performing in beijing, china
I perform with a number of ensembles and artists throughout the world. My main focus is with blood drum spirit, a quartet of people whose approach to life and music centers on meaning in sounds and connections with people, nature, ancestors, and a spirit world. Sometimes performing with master artists from world traditions, we share our lives and music with others to contribute to the world’s heartbeat.
blood drum spirit
blood drum spirit, led by percussionist royal hartigan, and featuring bassist Wes Brown, saxophonist David Bindman, and pianist Art Hirahara, is dedicated to performing original compositions and improvisations connected to world music traditions. The ensemble draws from African American/jazz musical traditions, integrating rhythms, songs, and approaches from West Africa, Asia, Native America, West Asia, and Europe. Musical connections go beyond technique, offering a window into the world's cultures; blood drum spirit sees music as an essential force, an alternative to the homogenization of culture in the marketplace. The group has built an original, exploratory, ever-growing body of work over 25 years, while acknowledging the complexity of the music itself and the apprenticeship and study required to communicate meaningfully in any given form. In their performances, the ensemble members invite the audience to 'sit up close'; the performances exist not in a vacuum but in close contact with people listening. Compositions are explained, both for their musical aspects (often audience members are invited to participate through singing melodies and clapping rhythms) and for their context: the meaning behind the titles and themes, including such issues as the historical and ongoing exploitation of people for profit, genocide, the environment, building a just world, and the inspiration and interconnectedness that motivates the musicians, providing context for the music and performance.
In 1981 drummer, pianist, and tap dancer royal hartigan, bassist Wes Brown, and saxophonist David Bindman met at Wesleyan University. hartigan was a graduate student in world music, Brown was working as a freelance musician living in Connecticut, and Bindman was attending Wesleyan as an undergraduate. hartigan, Brown, and Bindman helped create the sound and material for Talking Drums, the Ghanaian-American group founded by master drummers Abraham Kobena Adzenyah and Freeman Kwadzo Donkor, heard on their albums Talking Drums and Some Day Catch Some Day Down (Shanachie 1987), and on tour throughout the United States. Along with trombonist Bill Lowe, the three also formed the collective group Juba.
blood drum spirit adapts elements of world cultures into its music, including South Indian solkattu rhythms and tala (time cycles); Javanese gamelan structures and drum rhythms; Philippine kulintang ensemble instruments and timbres, Turkish usul and hand drum techniques; Gaelic bodhran rhythms, Native American songs; West African instruments, melodies, forms, and rhythms; African American clapping plays, camp meeting shouts, and New Orleans rhythms.
Some of the ensemble’s pieces employ 5, 7, 11, 15, 23, and 24-pulse time cycles, such as hartigan's arrangements of A Night in Tunisia, featuring an adapted Afro-Cuban rumba guaguanco in 7/8, Caravan, set in a 15/8 meter, and Invitation in 11/8. Double Trouble is a fast 7/8 blues. royal’s compositions and arrangements Asante Adowa, Wadsworth Falls, Dagbamba, Eve, Adzohu, and Anlo Kete employ traditional elements from West African music and dance, while the arrangements Papago-Saguaro Song and Navajo Blood/Pontoosuc Waters/Springside Lands are based on traditional Native American music, adapted into 23 and 11 pulse cycles, respectively. South Indian solkattu rhythmic structures are the foundation for Tala Vadyam in an 11-pulse tala and Gati Shadows Within in a 7-pulse tala. The Pilipinas suite uses kulintang instruments from the Maguindanao people of the southern Philippines and involves a 5/8 section derived from traditional tidtu playing style.
The group’s use of time cycles is from a cultural feel and sound rather than a mathematical technique. David Bindman contributes the multi-movement compositions Threads, High Definition Truth, Crisis in (Now's the) Time, Shape 1, Song for Englewood, Robeson House Echoes, Shape 3, and the ballad Song for Your Return that explore many aspects of time, tonality, timbre, and form. Pianist Art Hirahara shares his reflective Peace, Unknown and Wes Brown his work, Form. Their recorded pieces are all extended performances, as experienced in a concert. The recent double CD blood drum spirit: the royal hartigan ensemble live in china was recorded on the group's third tour in China, and includes an arrangement of the Chinese traditional melody Flowing Stream joined with Charles Mingus’ Goodbye Pork Pie Hat. From festivals, concerts, and conservatory workshops in Beijing to concerts and club performances in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Shanghai, the band has received warm and enthusiastic welcomes on each trip to China. In June 2008, the ensemble toured in China for the fourth time.
