Click perspective to view full text

Design Q&A with Charles Eames

KEN VANDERMARK interview – Mutiny #13, by Raine Liimakka

Interview with Joe Maneri, by Stu Vandermark.

Eero Saarinen And The Analysis Of Creativity.

Evan Parker discusses John Coltrane

Interview with Ken Vandermark, Andrew Morgan and David Ryan.

KV 'Illustrated' part 1

KV 'Illustrated' part 2

IN ADDITION: Archive

AN ARGUMENT FOR JAZZ, by Ken Vandermark.

Exclaim! interview with Peter Brötzmann

'Verb List', 'Parcel Images' - Richard Serra

'Principles' - John Cage

Joe Morris Interview (from AudioOne, Vol.1)

Interview with Joe Morris (originally from AudioOne)

Brouillon For Socrate, by Erik Satie.

ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION, interview by Lloyd Peterson

GEORGE LEWIS, as interviewed by Lloyd Peterson

A CONVERSATION WITH HAMID DRAKE: Part 1



A CONVERSATION WITH HAMID DRAKE: Part 2
transcribed by Jason Guthartz


KEN VANDERMARK: You were talking about how people don’t really discuss what it’s like for drummers to play together, for percussionists to play together. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what that process entails. How do you work out – whether it’s verbal or just through the playing – or try to come to some kind of place... I’ve seen you and Michael [??], with Adam too, I’ve seen that. It’s clear you have a really strong rapport, and a sense of space and time and everything. You talked about it as a process that really takes work to get that to happen. What kind of process is that?

HAMID DRAKE: Yeah. Well, with Michael and I, for instance, it’s been very interesting. First of all, with Michael and myself it was one of those situations where we had always wanted to play together, but it had really never come about. Actually what happened was, his brother Paul, “Ziggy,” actually got us together, ‘cause I had been working with Ziggy... the work situations I had with Ziggy, he was working out of several capacities: one was an engineer and the other was a keyboard player. But the first time Michael and I got together, it was a benefit for Links Hall, and we just played, you know? [laughs] We just both grabbed a couple of frame drums and just started – we had never played together before, but we knew that each other had a certain knowledge of hand drums, frame drums, and so we just played. And it just kind of magically worked out. But that was kind of the cue for us to go ahead and pursue this more. So then we started getting together and we started talking about different concepts and feelings we had about drums and rhythm. We wanted to do something a little different, we didn’t want to just get on stage and just play...

KEN VANDERMARK: Yeah, right.

HAMID DRAKE: Not that that wouldn’t have been great [laughs] but we felt that maybe if it was just drums, the attention span of the audience just might not be there... [laughs] not lengthy [both laugh]...

KEN VANDERMARK: And you think that has something to do with drums? [both laugh] I’ve noticed that with just about every...

HAMID DRAKE: [laughs] So that was what we’d really like to do, just play. So we came up with this idea about cycles, because in Indian music the rhythmic system is based on cycles, and also a lot of the Middle Eastern music. Cycles of ten, cycles of eight, cycles of sixteen, seven, and on and on and on. So for some of our pieces we devised a system of numbers where we can create any rhythmic cycle we wanted with these numbers, and then subdivided however we wanted to.
KEN VANDERMARK: So that you’re repeating a sequence of beats, let’s say nine or whatever... how does it work exactly?

HAMID DRAKE: OK, let’s say if we wanted to have a cycle of 40 for instance. We would do a group of numbers however we wanted to arrange them, as long as when you added it all up it came to forty. So on the first line it might be 5-4-6-3-1, the next line might be 2-2-4-5-3, on and on until it all adds up to, let’s say 40. And then if we have a B section, it wouldn’t matter what cycle we’re trying to create because the next cycle, the B section, could be 50 or 44 or something like that. Because with the numbers it’s all right in front of you, and so...

KEN VANDERMARK: I’m not really familiar with this kind of approach, so in terms of the numbers and the breakdowns and the subdivisions for each line, how are you expressing the numbers rhythmically

HAMID DRAKE: That would depend on each person doing it. For instance, when you’re doing it with the hand drums... for Michael and I, it was kind of easy because we were already familiar with different cycles, like with Middle Eastern music for instance. What we were trying to create was this feeling of contraction and release.

