Beaten up, down, all around: Global Drum Project

Gig of the week

Global Drum Project
(O'Shaughnessy Auditorium, College of St. Catherine, Friday, Oct. 17, 8 p.m., $33 and $27)
Back in the Pleistocene Era when I was a high-schooler besotted on arena-rock shows, I soon decided that the best times to make a break for the bathroom and the concession stand were during the ballads and the drum solos. Not even legendary time-keepers such as Ginger Baker of Cream or The Who's Keith Moon could deter me from my appointed rounds.

Then the Grateful Dead came to town and the rhythmic weave from the band's dual drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzman literally stopped me in my tracks. This wasn't a drum solo, or even drum duet: This was a magic carpet-bombing of beats, spun into tapestry.

Since that time, Hart has only broadened the hues and fattened the ply on those tapestries. His "Diga Rhythm Band" record, released in 1976 with a striking silver cover and a global array of percussionists, was "world music" fusion long before anyone labeled the genre, so it was poetic justice that his "Planet Drum" disc was awarded the first-ever Grammy for Best World Music Album in 1991.

The latest incarnation in Hart's ongoing rhythmic odyssey, Global Drum Project, provides further enlightenment on the expanse of textures and cultural philosophies that come with striking a drum. Indian tabla master Zakir Hussain, a former member of John McLaughlin's Shakti, has been Hart's co-conspirator since the days of Diga. Puerto Rican conguero Giovanni Hidalgo has played with Dizzy Gillespie, Eddie Palmieri, and other titans of Latin jazz and salsa. And Nigerian Sikiru Adepoju, a disciple of the late Babatunde Olatunji (another longtime Hart cohort), rounds out the quartet on talking drum. This blend of Africa, North America, Asia and the Caribbean includes the staccato ricochet of Hussain's tabla and Hildalgo's conga colliding over Adepoju's rubbery groove while Hart adds drum fills and samples of vocals and various special effects. Drums are generally limited to being the spice of music. Hart and his Global Drum Project radically subvert that status quo, transforming the seasoning into an entire repast.

Britt Robson