Drumming at the Edge of Magic a Journey Into the Spirit of Percussion
Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead has an almost religious approach to playing the drums : In the way that others define themselves as a Catholic, a Protestant or a Jew, Hart defines himself as a drummer. "Exploring the spirit side of the drum has been the major adventure of my adulthood, if not my whole life, " he writes in `Drumming at the Edge of Magic.'
As Hart recounts it, drumming has always had a spiritual and physical effect on him, including various degrees of ecstasy and trance. Touched by what he perceived as the primal power of the drums, he set out to collect and study the folklore of percussion instruments, especially in regard to their religious and ceremonial uses.
Although it often aspires to be a primer on the anthology of drumming, `Drumming at the Edge' succeeds more as a history of his obsession than as a history of the drum. Among the book's most engaging segments are his recollections of playing parade drums as a child; experimenting with fellow drummer Bill Kreutzmann in the Grateful Dead; playing the `tar,' an African hand drum, with Egyptian musicians all night around a desert campfire; and attempting to replicate the `chilla,' a ritual retreat of Indian drummers, by drumming nonstop for four days.
While convincing in relating his obsessions, Hart is on shakier ground when he tries to substantiate the mythic and metaphysical properties of the drum. In Hart's cosmic scheme, the universe is built on noise and pulse rhythm and all drumming is an attempt to touch the universal. When Hart listens to rock & roll drumming, he hears the echo of Africa's Yoruba drummers worshiping an earth goddess thousands of years ago. For Hart, each drum has a personality sometimes malevolent, sometimes good that drummers must coax out and meet; he describes gongs in his own collection as having monks and tigers "in them." There are times when Hart's absolute conviction is the spirituality of the drums is itself inspiring; at other times it seems so private as to be incomprehensible to anyone else.
Although a personal account, `Drumming at the Edge of Magic' is not an autobiography. Yet it effectively uses Hart's search for his own father, an accomplished drummer and con man whom he never knew as a child, as a counterpoint to his search for knowledge about the drums. Fans of the Grateful Dead should be forewarned that Hart has very little to say here about the group's music.
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Personnel: Kamaal Fareed (vocals, keyboards, synthesizer, mini-Moog synthesizer, drums, bells, drum programming, background vocals); Sun Singleton, Aisha Morris (vocals); Guyora Kats (guitar, piano, Fender Rhodes piano, Clavinet, background vocals); Kurt Rosenwinkel (guitar, keyboards); Chris Sholar (guitar, background vocals); Kelvin Sholar (piano, Fender Rhodes piano, organ, synthesizer); Jonathan Blake (drums).Audio Mixers: Steve Souder; Q-Tip.Photographer: Danny Clinch.A personal, unique project compared to AMPLIFIED (Q-Tip`s first under his own name), KAMAAL THE ABSTRACT fittingly sounds more like a solo album; whereas AMPLIFIED merely built on the digital soul of the last Tribe Called Quest album (THE LOVE MOVEMENT), this one is wide-ranging and diverse, a relaxed, loose-limbed date. Q-Tip lays way back on these cuts, rapping in a quick, low monotone for the opener, "Feelin`," even while the song breaks into some restrained guitar grind on the choruses. Guitars, in fact, crop up all over this record. Setting aside comparisons to the contemporary record by N.E.R.D. (the rock side project of hip-hop super-producers Neptunes), Q-Tip crafted a record that pays homage to the last gasp of organically produced mainstream pop in the `70s and `80s, paying a large compliment to Prince and Stevie Wonder, even as he proves himself far more talented than D`Angelo (if not quite as soulful). The beats are pointed and clipped, to be expected on a Q-Tip record, but he allows plenty of space for the arrangements to speak, like the trim trumpet lines pacing "Even if It Is So" or allowing plenty of room for extended blowing from a flute on the warm, pastoral "Do You Dig You." The former is one of the best tracks here, Q-Tip introducing his story song with a fluid, ten-second speed-rap that says more about the plight of the single mother he adores than any other rapper could with an entire album. This wasn`t the kind of record to light up the charts--which could account for the fact it didn`t appear on the shelves in late April 2002, as expected, and only finally got an official release in 2009-- but in many ways it`s superior to Q-Tip`s debut. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.