KEN VANDERMARK: OK.

HAMID DRAKE: Because there’s something in Middle Eastern music, they have two things: one is the ‘tun,’ and the ‘tek.’ [sp??] The tun is low and the tek is high. When you go from tun to tek, that’s creating a feeling of going from expansion to contraction because you’re going from low to high. When you go from tek to tun, that creates a feeling of going from contraction to expansion because you’re going from high to low. And so that was kind of what we were dealing with. So when we would play these cycles, we would try and do it in such a way where we would create that feeling with the tuns and the teks, or the water and the fire, on the frame drum. It’s kind of... unless you play frame drums it’s kind of hard...

KEN VANDERMARK: To explain...

HAMID DRAKE: ...to explain... or if you play dumbek. But I think you can get an understanding of the low-to-high, high-to-low, and the feeling of expansion and contraction. There’s a swelling and a release...

KEN VANDERMARK: Yeah, OK, I understand that. So when you’re subdividing the beats, like 2-3-5, is that... are you thinking in terms of a pulse, is it...

HAMID DRAKE: Right, its a pulse.

KEN VANDERMARK: So it’s like 2-low, 3-high...like that, or...

HAMID DRAKE: OK, that would depend on the person. If we have... let’s say the first line is 4, 5, and 3. Then we would just simply play [counting the beats] 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-5-1-2-3.

KEN VANDERMARK: Oh, I see, so the ‘1’s of each are accented...

HAMID DRAKE: Yeah, well, in the beginning we would do that, but once we familiarized ourselves enough with the subdivision we wouldn’t necessarily have to do that. For instance, we created this piece on the drum set for Ed Blackwell. It was in A section and B section. Each section was in 40. Now, the top section we would play together, the subdivision was a certain way. The bottom section, the B section, was in 40 also, but the subdivision was completely different. So let’s say Michael and I, we would play the A section down together and the B section down together. And then maybe I might move back to the A section and he would start playing the B section, so...
KEN VANDERMARK: Oh, I see, so it was over...

HAMID DRAKE: ... it was overlapping. So our ‘1’s are going to be in different places, but we worked it out to such a degree where the last line – or you might even say the last bar, but we’re not dealing with it like that – the last line or last bar of each section would be the same. So that was a point that if either one of us got lost [laughs]...

KEN VANDERMARK: Yeah.

HAMID DRAKE: ...we could hear where the other one was at. It might end like [counting the beats] 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-1-2... that would be the same for each section, the last line. So that was like a point of familiarity for each of us to return back to.

KEN VANDERMARK: OK.

HAMID DRAKE: So, sometimes we would work it out where we’d say, “OK, let’s make sure that for each ‘1’ of each cycle, subdivision, we’re playing a tun or a tek,” just to create some type of harmonious feeling. But then we would leave it up to our own feeling once we got into it...

KEN VANDERMARK: Kind of like playing across the bar in a jazz thing...

HAMID DRAKE: Right, yeah.

KEN VANDERMARK: ... so you’re not accenting the beginning of 8 bars, you’re playing over it but still keeping the form...

HAMID DRAKE: ... but keeping the form. And so sometimes, if it’s like [counting the beats] 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-5-1-2-3, I might not play the 1 or the 3 or the 5 -- just play the 2, the 4 and the 5. But with this music, with the frame drums you can do that because they have another system that’s called “gamelataki.” [sp??] ‘Gamela’ is three beats, ‘taki’ is two beats. With the gamelataki, it allows you to create any type of odd meter. So once you have that system pretty much ingrained in you, all these odd meters become gamelataki. You know where the gamela is, you know where the taki is, so you can decide pretty much where you want to play.

KEN VANDERMARK: Mmm.

HAMID DRAKE: So if you’re doing something in seven, which would be just [emphasizing the syllables] ga-me-la-ta-ki-ta-ki ga-me-la-ta-ki-ta-ki. Normally it would be played [claps out]... you would play the ga, you would play the tak of the four, and the tak of, umm... six, I think... [both laugh]

KEN VANDERMARK: It’s still...