Our music is a vehicle to express the spirit of the African American heritage and the musics of the world, who we are, and what we have been given from our ancestors.
Education
In the spirit of hartigan's U. S. Peace Corps service, many international performance and research grants, a J. William Fulbright residency in the Philippines in 2006, and an Asian Cultural Council research grant for the Philippines in 2009, the ensemble members feel a responsibility to live and share our music with people over a period of time, learning from others as well as giving. We offer residencies that include master classes, ensemble rehearsals, lecture-demonstrations, individual lessons, and workshops as well as concerts. Part of blood drum spirit's mission is educational, as Dr. royal hartigan is a professor in world music at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and we all bring our collective teaching, musical, and life experiences to residencies and performances. The ensemble offers workshops for music and non-music students alike in West African drumming, song, and dance, Indian time cycles, original rhythmic concepts and practice, African American music, and jazz history and styles. For music students topics include the details of performance, improvisation, and composition, fostering growth and insight, and encouraging people to make music that is connected to and expresses their realities.
Please look through the items listed on this page. For more detailed examples of our work, including video and audio selections, you can go to the Percussionist, Ensembles, Composition/Arrangement, Teaching/Workshops/Residencies, Research and Publication, and World Music pages. If you are interested inviting us for performances, presentations, workshops, or residencies, feel free to contact us anytime.
royal hartigan ensemble – blood drum spirit bios
Wes Brown (bass) has performed and toured with a wide range of musical personalities. Wes plays acoustic and electric bass, keyboard, percussion and African flute. His current interests include African-American/jazz, Afro-pop/worldbeat, reggae and traditional African styles, in which he is an experienced drummer and dancer. Wes has appeared on over two dozen records with various players and has extensive international touring experience with such artists as Earl "Fatha" Hines and Anthony Braxton.
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David Bindman, saxophonist and composer, creates works that combine many elements: drawing on the motion of dance, exploring the complexity of melody and time unbound yet relating to tradition, having improvisation at the core. His multi-movement compositions cross genres and media, and incorporate ideas from West Africa, India, and around the globe. In addition to leading his ensemble, Bindman has performed or recorded with Wadada Leo Smith, royal hartigan, Kevin Norton, Ehran Elisha, Adam Lane, Bill Lowe, Anthony Braxton, Fred Ho, Talking Drums, Juba, and many others. He has collaborated with poet Tyrone Henderson and visual artist Quimetta Perle, creating the multimedia pieces The Madman and Strawman Dance, and recording the CD Strawman Dance (Konnex). His work with the Brooklyn Sax Quartet has been released on two critically acclaimed recordings, The Way of the Saxophone (Innova) and Far Side of Here (Omnitone).
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Art Hirahara is a jazz pianist/composer, originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, now residing in Brooklyn, New York. He received his Master of Fine Arts degree in jazz piano performance at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, and a Bachelor of Music degree in Electronic and Computer Music from the Oberlin College Conservatory in Oberlin, Ohio.
In the fall of 1996, he was selected by the Arts America office of the U.S.
Information Agency to serve as a Jazz Ambassador on a seven-week tour in Qatar, Yemen, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, where he performed, lectured and conducted workshops with local musicians.
Art has performed regularly at venues on the East and West coasts including Yoshi's in Oakland, CA and Birdland in New York City, working with noted musicians including Vincent Herring, Akira Tana, Rufus Reid, Wadada Leo Smith, Scott Amendola, Todd Sickafoose, Hafez Modirzadeh, Anton Schwartz, Marcus Shelby, Anthony Brown and the Asian American Orchestra, E.W. Wainwright, royal hartigan, Eric Crystal, Bob Kenmotsu, Chuck Sher, San Jose Taiko, Idris Ackamoor, and Helcio Milito.
