[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
revealed the drummer s ongoing interest in multi-layered rhythmic structures and the use of
polyrhythms:
In the early 50 s, Boogie [Blackwell] had an on-going challenge bet with me
that I could not write a polyrhythm that he could not play. So, every day that
summer he d come by the Lafitte Project pool where I worked to play the rhythms I
had written the day before. I never beat him! ( Boogie Live, liner notes. AFO
92-1228-2).).
While Blackwell was well-versed in the performance of polyrhythms early in his
development as a musician, the following passage dispels any notions that he consciously studied
traditional non-Western musics while living in his hometown:
Robert Palmer: What about your supposedly having studied Afro-Cuban or
African drumming in New Orleans? I read that in a couple of places, in
A. B. Spellman s Four Lives in the Bebop Business and in an
interview with Dr. John [Mac Rebennack] in Down Beat.
Blackwell: No, the only studying I did in New Orleans was with this friend of
mine that got me in the high school band, Wilbur Hogan37 (Palmer. Ed
Blackwell. p.17).
By the time of this interview in 1977, Blackwell had experienced many diverse cultures and
musics which, subsequently, shaped the evolution of his drumming style. A highly significant
event during this evolutionary process involved Blackwell s tours to West Africa, North Africa,
and the Middle East in the late 1960 s.
37See Chapter 1 of this research project for more information concerning Blackwell s association with Wilbur
Hogan.
70
Blackwell first traveled to Africa in 1967, playing drumset for the Randy Weston sextet.
This group included: Weston, piano; Ray Copeland, trumpet, flugelhorn, and orchestrator;
Clifford Jordan, tenor saxophone; Bill [Vishnu] Wood, bass; and Chief Bey, traditional African
percussion. Georgia Griggs traveled with the sextet and served as general assistant, coordinator,
and historian. She presented the following highly-informative tour itinerary within her Down Beat
article With Randy Weston in Africa:
For three months, from mid-January to mid-April, [we] visited ten countries
in West Africa (Senegal, Mali, Upper Volta [currently known as Burkina Faso],
Niger, Ghana, Cameroon, Gabon, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast), one in the
Middle East (Lebanon), and three in North Africa (United Arab Republic [currently
known as Egypt], Algeria, Morocco).
The tour started with two rousing concerts in Dakar, Senegal. The band
members attended a rehearsal of the Senegalese Ballet Troupe - a remarkable
outfit [italics mine]. Then we went to Bamako, Mali, which, though officially very
anti-Western, received the sextet warmly and provided an enthusiastic overflow
audience for a History of Jazz concert presented in a huge East German-built
field house.
In Bobo-Dioulasso, Upper Volta, the sextet performed two outdoor
concerts for audiences who had not only never heard American jazz but had never
heard any kind of live entertainment other than their own tribal music - and
although they tended to be quiet and curious, they were also receptive and
responsive.
In Niamey, Niger, the sextet did one open-air concert in a delightful
combination zoo and museum that included replicas of local tribal villages. The
band s dressing room was an entire full-scale Hausa village - you don t get that at
Philharmonic Hall! Also in Niamey, they played opposite a young local group
(which did Latin-style numbers) for a teen-age dance, and proved that Africans will
dance to jazz, especially the blues.
Accra, Ghana, the next stop, was a mixture of heaven and hell. The hell
was having to appear nearly every night at the U.S. Pavilion of the Ghana
International Trade Fair under unbelievably bad conditions, but still managing to
reach the huge audiences that patiently put up with the lousy acoustics and the bad
design of the place, which makes it impossible to see the stage after the first two
rows. The heaven was performing in a concert that was part of the Ghana
Festival of Arts to an incredibly receptive audience, and at the University of Ghana,
and getting to hear and tape local tribal music and seeing - both in rehearsal and
actual performance - music and dance students from the university doing stylized
but authentic adaptations of indigenous tribal music and dance [italics mine].