HAMID DRAKE: Right, but you can do it any kind of way you want. Basically that’s the thing. Once this system’s kind of ingrained in you, you can move it around and shift it any kind of way you want. And that’s something that Michael and I discovered, that we could take those same type of subdivisions and that same language -- that Middle Eastern drum language and tabla drum language -- and put it onto the drum set, and come up with something kind of... that I think is kind of uniquely... that is very unique.
KEN VANDERMARK: Mmm-hmm.

HAMID DRAKE: And Adam [Rudolph] and I would do something very similar but more based on the African music. Because that was something we really got into together. Michael and I haven’t explored the African music that much together. But with Adam, we’ve explored the Middle Eastern, the Indian, and the African music.

KEN VANDERMARK: In terms of the differences between [that and] the Indian and the Middle Eastern stuff that you’ve been doing more with Michael, how is the approach different with Adam, with the more African...

HAMID DRAKE: Well, with Adam, we’re dealing with cycles also, but it’s based upon clavé. A lot of it’s based upon different divisions of the African – sometimes it’s called 12/8 sometimes people call it 6/8 – clavé, but basically it’s two-and-a-half and three-and-a-half. So it’s like [claps out the beats]... that’s the basic African clavé... [claps out the beats]. It’s interesting for me, because I felt that that was kind of stiff, playing it that way on the drum set, just playing the two-and-a-half and three-and-a-half [sounding the beats]. So what I learned to do was to switch it around to where it becomes [claps out beat]... I would play three-and-a-half and then play... [clapping out pattern]... I’d play two three-and-a-halves. And I would try and create a bell pattern on the drum set out of that, ‘cause I found it was easier for me to move around the drum set doing it that way...

KEN VANDERMARK: Is that because it was more symmetrical?

HAMID DRAKE: Yeah, for me, because I’ve been trying to use all my limbs, you know, in that too. So, with Adam, he’s come up with some unique systems, too, like utilizing the African clavé but shifting it around in a lot of different ways. And utilizing that to create cycles of 15 and 21 and on and on and on. But the basis of it – the heart of it – is that West African clavé... I mean not just West African, but you hear the same sort of thing – basically it’s three against two – you hear it in West African music and North African music. And finding ways to utilize that, shift it around, and also to overlap that onto other time signatures, too. So where basically you can use that same feeling with a 7 or 9 or cycle of 15, no matter what it is. It was a new exploration of rhythm as language.

KEN VANDERMARK: You take the traditional, some very old traditional concepts, and not just updating them but to use those languages and make them adaptable to new situations…

HAMID DRAKE: Exactly, yeah. Make them adaptable to new situations and then create melodic structures on top of that. And it’s very difficult. It’s something we’re still trying to get at. Because it seems like we’re accustomed to playing pretty linear, in some ways. Normally we’re accustomed to just seeing the 4/4 or 3/4 or something like that, but once we start interjecting other types of cycles in, I think -- at least for us here -- it becomes difficult for us to find ways to adapt to...

KEN VANDERMARK: Mmm-hmm...

HAMID DRAKE: ...and I’m speaking about a lot of musicians across the board -- not just percussionists, but everybody. Because it’s a different language, and it’s kind of outside of our normal rhythm of things, our normal walking rhythms. It’s outside of our normal thinking patterns.

KEN VANDERMARK: One thing you mentioned last time – I don’t know if we got this on tape or not, but it was very interesting to me as a horn player – talking about, as a drummer, playing, and the expectation would be that you would listen to the horn player, or the “melodic” people in the group, and follow them, and interact with them and their phrasing. And how very rarely does it go the other way. People think in terms of the horn players following the rhythm of the drummer. In what you’re talking about now, in terms of opening up different kinds of patterns, different kinds of cycles, different kinds of rhythms that aren’t just based on 3/4 or 4/4, do you think that that kind of leaning towards the instrumental, melodic-instrumentalists -- with the weight they’ve been given in the jazz world, so to speak – has slowed down that process of adapting to different kind of rhythmic cycles? If the drummers were perceived the way they should be, I think, with most musicians and listeners who respect what’s going on in a band – everybody’s equal, all the same – if the examination of all the musicians was into the rhythmic aspect of the music on the level that you’re talking about, working with Michael or Adam... do you think that we’d be further along in terms of listening and playing in different kinds of rhythmic structures? Do you know what I’m saying?