Art has studied performance and composition with Charlie Haden, Joe La
Barbera, Neal Creque, Jimmy Owens, Wadada Leo Smith, and David Roitstein. His CD entitled Edge of This Earth was self-released in August of 2000.
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royal hartigan is a percussionist, pianist, and tap dancer who has studied and performed the musics of Asia, Africa, Europe, West Asia, and the Americas, including indigenous West African drumming, dance, song, and highlife; Turkish bendir frame drum; Japanese taiko drumming; Philippine kulintang gong and drum ensembles; Chinese Beijing, Cantonese, and Kunqu opera percussion; South Indian solkattu rhythms; Korean pungmul drum and gong ensemble; Javanese and Sumatran gamelan; Gaelic bodhran; Native American drumming; Dominican merengue; Brazilian samba; Cambodian sampho drums, Vietnamese clapper percussion, European symphony; and African American blues, gospel, funk, hip-hop, and jazz traditions.
He was awarded an A.B. in philosophy from St. Michael's College in 1968, specializing in medieval metaphysics and the existentialism of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. royal received a B.A. degree in African American music with honors at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1981, studying with Roland Wiggins, Frederick Tillis, Reggie Workman, Archie Shepp, Max Roach, and Horace Clarence Boyer. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in world music and ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University in 1983 and 1986, studying intensively with ethnomusicologist David McAllester and Bill Lowe, Bill Barron, Edward Blackwell, Freeman Kwadzo Donkor, Abraham Kobena Adzenyah, and other master artists/scholars from Java, India, and Ghana, West Africa.
royal has taught ethnomusicology, African drumming, and world music ensemble at the New School University (formerly the New School for Social Research) in New York and the graduate liberal studies program at Wesleyan university. He helped develop and taught graduate and undergraduate courses in world music, large and small jazz ensembles, experimental music ensemble, Asian music ensembles (Philippine kulintang), African American music history, and West African drumming and dance at San Jose State University before assuming a position as professor in world music at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He has taught music theory and fundamentals, western music history, and introduction to world music at UMass Dartmouth, and currently teaches music of the African diaspora, area studies, and world music survey. royal has served on the numerous university, college, and Music department committees as well as initiating grants for numerous workshops and concerts of world music from 1999 to the present.
His publications include Blood Drum Spirit: Drum Languages of West Africa, African America, Native America, Central Java, and South India, a 1700-page analysis of world drumming traditions (UMI/ProQuest); articles in Percussive Notes, World of Music, Annual Review of Jazz Studies, Music in China, and The African American Review; a book with compact disc, West African Rhythms for Drumset (Manhattan Music/Warner Brothers/Alfred 1995, 2004), and two books with digital video disc, Dancing on the Time (Tap Space 2006), and West African Eve Rhythms for Drumset (Print Tech 2009). He has given lectures and clinics on world music and jazz in Africa, China, the Philippines, Europe, and North America. royal travels to West Africa with students each year to perform and do research, collaborating with master artists and the people of numerous villages, including the Dagbe Cultural Centre at Kopeyia Village, Volta Region, Ghana, Bernard Woma’s Dagara Music Center at Midie Village near Accra, Ghana, and musicians from the Kumasi Cultural Centre in Ghana’s Asante Region.
