Women Healing, Drumming in a Safe Place

Posted on June 10, 2015 by Scott K Fish

PULLMAN & ROSELAND – Health & Wellness
Can Drumming Help Women in Roseland Heal?
By Andrea V. Watson | June 8, 2015 5:08am @andreavwatson12

extralargeROSELAND — Oroki Rice wants women that are hurting in her community to know: You have a safe place in Roseland.

The founder of Sisters on a Journey said that includes everyone from mothers who have lost children to violence to women who simply need someone to talk to.

Rice, 62, founded the nonprofit in 1994 — and started holding a drumming and healing circle…two years later…in her home….

The gatherings are less about…drumming.., more about…connections…made and the healing…people feel….

“…[T]here are a lot of women who have never had the opportunity to sit in a safe place with other women,” Rice said. “A lot of women have been bruised and injured, psychologically, spiritually, emotionally in relationships with [other] women.”

The session usually begins with calling out to the ancestors, burning incense and pouring libation — an African ritual where someone makes an offering to a god or spirit, or to remember a loved one who has passed away. Rice invites a guest speaker each month so the women listen, talk, drum and eat.

“Our people, African people, and even natives of this land used the drum as a speaking tool, as a connection tool and it has carried on,” she said.

Cynthia Nia Henson, 66, said the drumming and healing circle allows women the opportunity to share and tell their personal stories.

“I believe that in every community, people have been devastated by all the things…happening daily, like the drive-bys, the killings,” Henson said.

“They need to connect to people,” she said.

But that’s not all Rice’s organization does, she said. The drumming circle.., storytelling group.., a monthly writing circle….  All are welcome.

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Bomba: Culture Beats Through His Heart, Like a Drum

Posted on June 10, 2015 by Scott K Fish

A Beat Calls Puerto Ricans to Their African Roots
JUNE 7, 2015
By DAVID GONZALEZ

Jose Ortiz…straddled his drum and played.

This was not a performance. It was life. [T]his instrument…had transformed him into Dr. Drum, a man on a mission to reconnect Puerto Ricans with their roots…. He is a leader of BombaYo, a troupe that plays bomba, one of Puerto Rico’s traditional musical forms.

“Our music has been contaminated and our perception of it is not what it really should be,” said Mr. Ortiz, 56. “That is not who we are, and I want to change that. There is medicine in our drumming.”

Mr. Ortiz was one who had been under the spell of the drum ever since he came upon an informal jam session…when he was 4 and heard a guaguancó rhythm.

“Man, it was the tones,” he said…. “Boom, bap, bap, bap! Boom bap, bap, bap! Something about that sound drew me. I loved that sound. I could listen to drums all day long and not get bored.”

[N]ot…until the late 1990s, after he returned to New York and taken a job as a supervising school aide at a Bronx middle school…would [Ortiz] seriously embrace the drum. Assigned to lunch duty, he brought…his congas and would play — only if the youngsters behaved.

They did. Soon…he was…hauling his congas to a park and giving the children lessons. [H]e had a revelation.

“I woke up one morning and said, ‘I’m Dr. Drum. It hit me that it was a way of healing. I was that little kid who wanted to drum but never did when I was growing up. This is my second chance, to help them drum.”

[H]e met Melinda Gonzalez, who was with a bomba group in Brooklyn. Together, they formed BombaYo, which featured drumming [and] dancing, from women wearing billowing white dresses to men with guayabera shirts and Panama hats, all moving in ways that are a visual reminder of the culture’s links to Africa.

To him, culture…beats through his heart, like a drum.

Mr. Ortiz left his school job five years ago, dedicating himself to his music, which he teaches to the young and the old — and anyone else in between. For someone who “grew up without the drum,” …he is now living it.

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Ed Soph: I Got Blown Out by Krupa, Not Buddy

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: The back story to this Ed Soph interview is posted here.

Ed Soph

Ed Soph (Photo by Zildjian)

Scott K Fish: When did you first hear Buddy Rich?

Ed Soph: At a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert. Buddy, Gene Krupa, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald.

I don’t think I’d every heard Buddy on record before that. I didn’t get blown out by Buddy. I got blown out by Krupa. Krupa made me feel better when he played time and all. It just felt so good and so happy.