In Yaounde, Cameroon, the band performed with a local dance troupe -
Les Ballets Bantous [italics mine]- much to the delight of the both audience and
71 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl szamanka888.keep.pl
revealed the drummer s ongoing interest in multi-layered rhythmic structures and the use of
polyrhythms:
In the early 50 s, Boogie [Blackwell] had an on-going challenge bet with me
that I could not write a polyrhythm that he could not play. So, every day that
summer he d come by the Lafitte Project pool where I worked to play the rhythms I
had written the day before. I never beat him! ( Boogie Live, liner notes. AFO
92-1228-2).).
While Blackwell was well-versed in the performance of polyrhythms early in his
development as a musician, the following passage dispels any notions that he consciously studied
traditional non-Western musics while living in his hometown:
Robert Palmer: What about your supposedly having studied Afro-Cuban or
African drumming in New Orleans? I read that in a couple of places, in
A. B. Spellman s Four Lives in the Bebop Business and in an
interview with Dr. John [Mac Rebennack] in Down Beat.
Blackwell: No, the only studying I did in New Orleans was with this friend of
mine that got me in the high school band, Wilbur Hogan37 (Palmer. Ed
Blackwell. p.17).
By the time of this interview in 1977, Blackwell had experienced many diverse cultures and
musics which, subsequently, shaped the evolution of his drumming style. A highly significant
event during this evolutionary process involved Blackwell s tours to West Africa, North Africa,
and the Middle East in the late 1960 s.
37See Chapter 1 of this research project for more information concerning Blackwell s association with Wilbur
Hogan.
70
Blackwell first traveled to Africa in 1967, playing drumset for the Randy Weston sextet.
This group included: Weston, piano; Ray Copeland, trumpet, flugelhorn, and orchestrator;
Clifford Jordan, tenor saxophone; Bill [Vishnu] Wood, bass; and Chief Bey, traditional African
percussion. Georgia Griggs traveled with the sextet and served as general assistant, coordinator,
and historian. She presented the following highly-informative tour itinerary within her Down Beat
article With Randy Weston in Africa:
For three months, from mid-January to mid-April, [we] visited ten countries
in West Africa (Senegal, Mali, Upper Volta [currently known as Burkina Faso],
Niger, Ghana, Cameroon, Gabon, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast), one in the
Middle East (Lebanon), and three in North Africa (United Arab Republic [currently
known as Egypt], Algeria, Morocco).
The tour started with two rousing concerts in Dakar, Senegal. The band
members attended a rehearsal of the Senegalese Ballet Troupe - a remarkable
outfit [italics mine]. Then we went to Bamako, Mali, which, though officially very
anti-Western, received the sextet warmly and provided an enthusiastic overflow
audience for a History of Jazz concert presented in a huge East German-built
field house.
In Bobo-Dioulasso, Upper Volta, the sextet performed two outdoor
concerts for audiences who had not only never heard American jazz but had never
heard any kind of live entertainment other than their own tribal music - and
although they tended to be quiet and curious, they were also receptive and
responsive.
In Niamey, Niger, the sextet did one open-air concert in a delightful
combination zoo and museum that included replicas of local tribal villages. The
band s dressing room was an entire full-scale Hausa village - you don t get that at
Philharmonic Hall! Also in Niamey, they played opposite a young local group
(which did Latin-style numbers) for a teen-age dance, and proved that Africans will
dance to jazz, especially the blues.
Accra, Ghana, the next stop, was a mixture of heaven and hell. The hell
was having to appear nearly every night at the U.S. Pavilion of the Ghana
International Trade Fair under unbelievably bad conditions, but still managing to
reach the huge audiences that patiently put up with the lousy acoustics and the bad
design of the place, which makes it impossible to see the stage after the first two
rows. The heaven was performing in a concert that was part of the Ghana
Festival of Arts to an incredibly receptive audience, and at the University of Ghana,
and getting to hear and tape local tribal music and seeing - both in rehearsal and
actual performance - music and dance students from the university doing stylized
but authentic adaptations of indigenous tribal music and dance [italics mine].
In Yaounde, Cameroon, the band performed with a local dance troupe -
Les Ballets Bantous [italics mine]- much to the delight of the both audience and
71 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]