He has performed, given workshops, and recorded internationally with his own blood drum spirit ensemble and master artists (blood drum spirit, 1997 and 2003 Innova; ancestors and blood drum spirit: the royal hartigan ensemble live in china, both Innova 2008), Juba (Look on the Rainbow 1987), Talking Drums (Talking Drums 1985 and Someday Catch, Someday Down 1987), the Fred Ho Afro-Asian Music Ensemble (We Refuse to be Used and Abused and Song for Manong 1988, Underground Railroad to My Heart 1994, Monkey Epic: Part 1 1996, Turn Pain into Power 1997, Monkey Epic Part 2 1997, Yes Means Yes, No Means No, Whatever She Says, Wherever She Goes! 1999, Warrior Sisters: The New Adventures of African and Asian Women Warriors 1999, Night Vision: A Third to First World Vampyre Opera 2000, Voice of the Dragon: Once Upon a Time in Chinese America 2001, The Black Panther Suite: All Power to the People! 2003; forthcoming - Voice of the Dragon 2: Shaolin Secret Stories, Big Red!, Blazing on the Turquoise Sea, Deadly She-Wolf Assassin at Armageddon!, Fred Ho and the Celestial Green Monster Big Band), Hafez Modirzadeh's ensemble (Chromodal Discourse 1993, Nava-ye Mardom: The People's Blues 1996, The Mystery of Sama 1998, By Any Mode Necessary 1999), the Happy Feet Orchestra (Happy Feet 1989), the David Bindman-Tyrone Henderson Project (Strawman Dance 1993 and Iliana's Dance 1996), Nathaniel Mackey (Songs of the Andoumboulou 1995), Michael Heffley (Collaborations with Dead and Living Males and Females from Different Gene Pools; Fishy Scales, Fuji Scaled; Big and Little Instrus, Parts 1 and 2 1999, 2003, 2007), soundSFound Orchestra (Classical Stretch 2005), Dan Newman and Hafez Modirzadeh (Suraghati 2005), Paul Austerlitz (Journey 2008), Chen Hongyu (Contemporary Compositions Recital by Soprano Chen Hongyu 1994), Michael William Gilbert (In The Dreamtime 1980 and The Call 1981), and as tenor vocalist in the Saint Michael’s College Glee Club recording of Brahms Requiem with the Boston Civic Symphony Orchestra, Kalman Novak, conductor, 1966). He has released a documentary and artistic video of his work in West Africa and its relation to the African American music cultures (eve).
blood drum spirit residencies: workshops, classes, ensembles, lecture-demonstrations, lessons, concerts
royal hartigan and blood drum spirit conduct residencies at many international venues and numerous American universities, institutions, and community organizations. Our focus is the study and adaptation of indigenous Asian and African music cultures into jazz and contemporary music performance and composition. Although the outline that follows describes our longer projects, we have worked with many elements listed below in shorter time spans ranging from one day to one week.
For a two-week residency, our first week will focus on the karnatak (classical) music of South India, followed by a second week treating West African traditions. Topics for the inaugural week will include raga as a basis for melodic construction, the kriti structure as a model for jazz forms, the 175 tala time cycles as new possibilities for metric organization, and solkattu rhythmic vocables as original ways to construct compositions and improvised solos.
Issues in the second week will comprise West African melodies and song form as a basis for jazz themes, the functions of dance and individual supporting drum orchestra voices - bell, rattle, various pitched drums - and how they can be transformed to a jazz ensemble, layers of time in an African drum ensemble as a foundation for a polyrhythmic and polymetric approach to new music, vugbe drum language, and the master - support drum dialogues as an impetus for spontaneous jazz interactions, including call and response.
Each week will consist of two daily sessions, Monday through Friday. Three-hour morning workshops will explore traditional elements of each music culture, with students performing Indian solkattu rhythmic vocables, tala time cycles, and raga tonal complexes (week one) as well as West African dance, songs, and drum, bell, and rattle patterns (week two). This intense hands-on experience will enable participants to internalize elements of Indian and African performance practice as a basis for their adaptation into a jazz/contemporary music context, which will be the focus of our daily three-hour afternoon sessions.
Each week will culminate in a series of concerts by selected participant groups and one by the royal hartigan ensemble. If funding allows, master artists from Indian and African traditions join our workshops and performances.
