Sherlock Holmes: “Do you remember what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood.”
Source: Doyle, Arthur Conan; Books, Maplewood (2014-05-15). Sherlock Holmes: The Ultimate Collection.
SKF NOTE: In his new autobiography, “It’s A Long Story: My Life,” Willie Nelson tells how he and longtime drummer, Paul English, first met. Willie was in radio station KCNC with guitarist Oliver English, Paul’s brother, who was, writes Willie, “another major musical mentor.”
Willie Nelson: Great characters were popping up everywhere I looked.
I saw Oliver [English] bring his brother Paul English to the station one day.
I liked Paul from the get-go. In nothing flat, he laid out his life story. He’d been busted for some petty crimes and gone to jail in Waxahachie. He talked about how he’d been on the Fort Worth Press’s “10 Most Unwanted” list five years in a row. He was a gun-toting, fun-loving outlaw with plenty of charm and no fears. But like his brother Oliver, was he also a musician?
“Get that cardboard box over there,” said Oliver. “Give Paul some brushes and let him play drums.”
Paul impressed us with pretty decent time.
Some time would pass before Paul and I hooked up again, but when we did, it would be forever.
PULLMAN & ROSELAND – Health & Wellness
Can Drumming Help Women in Roseland Heal?
By Andrea V. Watson | June 8, 2015 5:08am @andreavwatson12
ROSELAND — 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.
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.
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.
Sherlock Holmes: “Do you remember what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood.”
Scott K Fish 
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