HAMID DRAKE: Yeah...

KEN VANDERMARK: Do you think it’s like the horn players are only playing four and so we’ve been playing in four for a very long time...

HAMID DRAKE: Well, I think... well, it’s interesting because I think it would depend...

KEN VANDERMARK: Maybe it’s just everybody...

HAMID DRAKE: I think it would depend on how deep the horn player, for instance, would want to get into it. Because I think it’d probably be kind of easy just to float over the top of it.

KEN VANDERMARK: Yeah, but my question is going more in terms of making more of a dialogue between the rhythmic-melodic qualities of the percussion and the rhythmic-melodic qualities of something that’s more traditionally considered a melodic instrument. And that, yeah, if you’re laying down some kind of time thing that I’m not able to pick up because it’s too complex, I can float over the top of it. What I’m talking about is something more where I’m in it too. Where we’re working on a...

HAMID DRAKE: So you’re asking me if horn players, for instance, did that, would it be valuable? To...

KEN VANDERMARK: Well, not just valuable... What you’re talking about – trying to develop new sets of possibilities, rhythmic possibilities – that’s something that, to me, is very, very exciting. And in some of the stuff that I write, I don’t like to write in 4 usually...

HAMID DRAKE: ...yeah, you’re a great exception because your music is pretty wide in that sense...

KEN VANDERMARK: ...and what I’m wondering is, do you think that the fact that most music, in jazz music, seems to be locked into a 4/4 or a 3/4, sometimes 5/4, types of time... Why do you think that is? Do you think that it’s just because it’s easy? Do you think it’s because the horn players... I’m not saying it’s the horn players or the piano players, and that it isn’t the drummers... But you would think that that interest in opening up the possibilities, the rhythmic possibilities, would be something that everybody would be into. And I’m just wondering if you had thought about it at all...

HAMID DRAKE: OK, why that is...

KEN VANDERMARK: Yeah.

HAMID DRAKE: Well, one reason is because it’s difficult. And two, maybe a lot of people just haven’t been presented with the opportunity. And three, with the history of jazz, it’s always been based on... in the beginning it seems like it was really connected with dance a lot.

KEN VANDERMARK: Mmm-hmm.

HAMID DRAKE: And it was a music that was part of the community, and people danced to it. So I think a lot of composers were trying to create music that people could still continue to dance to. On up until the swing era. I think maybe when Charlie Parker and those guys came along and the music started to get – not that music wasn’t complicated prior to that – but I think...

KEN VANDERMARK: It made it more difficult to dance to...

HAMID DRAKE: Yeah. It introduced some elements – more syncopation – that made it difficult for people to come out and do the lindy-hop and all those different things to. I think also a lot it just has to do with our musical conditioning. I don’t think we’re accustomed to hearing that type of stuff. Maybe some of it has to do with certain prejudices and biases we grow up with, as far as thinking of the greatness of Western forms of music, jazz included, over musical systems from other countries. A lot of it sounded strange to us. Like when Indian music was first introduced to the West, [??] it sounded really strange to a lot of people. There’s only probably a small, select group of people that would listen to it. The same is [true] with Persian or any form of Arabic music – any form of Middle Eastern music -- where they’re actually utilizing a lot of that. Then, Dave Brubeck, for instance, it seems like he was introducing some of those things, but he did it in such a way where it still sounded... he tempered it, he cooled it down, where it didn’t sound so strange. I know Yusef Lateef, sometimes he would do stuff like that, in a small context. So I think maybe a lot of it has to do with our condition[ing] and maybe even emotional type of content.

KEN VANDERMARK: Yeah, because with the cultures you’re talking about, a lot of that music is dance music too...

HAMID DRAKE: Yeah, for them it is dance music...

KEN VANDERMARK: ...and it’s pretty outrageous rhythmically compared to Western music [where] the emphasis has been so much on harmony. Any book you pick up on harmony, very little of it deals with rhythm at all.