A typical schedule:
Week 1
Monday:
AM -- Indian historic and cultural background; raga and its possibilities
PM -- Raga adapted to thematic construction in jazz and contemporary music
Tuesday:
AM -- The kriti compositional form
PM -- Kriti as a model for jazz composition
Wednesday:
AM --The tala system of 175 time cycles
PM -- Tala as a basis for original concepts of time in jazz, funk, reggae, hip-hop, and new music
Thursday:
AM -- Solkattu rhythmic vocables, the complexity of Indian rhythm
PM -- Solkattu rhythmic language adapted to a jazz context
Friday:
AM -- Advanced solkattu rhythms; review of raga, kriti, and tala
PM -- Advanced solkattu adapted into jazz; preparation for concerts (with master artist)
Evening -- Concerts, participant ensembles and the royal hartigan ensemble (with master artist)
Week 2
Monday:
AM -- West African historic and cultural background; song forms, texts, and meaning
PM -- Songs played in a jazz context
Tuesday:
AM -- West African supporting drum, bell, and rattle parts from numerous traditional dance drumming pieces, such as the Gahu recreational music and Gadzo warrior music of the Eve people of Ghana
PM -- Adaptation of (Gahu and Gadzo) voices into a jazz ensemble
Wednesday:
AM -- Layers of time and rhythm in (Gahu and Gadzo) musics
PM -- Adapting polymeters and polyrhythms from African drumming into jazz ensemble compositions and improvisation
Thursday:
AM -- Master - supporting drum dialogues in the West African drum orchestra
PM -- Drum dialogues as a basis for jazz ensemble interactions
Friday:
AM -- West African drum language, vugbe; review of (Gahu and Gadzo) musics
PM -- West African drum language adapted into jazz performance and composition; preparation for concerts (with master artist)
Evening -- Concerts, participant ensembles and royal hartigan ensemble (with master artist).
The members of our teaching ensemble have studied Indian karnatak and West African musics at Calarts’ and Wesleyan University’s world music program with master musicians. royal hartigan earned his MA and PhD degrees at Wesleyan as well as teaching in the Graduate Liberal Studies Program between 1989-2002. Other world music cultures and elements we work with include Chinese Opera percussion, Japanese taiko, Korean pungmul, Indonesian gamelan, Philippine kulintang, Turkish usul, Gaelic bodhran, Native American drumming, Brazilian samba, Dominican merengue, Cuban rumba guaguanco, and European art music.
reviews, notes, interviews, and quotes
China Grooves
By Richard Kamins for the Hartford Courant on August 9, 2008
I met royal hartigan (no capital letters) over 20 years ago when he was a graduate student at Wesleyan. Being a drummer, he studied with master drummers Abraham Adzenyah and Ed Blackwell and worked with saxophonist-educator Bill Barron and trombonist-educator Bill Lowe. hartigan played in various ensembles and always could be counted on to play the "right thing at the right time." A master of polyrhythms, hartigan seemed to have absorbed the teachings of his various instructors and put them to the test in the groups he performs with.
While the much of the world is absorbed with watching the 2008 Summer Olympics from China, Innova Records has issued "Blood Drum Spirit: Live in China", a 2-CD set by the royal hartigan ensemble. The group, featuring Wesleyan graduates and long-time associates David Bindman (tenor saxophone) and Wes Brown (bass) as well as the West Coast based pianist Art Hirahara, toured China recently and played straight-ahead (songs by Duke Ellington, Sonny Rollins, and Dizzy Gillespie), traditional percussive pieces from Africa and original works.
I haven't had the opportunity to listen to the entire program (over 2 and 1/2 hours of music) but I've liked what I've heard so far. Bindman has rarely sounded better, whether playing lovely ballads or digging in to an uptempo tune. Needless to say, hartigan's playing is excellent and the sound mix really captures his wonderful stick and cymbal work.
Here's Ellington's "In A Sentimental Mood" to get you in the mood for this medal winning performance.
royal hartigan discography
with my blood drum spirit ensemble and master artists:
blood drum spirit double CD 1997 and 2003, Innova
ancestors double CD and blood drum spirit: the royal hartigan ensemble live in china, double CDs 2008, Innova
eve, a documentary and artistic video of my work in West Africa and its relation to the African American music cultures 1997; also found as an enhanced video on the blood drum spirit Innova CD reissue 2003
with colleagues:
Saint Michael’s College Glee Club (William Tortolano, director):
tenor vocalist in Brahms Requiem tribute to John Fitzgerald Kennedy, with the Boston Civic Symphony Orchestra at Jordan Hall, Boston, MA, Kalman Novak, conductor 1966.
