Of Drum Groups and All-Night Jams
...tracing the beginnings
of my personal journey (1991-96) with...
African Drumming, Drum Rhythm Groups, Jamming and
Trance Dancing
<hear mp3 tracks
from 2008 jam, Strange
Moon>
T
"The
Creator wants us to drum. He wants us to corrupt the world
with drum, dance and chants. Afterall, we have already
corrupted the world with power and greed....which hasn't
gotten us anywhere - now's the time to corrupt the world
with drum, dance and chants."
--Babatunde
Olatunji
The
Friday Night Jam
Introduction (1996)
During
the last six years a number of the local neophyte
drummers have attempted to breathe life into and out of
that longer-lived institution, the Friday Night Jam. Haven
of Elvis aficionados and Credence Clearwater hacks, Willie
Nelson impersonators and would-be-Dead-heads, the Friday
Night Jam has lived by one rule: anything goes. Unfortunately
for my taste, the "any" part of it sometimes gets
lost in the Standards shuffle. Which is to say, group improvisation
is hard to do well. When it works, however, it's dynamite,
true inspiration, golden. It can even redeem the most tired
of oldies, given an injection of altered lyrics, rhythms,
and original solos.
The chronic
problem at the Friday Night Jam has been to amalgamate the
Afro-Latin drums and percussion with the western guitars,
accordion, piano, harmonica, and their associated forms:
primarily straight-ahead four-four. The drummers generally
want to lean the beat over to the offbeat, the syncopated,
the reggae. Reggae has been a convenient meeting ground
because the compromise is simply found in the regular upbeat.
But more than that is the issue of a controlled, recognizable
"song" versus an extended, authentic and moveable
jam.
Drum
energy works best in waves, without restrictions of straightjacket
lyrics, measures, predetermined chord changes. You can put
it all together in a great package, if you're Santana or
Olatunji. For us amateurs, that challenge takes work and
practice as a group, and these are not appropriate to the
looser anarchy of the jam. Even the oft-attempted "Let's
take turns and go around the circle for starting something"
is hard to maintain consistently in that venue. So success
is left to chance, to who shows up and the mood they're
in, to the phase of the moon or the health of the crop or
the status of one's lovelife, to how many drums can support
each other for the occasional detour down Africa lane. It's
all about listening, and sharing leadership, and these are
qualities that don't come to us easily or automatically.
The biggest
obstacle in this culture comes from the worship of the guitar
god. The lead guitar calls the shots: sets the melody and
mood, determines the volume (easily overpowering drums with
a twist of the amp button, or toning them down if there's
no amp until the life goes out of them). It's true that
rhythm is fundamental and so a single percussionist can
take any song and shift its character, ruin it or drive
it to new life. But in terms of group dynamics, the guitarist
is generally preeminent, by default. Everyone looks to them
for the next song, waits for them to retune, and depends
on the structures that they have memorized and are offering
as a well-furnished boat for everyone to ride in. What the
drummer offers is support: this is what is expected. For
a drummer to share or take the lead is not expected or easily
allowed. Conversely, it's hard for other musicians used
to taking lead melodic parts to learn to settle for supportive,
truly rhythmic roles.
So lately
the jam is in decline. Lately there haven't been many drummers
showing up, because when we do, we're held back by the inertia
of low energy, low volume, and low creativity. We, like
the other musicians, are aging, or have a lot of distractions
on our minds, or are afraid to boldly take the loose reins,
or have simply given up trying-for now. But as always, it's
different every week. Who knows what stranger or visitor
will show up this time, or what random collection of hideaways
will decide to come out and celebrate this full moon? When
it fails it's deadly dull, and a Friday night wasted. But
when it clicks, and moves into magic, there's nothing like
it in the world.
Read more on Kindle: Friday Night Jam, by Nowick Gray (now Free!)
Audio update, 2019:
Aquarius Victoria electric fusion jamming
Cougar WebWorks 