HAMID DRAKE: Yeah...[??]

KEN VANDERMARK: ...and so clearly the potential for human... they can contend with those difficult, more complicated rhythms than what we’re used to with the very square types of forms.

HAMID DRAKE: Well I think that’s a good answer because the stress in Western music has been more with harmony, and with a lot of the other cultures it’s simply just rhythm and melody. And often times if they’re playing with a group of musicians, usually it seems like they’re playing in unison. [pauses] But I do believe, also, that when new concepts are introduced to us that we all have the capacity – if we just give it a chance – to go deeply into it. It might not be the thing that we want to pursue, but if we just give it a chance at least we won’t feel it’s something invalid.
KEN VANDERMARK: Right, right.

HAMID DRAKE: I would hope that all musicians would want to explore something outside of their normal domain.

KEN VANDERMARK: Right, because it opens up a lot of things. Like what we were saying in the first part of the interview, you’re thought about all music being part of the same essence. And that, for example, speaking for myself, when I hear Greek clarinet music, I don’t at this point really know that much about it but I make a very strong connection with the clarinet playing. And it is tied to what I do, even though it’s a completely different tradition, a completely different set of rhythmic and melodic qualities. And yet it is part of the same music. And when I heard that kind of playing, immediately it affected how I think about the clarinet.

HAMID DRAKE: Yeah, sure, yeah.

KEN VANDERMARK: And so if I had never heard it, or let’s say John Corbett hadn’t played any of it for me, which, you know, is possible – there’s so much music out there, you might never bump into it – those things can really affect what you do.

HAMID DRAKE: Yeah. Even if it’s just from the technical level.

KEN VANDERMARK: Oh, yeah.

HAMID DRAKE: Even if it’s just from the technical level. Just listening to the technique of a person like that, or the technique of a drummer from somewhere else, or whatever the instrument might be.

KEN VANDERMARK: Yeah, yeah. Do you have a couple of minutes?

HAMID DRAKE: Yeah.

KEN VANDERMARK: I wanted to ask you a little bit about the things outside of music. We were talking about music completely, but I know there are a lot of other things you’re involved in that maybe relate to music but aren’t strictly musical pursuits. What other things in your life inspire you and maybe affect your music indirectly, but that you get excited about or that you’re pursuing other than strictly music.

HAMID DRAKE: Yeah, sure. I feel like relationships have been really – with people [laughs]– have been really strong for me. Relationships with my daughters, my relationship with [??] Also my pursuits in spiritual studies and the philosophies of other places, too – other cultures, other religions – have been a pretty strong study for me. Especially with the different spiritual philosophies, they’ve given me some sort of insight into the nature of human beings in general, and into our emotional content, into our psyche, and that there’s something deeper to life than what we always perceive, that’s just right in front of us. These things have helped me to tap into more of what the essence of a human being might be about, below the surface. It’s also allowed me to contemplate that there must be, or perhaps there is, some type of energy that seems to pervade and flow through everything: the trees, the humans, the animals, insects. There’s this life force that seems to be pushing through everything. And different places have different names for it, but their experience of it seems to be pretty universal. This life force, the Hindus, they might call it ‘prana’ [sp??], the Chinese call it ‘chi’ [sp??]... Some cultures will speak about the source of all of that – some cultures might talk about Allah, or God, or Bramen [sp??], or just the divine source itself – but it’s described as this all-pervading reality that moves and breathes through everything. I think that study has had a really incredible effect on my whole life in general. Particularly with my music, since it’s one of the most dominant things in my life, it has given me a certain attitude about music. I’ve had the influences from great people that I’ve listened to… Even in that pursuit I know John Coltrane was an inspiration and influence for a lot of people, and his pursuit with that... Yusef Lateef, he was an inspiration. Don Cherry was definitely an inspiration, and that spiritual pursuit along with the music. And then a lot of musicians from other cultures that I’ve met, too, like a lot of the Indian teachers that I had, and whom I had a great opportunity to meet. Like a lot of musicians from Turkey who kind of carried that feeling, [that] vibration, with them. Musicians from Africa. Different places. Japan. All over. And it showed me that, OK, this feeling that I have – and now I’m meeting all these musicians from all these different cultures who seem to have it too – it taught me that it’s something that’s pretty universal. [laughs] And that there’s no absolutism here, that this isn’t – this feeling, or this vibration, or this understanding of this particular thing – is not owned. No one has a monopoly on it. [laughs] But we all have the ability to tap into it whenever we want. It’s not that we have to become hardcore religionists [laughs]. I think we also tap into that same thing when we exercise a lot, to a certain extent. Athletes tap into it when they reach those high peaks and they start feeling this other energy starting to pervade their whole body and their whole stream of things. So I think it’s something that’s inherently inside of us. You don’t even have to talk about anything outside of us, but it’s something that’s inside of us... It’s almost like this door that’s waiting to be opened. And I know sometimes that when we play, when we push ourselves past that point that we think we can’t go any further, it also seems like something happens. People experience that same thing in different meditative techniques and what not. There’s this juice, this electricity, that’s kind of flowing. I mean, Walt Whitman hit upon it when he wrote the poem “I Sing The Body Electric,” and all the brutality and death and casualties that he saw during the Civil War. I mean, like, boom, it tapped it into a whole other mind stream. Emerson tapped into this thing by repeating his own name, for instance, as a mantra. So there are a lot of different methods or tools that people use to tap into this deeper sense of life. And I think music is definitely one of those methods, one of those tools. [pauses] Yeah, so that’s been a pursuit that’s gone alongside with the music, and I feel that they’ve kind of merged where it’s just kind of one pursuit. And the music is an aspect of that.