Michael William Gilbert:
In The Dreamtime 1980 and The Call 1981
Juba:
Look on the Rainbow 1987
Talking Drums Highlife and African Jazz Ensemble:
Talking Drums 1985 and Someday Catch, Someday Down 1987
Fred Ho Afro-Asian Music Ensemble, Monkey Orchestra, Journey to the West Orchestra, Green Monster Big Band:
We Refuse to be Used and Abused and Song for Manong 1988 Underground Railroad to My Heart 1994
Monkey Epic: Part 1 1996
Turn Pain into Power 1997
Monkey Epic Part 2 1997
Yes Means Yes, No Means No, Whatever She Says, Wherever She Goes! 1998
Warrior Sisters: The New Adventures of African and Asian Women Warriors 1999
Night Vision: A Third to First World Vampyre Opera 2000
Voice of the Dragon: Once Upon a Time in Chinese America 2001
The Black Panther Suite: All Power to the People! 2003
forthcoming with Fred Ho –
Voice of the Dragon 2: Shaolin Secret Stories
Big Red!
Blazing on the Turquoise Sea
Deadly She-Wolf Assassin at Armageddon!
Fred Ho and the Celestial Green Monster Big Band
Lucinda Ellert and the Happy Feet Orchestra:
Happy Feet 1989
The David Bindman-Tyrone Henderson Project:
Strawman Dance 1993
Iliana's Dance 1996
Hafez Modirzadeh's ensemble:
In Chromodal Discourse 1993
Nava-Ye Mardom: The People's Blues 1996
The Mystery of Sama 1998
By Any Mode Necessary 1999
Nathaniel Mackey and Hafez Modirzadeh:
Songs of the Andoumboulou 1995
Michael Heffley:
Collaborations with Dead and Living Males and Females from Different Gene Pools 1999
Fishy Scales, Fuji Scaled 2003
Big and Little Instrus, Parts 1 and 2 2007
soundSFound Orchestra:
Classical Stretch 2005
Dan Newman, Hafez Modirzadeh, and Global Phatness:
Suraghati 2005
Paul Austerlitz:
Journey 2008
Chen Hongyu:
Contemporary Compositions Recital by Soprano Chen Hongyu 1994
Selected International Travel History
October 1968 - July 1970 U. S. Peace Corps volunteer, Philippines; barrio Malued, Dagupan City, Pangasinan, TESL in the Dagupan schools and medical social work at Pangsinan Provincial Hospital assisting indigent patients and doing outreach for corrective surgery for children with harelip deformity
November 1987 - Milan, Italy, performances and compact disc (CD) recording as percussionist with the Fred Ho Afro-Asian Music ensemble, Soul Note Records
July/August 1989 – Russia, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Greece, Italy, France, the Mediterranean Islands, Jazz Cruise with Hafez Modirzadeh’s quintet
March 1991 - field research in West African traditional drumming, dance, song, and culture, Accra and Kopeyia village, Ghana West Africa
July 1992 – Toulon, France, Jazz Festival with the Philippe Crettien /Bill Lowe Ensemble
July 1994 – Toulon, France, Jazz Festival with the Toulon All Star Jazz Ensemble
July/August 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997 - field research in traditional West African traditional drumming, dance, song, and culture, Kopeyia village, Ghana West Africa
November 1998 - London, England performances with Fred Ho's Afro-Asian trio
August 1999 - field research in traditional Chinese percussion and culture, Shanghai, Nanjing, and Beijing
June 2001 - field trip to Seoul, South Korea, study and research in traditional music, dance, and culture with master artists at the Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts
July 2001 - Beijing, China, performances with my blood drum spirit ensemble
June/July 2002 - field research, audio and video recording of traditional West African traditional drumming, dance, song, and culture, Anyako village, Ghana West Africa
May 2004 - Beijing, China, performances and workshops with my ensemble blood drum spirit
May/June 2005, 2006, June 2007 - field research, audio and video recording of traditional West African traditional drumming, dance, song, and culture, Anyako, Kopeyia, and Midie villages, Ghana West Africa
May 2006 - performances and workshops with my ensemble blood drum spirit at Beijing, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Hangzhou, and Shanghai; field research in traditional Chinese Da Liuzi and Wei Gu percussion music and culture, West Hunan, China
October - December 2006 - J. William Fulbright Scholar through the U. S. State Department at the University of the Philippines; teaching African music and dance and African American jazz traditions, conducting preliminary research in traditional kulintang/palibunyan ensemble music of Mindanao and Kalinga music of the Northern Provinces
May/June 2008 - performances and workshops with my ensemble blood drum spirit at Beijing, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Hangzhou, and Shanghai
January 2009 - field research in West African traditional drumming, dance, song, and culture, Mampong Town, Asante Region, Ghana West Africa
June - September 2009 – Asian Cultural Council Scholar at the University of the Philippines; teaching African music and dance and African American jazz traditions, conducting research in traditional kulintang/palibunyan ensemble music of Mindanao and Kalinga music of the Northern Provinces.