–end–

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Jason Bonham: First Experience with Led Zeppelin Live was Frightening

Posted on June 6, 2015 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: This is an excerpt from my 1988 interview with Jason Bonham. The first excerpt and background story are posted here. 

Putting some perspective on this post, Jason Bonham was 10- or 11-years old in 1977.

Jason Bonham

Jason Bonham

Scott K Fish: Did you ever get to go on tour with your dad [John Bonham] when you were a kid? And watch [Led Zeppelin] play live?

Jason Bonham: I went with them on the ’77 tour. A couple of shows. We went down to Florida and played in Florida for a few days. And then we went to Tampa Stadium.

The band was onstage for something like 20-minutes and torrential rain – all of a sudden – came down. You could see the canopies above the stage billowing, full of water. And it was like, Panic Stations!

I think Jimmy [Page] got a short and very quick little shock. So they said, “We’ve got to stop the gig.” And all I remember was we were all in the dressing room, and all of a sudden the guy [body guard?] burst in and picked me up under his arm, and picked Peter Grant’s son up under his arm – Warren [Grant] – and yelled, “GO! GO! GO!”

I didn’t even know what was going on.

What had happened was, the band didn’t go back onstage. And the audience didn’t like this. Although it was torrential rain, the audience had broke down all the barricades and there was 87,000 kids running down towards us. And we was running for the limousines.

tampa_stadium_1977

‘Teenage Riot.’ Led Zeppelin, Tampa 6/3/1977. (Photo courtesy Matt Larson)

I remember just looking around and it was like seeing a riot running towards you.

We all jumped in the cars, and 15- or 20-seconds after we got in the cars, it was like they all piled onto the cars. Police bikes being knocked over. They wrecked something like eight limos.

I remember being thrown onto Jimmy Page’s lap. He was like, “Oh, hello Jason. How are you?”

I was going, “What’s happening, mom?” I was really terrified. And my mom was going, “No, it’s alright. It’s alright.” But, y’know, she was worried to death as well.

My dad was trying to calm everyone down.

But that was the first experience of [Led Zeppelin] live [that] I saw. It was frightening.

– end –

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Ed Soph on Intuitive Communicating with Music

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: The circumstances of this Ed Soph interview are posted here. 

Our exchange in this post involves two instances where musical communication is precise as verbal communication. I experienced it. Ed Soph experienced it.

Such instances are rare in my experience. I think such a high level of musical communication must take a high level of musicianship and listeners very aware of, and receptive to, their own intuition.

It would be great to hear from other musicians with similar experiences.

Scott K Fish: I’m thinking about a very high level of musical communication. For example, I read a [Joe Zawinul] interview [in which] he was relating some of [his] horrible experiences…as a child in war torn Austria.

Many months after that I saw Weather Report in concert. Peter Erskine had just joined the band. Zawinul played an unaccompanied, unannounced keyboard piece. As I listened, the music conjured up images of Zawinul’s childhood years in Austria. It was very moving.

When the piece ended, Zawinul announced the song title, and it was about his Austrian childhood during World War II.

Ed Soph: I’ll tell you about a similar experience. Wayne Darling and I did an album on Enja Records with Joe Henderson called “Barcelona.” [When] we were going out onstage to play, and Wayne said, “What do you want to do, Joe?” Joe said, “Oh, I don’t know. Something with a Spanish flavor.”

Ed Soph
Ed Soph

So we get done playing – and that’s what came out. Joe dictated the whole direction of the thing. Fortunately we followed and it came out pretty cohesive.

But, we got through, went back to the room and were listening to the tape. Joe’s sitting there cackling, going, “Yeah, man. We took a trip to Barcelona.” Joe had been to Barcelona during bullfight time, and that’s what he was playing off of.

About eight months later I had the [concert] tape with me and I was out doing a clinic. Dave Liebman was on the clinic with me. I said, “Have you heard this thing that we did with Joe?”

“No,” [Dave said]. “I’ve heard about it, but I haven’t heard it.”

I said, “Here. Listen to it.” Liebman listened to it and when the tape was through he looked at it and said, “Damn! You cats were in Barcelona, weren’t you?”

I said, “Did you know the name of the record?”

He said, “No. I’ve been to Barcelona around such-and-such a time.”

Goddam!

I asked Liebman, “Do you play off of geographic impressions and that sort of thing?”

He said, “All the time.”

–end–

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