KEN VANDERMARK: Yeah.

HAMID DRAKE: And I think it’s also [so] that in some way we can all become better human beings. Break it down and maybe be able show a little more kindness and compassion.

KEN VANDERMARK: Yeah, that’s something that has really amazed me about what I’m able to do. I’ve been thinking about that a lot recently. The last year or two in particular, I‘ve been able to meet people for the first time I’ve never met before, outside of this country from going other places to play. And it just amazes me how consistently fine people are – musicians and people who are very passionate about the music. Whether it’s someone like Bruno Johnson who has a record label, or people who run festivals or clubs and have been doing it for years and years, and the different aspects that make the music possible – writers who are passionate about the music. And how often the people that are really strongly committed to it are also strongly committed to being amazingly kind people.

HAMID DRAKE: Yeah, that’s right.

KEN VANDERMARK: You know, the first time I talked to Peter Brötzmann I was shocked at how soft-spoken, humble, open and generous he was. Making a naïve, not assessment, but expectation off of the intensity of his music. I was expecting him to be this, like, you know... [both laugh]

HAMID DRAKE: Yeah.

KEN VANDERMARK: ...and it was completely the opposite. [both laugh] And even now, I’ve been lucky enough to talk to him and play with him a little bit, and I’m still shocked. ‘Cause you don’t expect it. It’s been a really amazing confirm[ation]... I guess in my own way it’s a sort of a similar path to what you’re talking about, how you meet these people and again and again you see this consistency – even though they’re totally different kinds of people who maybe play totally different kinds of music. But the core of who they are is consistent – it’s like meeting the same person with a different face, or this intense...

HAMID DRAKE: Yeah. That’s what it is: the same person with a different face. Yeah.

KEN VANDERMARK: ...like a spiritual quality. It’s very difficult to talk about, because you talk about that kind of thing with people and it’s hard to discuss it without coming across as false because of the way that the spiritual aspects of our existence have been beaten down and not discussed. People don’t talk about it. And like you said, there are a lot of ways to be connected to that, a lot of different ways to do it. And one thing I see over and over again – and it’s what you said – is that the people that I admire, without even knowing them, when I’m walking up to meet them, almost always they’re very strong spiritual people. You can feel it.

HAMID DRAKE: In their own ways.

KEN VANDERMARK: Yeah.