CD/LP Review | Published: April 4, 2010
Ancestors
Royal Hartigan | Innova Recordings (2008)
By Karl Ackermann
Karl Ackermann
View Profile | Contact Me
Contributor
Joined AAJ in 2010  
On paper, combining the musical influences of West Africa, America and Asia can appear a bit overwhelming. That's not the case at all on Royal Hartigan's Ancestors. The pianist/percussionist's trilogy—Blood Drum Spirit (Innova, 2004), Blood Drum Spirit Live in China (Innov a, 2008), and now Ancestors—reflects a universal viewpoint without being neatly categorized as world music. Jazz is pervasive throughout this collection, and the various musical ethnicities serve as reminders of where the genre came from and where it could go.
Ancestors was born out of Hartigan's sense of loss. It is a catharsis without closure and an acutely personal exploration of life, death, afterlife and, mostly, family, in the immediate and universal sense. "Flight/Homecoming" opens the set with saxophonist Hafez Modirzadeh covering a spectrum of emotions including keening a brief mourning. Baomi's wordless vocal improvisation continues the theme of movement and transition, before Modirzadeh returns to transport the vocalist to a spoken word suite reaffirming the continuous cycle of life beyond the physical form. Throughout this opening segment, Hartigan alternately augments and drives the music, using bells, dondo, bass drum and hi hat before moving to piano.
Within the two-disc set, Hartigan's own family emerges as a Greek Chorus. A poem by his grandfather is carried by Sandra Poindexter's poignant violin work, while Hartigan's tap danced "Waltz Clog" is a tribute to both his uncle and mother and in a much lighter vein. Pop standards of past generations, as well as Tchaikovsky's "Violin Concerto," appear as favorites of Hartigan's parents, adding personal insight in the midst of more multicultural styles. Hartigan's piano brings to mind Jelly Roll Morton on "Hazel's Dance" and "Five Foot Two."
Haritgan is masterful at tying complex themes into a story, but more than that he brilliantly conveys human emotion through the music. Ancestors accepts sadness and loss as a reality, but also celebrates ongoing rebirth and treats time as an elastic continuum. Musically, he manages to incorporate instruments and styles as diverse as stride piano, Turkish bendir and Chinese zither in a collected work that is both universal and tangible at the same time. Ancestors is a blend of musicology and genealogy that is quite unique and memorable.
Track listing: CD1: Flight/Homecoming; Passages; Three Views; Hazel's Dance; Guanshan Yue; James Eagle Eye; La Vie En Rose/All to Myself/Soliloquy; Waltz Clog; Tenderly; Tatao; The Shadow of Your Smile; Cycles; Railroad Banjo To My Heart; Our Family; You'll Never Know Just How Much I Love You; Adzohu Kadodo Reflections. CD2: Hazel's Dance: Orphan Annie; Midnight Sun; Ray Hart; Parting Veil; Syrinx; We'll Be Together Again; New York Rhythm; Meng Jiang Nu; It Had To Be You; Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto In D Major/Midnight; In Moscow; Hanabi; I Know I've Been Changed; Tenderly; Dondo--Tap Conversation For Frank, Edward, Mary & Richie Hartigan; Divine Trance; Five Foot Two; Through The Light; Walking Step.
