The drums of July

The term "world beat" takes on new meaning at the Ford in the coming month

BY LINDA CHIAVAROLI

I’m standing on the Ford stage, in my wide stance, left foot in front, right in back, stick raised high above my head, ready to strike the small drum on the wooden stand in front of me. I feel powerful. I feel elegant. I feel part of a community of rhythm. I may not look powerful or elegant to an outside eye, but Bryan Yamami of TAIKOPROJECT makes me think I do.

He is teaching a Ford J.A.M. (Jazzed and Motivated) Session on taiko (the Japanese word for “drum”) drumming for about 80 people, adults and children, who, like me, are learning the rudiments of taiko, as well as the deep satisfaction of playing a drum. “The Taiko Experience” J.A.M. is an introduction to TAIKOPROJECT’s “Rhythmic Relations 2010” concerts at the Ford on the evenings of July 10 and 11, but it is also a preview to a July schedule at the Ford studded with events featuring drums from all corners of the globe.

Yamami, the front man of TAIKOPROJECT, now celebrating its 10^th anniversary, was compelled by his parents to learn taiko. In a recent interview he recalled, “I was involved …in all that American stuff — baseball and soccer... My parents thought Taiko would be a way for me to do something that was more attached to being a Japanese-American.” At first, he didn’t like it: “I certainly didn’t think it was going to take over the rest of my life.” But it did.

Just as Yamami shared his drumming specialty at the “Taiko Experience” J.A.M., Gino Gamboa will demonstrate his at “Afro-Peruvian Percussion 101,” the July 5 J.A.M. The native of Lima, Peru, is a master of percussion on all levels, especially focusing on teaching — he does clinics internationally — and fabricating the Peruvian “cajón.”

Gamboa explains that the cajón is the symbolic instrument of the Afro-Peruvian music. Like many other South American percussions, it's a substitute for African drums, usually prohibited to the slaves brought to the New World. The name describes what it is: a box. It is said that the first cajones were the boxes of the fruit pickers of the coast region.”

The front face of the cajón, called “tapa” is different from the back and the sides; the tapa is much thinner than the rest and is the playing surface, while the back has a hole for sound projection. Gamboa likes the cajón because it can be used to play many styles of music and in virtually any acoustic setting, not to mention it’s a lot lighter to carry than a drumkit.

The cajón will be one of a number of types of drums featured in the “Afro-Cuban Percussion 101” J.A.M. on July 19. Led by Puerto Rico-born Walter Rodriguez, the session will focus on salsa rhythms.

Warren Casey of the Wicked Tinkers.

When the Wicked Tinkers perform at the Big!World!Fun! family show on the morning of July 24, one of the figures on stage will be Warren Casey who plays bass drum and “bodhrán” – a traditional Irish drum — in the four-member Celtic band.

Casey didn’t always play the jigs and reels of the Wicked Tinkers repertoire. He started out in a Macedonian folk dance group and learned the bass drum from a Macedonian-Gypsy master named Nestor. Casey made his first bass drum, stretching goat skin across a wooden frame, and modeled it after the Macedonian tapan or tupan. He estimates he’s built between 15 and 20 bass drums both for himself and for sale.

On his Web site he has a photo of shaving the goat skin for the drum. “You can buy chemically processed goatskin with the hair removed, but I prefer to do my own,” says Casey. “I like to leave a bit more of the top layer of the goat skin. It gives the drum a richer sound.”

The musicians of Viver Brasil play (front l to r) atabaques, timbau and congas as well as (rear l to r) repinque and surdo.  Photo: RGB Photography

The sound of the drums plays a powerful role in Afro-Brazilian culture. In the ceremonies of the Candomblé religion, the atabaque drums and the drummers call down the energy of the “orixas” or deities of Yoruban mythology, which originated in Africa. The atabaque and several other types of drums — conga drums, surdos, bongos and more — will provide rhythm and performance energy to Viver Brasil’s show at the Ford the evening of July 31. (The company can use the atabaque drums in performance, because their drums have not gone under an "initiation" process required of the drums to be played in the ceremony.)

Dance, music and voice all function together in a Viver Brasil performance. Luiz Badaró co-artistic director and co-founder of Viver Brasil, is not only a percussionist but a master dancer and choreographer. A native of Savador, Bahia, Brazil, he has been choreographing and performing for over 30 in Brazil, Europe, Africa and the United States.

The fusion of elements in performance is electrifying. As the L.A. Weekly said of the Viver Brasil experience: “... from the first sound of the atabaque drums, a surge of electricity sweeps through the audience, unites us with the irrepressibly energetic troupe of dancers, drummers and singers and keeps us in an elevated, almost combustible state until well past the last sound fades away.”

Linda Chiavaroli, Director of Communications for the Los Angeles County Arts Commission/Ford Theatres, has worked in marketing and pr for dance companies, orchestras, individual artists and arts centers, and as a journalist covering the performing arts.

DRUM EVENTS THIS JULY AT THE FORD:

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