to sing, I should have good thoughts and feelings in general and toward the other singers. I need to be respectful when approaching the drum and know the protocols of the tribes I am singing with,” he said.

Along with teaching respect for culture and the differences in communities, the drum has healing powers.

Dee Dee Goodeagle is known all over the United States as a championship women’s buckskin dancer. Her dress is made from deer hides softened to a velvety texture then stitched with colorful patterns of floral and geometric designs. Now in her 70s, she recently relented to knee surgery, having worn out the joints from years of refined, deliberate steps that exemplify the southern or Oklahoma style of women’s dance.

“I blew them out,” Goodeagle said of her knees. “The doctors wanted me to have surgery for some time, but the drum makes me feel so good I didn’t want to have to stop dancing even to get my knees fixed.” Within weeks after surgery, Goodeagle said she went to a dance and could not resist the call of the drum. She is back in the arena going strong.

Zotigh explains that the drum is more than an instrument to provide cadence for the dancers. There is a spirit that each powwow drum, with its singers, diffuses into the dance arena. The interaction between the drum, the singers and the dancers is powerful with spiritual and physical energy.

“This spirit, if used in the right way, can heal those who cannot dance, those who are troubled and those who are weary,” Zotigh said.

Besides interacting with the drum to set the mood for the event, singers have a unique perspective on the powwow culture that comes from their central location within the dance arena.

“The spirit enhances you with a particular song and that is translated outwardly to the dancers first, then there is feedback from the dancers back to the drum, by the blowing of the whistle and the war hoop, or even the ‘loo-loo’ of the women when that connection is made. The energy is astounding when this happens,” Tiger said.

Dawes agreed and said even with a presumption of decorum, there are exceptions when the crowd is obviously enjoying the singing coming from the drum.

“When you sing you miss out on almost all of the dancing, period. You have to be aware of how the dancers are tuned in to the music. An older singer told us that the only reason we’re out there is to make the dancers dance. After 37 years of singing, I still can’t stand failing in that. On the flip side, it’s a huge blast to see someone in street clothes out there dancing because he’s enjoying the music. I’ve noticed that as I sing less and ‘lawn chair it’ more, it feels good to be at home and just get out there in my droopy jeans and dance to be close to the drum,” Dawes said. But powwows have changed and some say it has not been all positive.

“The powwow world has evolved enough to where we hear people say they were raised in the ‘traditional powwow way.’ Go figure. Nowadays, we go to a gathering expecting to get something (usually money), whereas, in the past, people usually brought something to give away. We need to acknowledge that what we see today is (the participation of) tribes who have adopted this drum (or the powwow lifestyle) as opposed to their own traditional ways and made it suit their needs,” Damon Roughface, who comes from a long lineage of traditional Ponca dancers and singers, said.

Positive or not, change has come to the powwow arena and probably will continue to do so. But, some standards must be kept in order not to lose the culture entirely. Kiowa singer and powwow emcee Kelly Anquoe noted without the drum there would be no powwow.

Dawes related the warning of his father, former Ottawa Tribal Chairman Charles Dawes, now deceased, who was also an emcee at some of the oldest powwows in Oklahoma. “Dad used to quote a man named Frank Jones who said, ‘The drum is the heartbeat of the Indian people and when the last drumbeat has sounded, the Indian way will be no more.’”

PHOTO: Ponca singer Ed Littlecook, in white hat, leads singers in a victory song during a summer dance at White Eagle, Okla. Photo by JoKAY Dowell

I once had a very profound spiritual experience many years ago when I was a young musician. I took the entire day to myself at our studio (where our instruments and drums were set up) to just explore and try to finish a song on which I had been working. I became stuck on several lines of melody, trying to match it to the rhythm of the song and quickly became frustrated. I then deliberately chose to relax and let the mantel of reality slip more loosely around my shoulders, forgetting about the music at hand since the play had suddenly turned into work.
 
The next thing I knew I was sitting behind our drummer’s 13 piece double-bass drum kit holding his sticks and just tapping on the high-hat cymbals. I had never actually tried to play drums before and it felt very different surrounded by drums (instead of being at the foot of the stage as I was accustomed to as lead singer). I started tapping on several drums, rotating slowly from one Rototom to the next, then to the floor bass kick and found myself playing a very simple pattern using about six drums. I flowed into this pattern and felt an overwhelming sense of peace fill me and sustain me as I kept the pattern going. It was liberating to simply create an uncomplicated rhythm and let the sounds and feeling of hand on stick, stick on drumhead fill me.
 
This slow sequence soon gave way to more complex patterns rotating through all the drums in the kit to where I eventually found myself playing with such force and speed on every drum and cymbal that I felt like Keith Moon! I completely lost myself and felt such an incredible feeling of connecting in perfect rhythm, without conscious thought.
 
I’m not entirely sure how long I sat at the drum kit but that time I spent animated in the rhythms is one which left an indelible impression upon me.  Every lick had a purpose, every pattern made complete sense and felt divine, and my hands and feet were freed.
 
There are times when we feel totally out of sequence, so out of rhythm with our surroundings that we fail to recognize the natural rhythms so commonplace and inherent to our very being. We can lose all recognition of the significance of the rhythms to our being that when we do find ourselves in synch we’re more surprised than when we are lost and out of synch. Being in key with those natural rhythms makes for a more significant awareness of our place in this world. We’re here to not only keep tempo to our natural surroundings but to also create our very own unique tempo that defines our own being. When we’re out of synch all we need do is close our eyes and listen to the sound of our hearts beating, to the birds singing, the rivers flowing. We can’t ever truly lose tempo with life's inherent rhythms.    

[By Tom Crenshaw, RockOm.net]

Discuss this article

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