world repertory ensemble at la pena, oakland, california


kekeli african music and dance ensemble performing in san jose, california

As a musician, I know that the best learning comes from doing. In individual or ensemble workshops and residencies around the world or my classes in the Music Department, College of Visual and Performing Arts, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, students clap, sing, dance, or drum as an essential part of our discussion, reading, listening, and viewing. It is essential to experience the sound, movement, and group interaction intensively. When possible, artists from each style or culture area studied perform for and with the participants to bring the roots of the sound and movement home. In our world music program at UMass Dartmouth we are fortunate to have guest master artists Kwabena Boateng in African music and dance and I. M. Harjito in Javanese gamelan.

On a graduate or undergraduate level, our classes and workshops in African American music live out what we discuss: we clap, sing, and dance camp meeting ring shouts or Georgia Sea Islands pattin' Juba, construct a one-string diddly-bow, sing the blues, compose a rap and play/dance hip-hop beats, dance to reggae, and scat sing in the bebop jazz style: all as part of understanding the resilience and power of African American traditions.
In my travels throughout the world, both individually, with master artists, or with my blood drum spirit ensemble, presentations and workshops include: West African drumming, dance, and song, and their connection to African American and other contemporary music; innovations in jazz performance; African American music history and styles; jazz drumset history and styles; rhythms, time cycles, and structures from Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe, and West Asia adapted to creative ensembles and drumset; new time and rhythmic concepts for drumset and jazz ensemble; African American expressions of culture, aesthetics, music, society, and politics; and music as philosophy. blood drum spirit's members work with students, musicians, visual artists, dancers, people in theater, poets, scholars, experimentalists, social activists, and community people and organizations, connecting the sounds we make to historical, cultural, artistic, and philosophical issues.

In our world music and ethnomusicology workshops and classes, we perform Native American Iroquois, Navajo, Lakota, and Inuit rhythms, songs, and dances; Japanese taiko rhythms, Chinese Beijing and Cantonese opera patterns; Philippine kulintang gong and drum ensemble pieces; Turkish usul rhythmic cycles on the bendir frame drum; South Indian karnatak solkattu rhythmic vocables and tala time cycles; Korean pungmul drum and gong ensemble patterns; Javanese gamelan compositions; Gaelic bodhran rhythms; European chamber and symphonic percussion pieces, Dominican merengue, Brazilian samba; Cuban rumba; American rudimental drumming; and West African songs, dances, and drum, bell, and rattle repertoire.

I also teach piano and jazz improvisation, focusing on the African American tradition and its innovators, such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, and Ornette Coleman.

At UMass Dartmouth or in residencies, the small and large jazz ensembles I and my ensemble work with play repertoire from the early 1920s through the present. We learn from the African American tradition and use its heritage of spontaneous aural interaction as a way to develop pieces and perform in the style of Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, and Sun Ra. We deal with the cultural and social meaning of pieces in each era as a way to play diverse historical styles with integrity. Ensembles focus on performing original and historic compositions in the African American tradition with a strong emphasis on influences from Asian, African, and American cultures.

Our UMass Dartmouth Kekeli West African drum and dance ensemble performs the music and dance of the Eve, Fon, Asante, Ga, Dagbamba, Dagara, Ahanta, Nzema, and other cultural groups. We are led in public concerts and workshops by master drummers such as Abraham Kobena Adzenyah, C. K. Ladzekpo, Samuel Elikem Nyamuame, and Martin Kwaakye Obeng, and dancers Kwabena Boateng and Helen Mensah. Most years, I bring groups - musicians, students, interested people - to West Africa to learn, perform, and do research.

In each area of teaching, workshops, and residencies, I am committed to understanding the beliefs, lifeways, and histories of peoples as an essential part of their music making. Charlie Parker's words, 'If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn' are true. Even in the classroom, we live the music as much as possible to feel it and find what it means to each of us.

Our blood drum spirit ensemble conducts residencies at universities, arts centers, or other institutions worldwide, as a quartet, or expanded to include master artists from world cultures. We bring original approaches to improvisation, composition, group interaction, use of world music elements, and sharing sound and meaning, to people with varied backgrounds, from having no musical background to professionals with advanced skills. As I was told by a great West African master dancer and drummer, 'We are all learning.' For more information on blood drum spirit, please see the ensembles page.

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 and structure, 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 consists of two daily sessions, Monday through Friday. Three-hour morning workshops 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 enables participants to internalize elements of Indian and African performance practice as a basis for their adaptation into a jazz/contemporary music context, which are 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 Asian 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 traditional (Gahu and Gadzo) voices into a jazz ensemble

Wednesday:
AM -- Layers of time and rhythm in traditional (Gahu and Gadzo) music
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 traditional (Gahu and Gadzo) music
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.

For workshops, residencies, or other presentations, contact me at royaljhartigan@yahoo.com or at (508) 999-8572.