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Sing Out!, Feature >>
Since meeting tabla great Alla Rakha-- father to the inimitable Zakir Hussain-- in 1968, then-Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart started exploring world percussion on an unprecedented level. His "rhythm games" with Rakha in New York hotel rooms turned into the song "The Eleven," based on an eleven-beat cycle he had devised. Five years late, Rakha asked Hart to take his son under his wing in California, and their friendship commenced. Their first musical collaboration was the Diga Rhythm Band, sometimes considered the first true "world music" project, in terms of how broadly the foundation of cultures involved reached. Ethnomusicologist and philosopher as much as percussionist, Hart is the first name to consider when speaking of global drums. So the name of his most recent pairing with Hussain (and others) is not surprising. Most pleasant to realize is how, three decades later, the intensity of their search-- the quest of many rhythms and drums playing together-- keeps evolving. This record is absolutely beautiful. The layers of percussion, from tablas and talking drums to congas, along with Dilshad Khan's lush sarangi and vocal sections by Hart, Hussain (whose excellent voice has been underused from some time), Taufiq Quareshi (Hussain's brother) and a sample of the late Nigerian master Babatunde Olatunji, form an album that is patient and exhilarating, mostly due to how fast they don't go. There are few rapid-fire drum styles expected of "percussion" albums. Rather, the meditative pace of "Heartspace" and slow crawl of "Kaluli Groove" create atmospheres rather than raising blood pressure. The ambiance is comforting; when they arrive at a faster-paced song like "Under One Groove," it is yet another peak in a long and industrious album, formed by a friendship that can be described as the same.
--DB 01/01/08 >> go there
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