HAMID DRAKE: And that’s the beautiful thing because each person can be uniquely their own in that way. I like what you said, that there’s the same person but different faces. The Sufis have this expression that there’s only one being, but that one being does have different faces. It says something very similar. I think that’s the beautiful thing, that each person can find their own unique way of expressing it. Something that’s uniquely inherent in every human being. And I think all we have to do is find a way to allow it to unfold, and be in the process of trying to just become that. I don’t think we have to really go through a lot of... not even just a lot of searching, per se, but once we acknowledge it, just allowing it to really unfold and spontaneously arise. Because sometimes when we try to force it, it won’t happen.

KEN VANDERMARK: Right.

HAMID DRAKE: Then it is kind of like that pretentious or false thing. But if we can just allow it to arise – because this thing, I think it wants to arise.

KEN VANDERMARK: It’s like the music in a way, too. In a lot of ways everybody playing this music – or any creative person at all, but to talk about improvised music – they can all be themselves. It’s a chance for everyone to express themselves in a group context.

HAMID DRAKE: Right.

KEN VANDERMARK: And it’s hard with improvisation – if you force it, it won’t work.

HAMID DRAKE: Won’t work.

KEN VANDERMARK: And you have to be willing to let it go and let it be. I know that when I’m playing the best it’s when I’m the least... it’s just coursing through me... the music is happening. I’m a conduit of some kind. And that’s a very hard thing to allow to happen, because we’re constantly told we need to control everything, we have to control our conditions and all this. It’s very difficult to let it go and let it be. But if you can do that, amazing things can happen. And like you say, it wants to come out.

HAMID DRAKE: Yeah, it wants to.

KEN VANDERMARK: And that can be a remarkable experience when it does.

HAMID DRAKE: Yeah.

KEN VANDERMARK: I had one more mundane-ish question: In terms of recordings or performances, things that you’ve heard that have really made a mark on you – whether good or bad...

HAMID DRAKE: [laughs] Yeah, right.

KEN VANDERMARK: …things that you’ve seen that have... Cause I know that I’ve seen stuff, or I’ve participated in things, that have made me very frustrated and have caused me to reassess things. [And] I’ve seen and participated in things that have confirmed things for me. I’m just wondering if there’s anything you can think of, off the top of your head, that have really helped shaped you. Sometimes there are events or things that really do – I know for myself, anyway – that are really like epiphanies.

HAMID DRAKE: Well, I can think of two concerts. One was really confusing to me, but I tried to dig it or like it because of the environment. And the other one just blew me away. This one concert – I think I was maybe 17 – it was a concert with Joseph Jarman, this Japanese drummer Sabu... I think maybe Steve McCall was playing and another musician, I forget who. It was at this place called the Hyde Park Arts Center that used to be – it’s no longer there – in Hyde Park. I went in to the concert, and I didn’t understand nothing they were doing. [laughs]. The drummer, he wasn’t playing funk [both laugh]...

KEN VANDERMARK: Is this the right address?

HAMID DRAKE: Right. [both laugh] And it was just like this... at the time I thought it was just kind of like bashing all over the place. I think Joseph would play for a moment, then he would just kind of like sit in the corner. I’m like, “Man, what are those guys doing? This doesn’t sound like Santana” -- you know what I mean? [both laugh] So I think that really jolted me, it really did. And it kind of made me, in it’s own way... it kind of jilted me, it frustrated me. I did wonder too, “What am I doing here?” It wasn’t like even listening to Coltrane for me. This was something... I had no reference points to relate this to, so...

KEN VANDERMARK: Right, right...

HAMID DRAKE: ... of the unknown. Because I had no reference points to this. I didn’t know what they were doing. And this was before I started playing with Fred. I think that was a very good experience for me. And then later on I started to reassess everything, and process, and slowly something happened, something clicked. A thought came later that, “Wow, those guys, they’re pretty bold and they have a lot of freedom.” But at first it jolted me because I had no reference points to deal with this, and usually we always have these reference points comparing this to that – like comparing King Curtis to Junior Walker...

KEN VANDERMARK: Yeah, yeah.

HAMID DRAKE: I was really new to that expression of music. It’s like, “What are they doing? How do I judge this.” [laughs]

KEN VANDERMARK: Right, it’s a totally different language.