Personnel: Baomi: vocals and narrative poetry; Conrad Benedicto: philippine dabakan drum; yu fuhua: violin; Danongan Kalanduyan: philippine kulintang gongs; Masaru Koga: japanese shakuhachi flute; C. K. Ladzekpo: west african e e atsime u master drum, dondo hourglass drum; Hafez Modirzadeh; soprano and tenor saxophones, persian ney flute, and western flute; Sandra Poindexter: violin; Timothy Volpicella: banjo; Weihua Zhang: chinese guzheng zither; Royal Hartigan: bells, percussion, piano, tap dance, turkish bendir frame drum, axatse gourd rattle, dondo hourglass drum, drum set.
CD/LP Review | Published: March 8, 2010
Blood Drum Spirit
Royal Hartigan | Innova Recordings (2004)
By Karl Ackermann
Karl Ackermann
View Profile | Contact Me
Contributor
Joined AAJ in 2010
Discuss  
Good things sometimes fly under the radar; sometimes they are great things. This has never been more the case than with Royal Hartigans's Blood Drum Spirit, a jazz masterpiece that has languished in obscurity since its 1993 recording to its eventual 2004 release.
It remains largely unrecognized six years later. Jazz, especially in the US, can be almost religiously hierarchical and introducing an unknown quantity to the ranks of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, or Anthony Braxton may well be viewed as profane or pretentious. However, the benefit to fans of good music outweighs the potential backlash. This qualifies as a classic desert island, end of the world as we know it, entry.
Hartigan is jazz Renaissance man. An author, educator, and student/teacher of world music, he has incorporated the sounds, native instruments, and cultural nuances of West Africa and Southeast Asia into a two-disc collection where the emphasis is strongly toward jazz rather than the world music that subtly influences it. Like Collin Walcott's earlier efforts, Cloud Dance (ECM, 1976) and Grazing Dreams (ECM, 1977), Hartigan has found that elusive ground that emphasizes the pure innovative nature of jazz without excluding the unique attributes of the cultures Hartigan has closely studied and been influenced by. Some time back, Esbjorn Svensson Trio was dubbed the "future of jazz." Had Royal Haritgan been known at that time, he may have deservedly shared the mantle.
If Blood Drum Spirit has a centerpiece, it is "Eve," a 28-plus minute epic composed of solo, duo, trio, and quartet formats that easily flow into and out of each phase. Suffice to say, "Eve" is worth the price of admission. In many ways it represents the democratic nature of Hartigan's collective style and world philosophy. Guitarist Kevin McNeal's deceptively simple chords and David Bindman's opening saxophone sets a bluesy pace that carries throughout. By the time Wes Brown's bass and Hartigan's kit transition into a rhythmic African extended duo, a hypnotic effect has established itself and it is not easily broken. Hartigan's percussion work is as musical, or more so, than most of the percussion greats who have gone before him. His versatility could be imagined as a solo percussion work, much the way the Art Ensemble of Chicago's drummer Don Moye is.
To single out tracks is counter-productive here; this is a work of symphonic structure. Hartigan's quartet exerts equal effort and finesse across the spectrum of tunes here and selectivity would be nitpicking as the work that builds and develops across the entire program. Each band member is given more than ample opportunity to solo and in every case they are stellar performances. Why Royal Hartigan is unfamiliar to many jazz fans is a subject for another debate. What is clear is that Blood Drum Spirit is a collection that will endure for many years to come.
Track listing: Blood Drum Spirit; Wadsworth Falls; Dagomba; Pilipinas Suite; Solog; Pilipinas; Solog; Caravan; Tala Vadyam; Apartheid Usa Suite; Adzohu; Juba Handclaps; Rodney King Drums; Double Trouble; Adzohu Rodney King Drums; Double Trouble; Navajo Blood/Pontoosuc Waters/Springside Lands; Tie Me Sufre (Teah May Sufray); Papago-Saguaro Song; Eve (Eh Vay).
Personnel: David Bindman: woodwinds; Kevin McNeal: guitar; Wes Brown: bass; Royal Hartigan: drums, cymbals, and rattles.