HAMID DRAKE: Yeah, totally different languages. They’re speaking pygmy for all I knew, Portugese or something. But something happened later on, I started feeling some things. I think it was about that time that I started listening to some of the later Coltrane stuff. And then I started to hear some things that sounded a little familiar – some melodic stuff – and then slowly I was able to move out...

KEN VANDERMARK: I don’t mean to interrupt you, but what motivated you – ‘cause that’s something I’m always curious about – after having an experience of total disorientation, like, “Why am I here? What’s going on?” – what motivated you to pursue that later Coltrane stuff?

HAMID DRAKE: Well, I think a lot of it had to do with associates that I was teaming up with at the time – musical buddies. And also I was starting to get interested in these spiritual things, and I heard that Coltrane was kind of into that. Also, Adam and I were friends and we started talking about a lot of different things. Then I started meeting other musicians, older musicians, who were moving more into the jazz-rock stuff, and they would make references to this kind of thing. I’ve always liked to read and I’ve always been a history buff, so I started checking it out and I started buying records. I think probably one of the things I bought at that time that was kind of a gentle way for me to move into it was Pharoah Sanders’ “Karma.” [laughs] Leon Thomas is on that, and they would play... some of it, they would go outside, but a lot of it was pretty in, too. So things like that. Then the concert that totally blew me away in another way – I think it really melted my heart – was when, around the same time, I went to a concert with Alice Coltrane. And it was totally the opposite effect. She was playing harp [and] piano. I think Charlie Haden was on bass and Ben Riley was on drums.

KEN VANDERMARK: Wow. That’s wild. [both laugh]

HAMID DRAKE: That was really an incredible concert. Now, I had known a little bit about her prior to going to the concert. But as far as live music, she was... then when I got the chance to talk to her I found her to be such a beautiful, sweet and warm person. And I already had this respect for her because she was the late Coltrane’s wife and stuff. Then to see her play, that was really... man, that concert just melted my heart.

KEN VANDERMARK: Wow.

HAMID DRAKE: [laughs] Then there were a lot of other things I went through that really had dramatic effects on me. I remember going to the theater to see Woodstock. That had a big effect on me.

KEN VANDERMARK: Yeah?

HAMID DRAKE: Oh yeah. I always wanted to see Hendrix live but never a chance to see him live.

KEN VANDERMARK: Yeah.

HAMID DRAKE: Another thing that had an effect upon me, too – which showed me the power of expectations not being fulfilled because of varying situations that our musical idols and heroes might get involved in and they don’t come through on their end – years back in Grant Park there was gonna be a free concert with Sly and the Family Stone...

KEN VANDERMARK: Oh, I heard about that.

HAMID DRAKE: I was at that what-was-to-be concert [laughs] and I was in one of the front rows where they had the red picket fence and stuff. Finally, when it was announced that Sly wasn’t gonna come out, man, people from the back started pushing, and we in the front started getting trampled. Then the police came on the scene, and it was really...

KEN VANDERMARK: That fixed everything.

HAMID DRAKE: ...really crazy. That made me angry. It really did, because I felt like, “Damn, couldn’t he just...” – cause he was there [laughs] – “couldn’t he just come out and at least say something.” I was pretty young then, too, but it really showed me the relationship between music and drugs. [laughs] And not just smoking herb or something, but music and hard drugs. And how that combined with ego or how we get deranged because of stuff like that. So that really made me very angry. But there’s been a lot of concerts that have had varying effects on me. [??] A lot of great Indian music concerts that were really inspiring – the music and then they were inspirations as far as going back home and practicing. [both laugh]

KEN VANDERMARK: Yeah. All right, I think I’ll get ready to let you go...


THIS IS OUR MUSIC: PETER BRÖTZMANN by John Corbett

MUSICIANS TALK ABOUT MUSICIANS

INTERVIEW: PAUL LYTTON

INTERVIEW: MICHAEL ZERANG

EVAN PARKER, as interviewed by Lloyd Peterson

JIMMY GIUFFRE INTERVIEW

PETER BRÖTZMANN INTERVIEW WITH KEN VANDERMARK

ARTIST STATEMENTS: ARCHIVE

IN ROTATION: ARCHIVE