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| Curtis Jones and Charley Holley |
MY FIRST FREE DRUM CIRCLE – In my last years at Berkeley I had a lot of musical firsts, as has been shown in Part one, Interlude My first realization of tone deafness and first attempt to cure it; my first Latin jazz lessons; my first lessons in blues theory and blues scales; my first lesson in how to listen; and my first lesson in bop melody.
Telegraph Avenue is one of Berkeley’s major arteries. It runs straight into the University of California at Berkeley and where the Avenue meets the college there is a little mini-square called Sather Gate. Telegraph Avenue was for years a center for bohemian, avant-garde, hippy, or counter-culture businesses – bookstores, ‘head’ shops, coffee houses, and so on. So when it ran into the college campus at Sather Gate, this junction naturally became a place for impromptu speakers, individual commercial stands selling homemade necklaces, t-shirts, and so on – and for a free drum circle.
One afternoon I was strolling through the Berkeley campus, pleasantly high on a thin joint, when I came to Sather Gate and saw a whole group of people there. Most were dancing, and many were playing hand percussion, flute, and similar small instruments. At the center were three congeros – a middle-aged Black man, who was obviously the leader of the whole thing, and two White disciples, one on each side. All three produced the ground rhythm on which all music of the lighter-sounding instruments was based. Standing next to the jam was like standing next to an ocean of sound, and then, very soon, someone put some small percussion instrument into my hand and urged me to join in the playing. So I did, playing and dancing, and had an exhilarating experience.
After this I regularly stopped by for the weekend jam session. I didn’t see anything political in this, other than it was nice to see all the races playing together – a real example of peace, love, and rhythm.
Then I discovered that there was a political side to this. By the late 1960s there was open war between the Berkeley police force and the denizens of Telegraph Avenue. One afternoon when I was returning from a book-buying spree I saw two young – like around 15 or 16 – Black kids being detained by several policemen, obviously on the verge of a ‘My Sweet Annie’ takedown experience (see in Chambray). But before the police could take their two victims into custody there were surrounded by a circle of around 100 Avenue habitués, many shouting “What did those kids do? Why are you harassing them?” and so on. The police were so nervous and uncertain as to how to proceed that the two young Black prisoners quickly and easily vanished into the crowd.
That night, while enjoying a night stroll through the area around our house on Milvia Street, I happened upon an impromptu celebration being held in a very small ‘pocket park’ – one small square block made into a grassy place with an oil drum placed against the back fence for trash. This little park was full of people dancing, smoking, embracing, and all celebrating our victory – two young brothers saved from the police! The center of the action was the two White disciples of the Black drum leader from Sather Gate, and they were playing one of the common rhythms from there. The oil drum was turned upside down, and one woman or man after another would be lifted onto the top of the oil drum and then dance there solo, and after a few minutes would jump down and be replaced by another dancer.
So, I learned two things about free drum circles (although I did not yet know that name): that they were open to everyone regardless of race, status, or any other social definition (‘bags’ as the counter-culture described these what they considered artificial groupings); and they did have an anti-racism, ‘anti-bag’ political stance along with their free-for-all music jamborees.
Little did I know that my whole future life was to be tied to free drum circles. The training I experienced with Boston’s Tribal Rhythms®, and then my 15 years of work with Mel Wiggins, and my two years studying the Griffith Park Free Drum Circle –all led to an alternative way of making a living in music other than as a no-hope part-time college instructor, and ultimately to a comfortable life of teaching and playing religious music life in Seattle and the Philippines for the last 30 years of my performing life. It all started with my first drum circle experience at Sather Gate.
So these informal weekend drum circle jams became my lifeline, the core of my being, playing and composing. There’s a lot more to say about these circles, but for that we have to go ahead: first to Tribal Rhythms® of Boston, then to the chapter on Griffith Park, and finally and most completely the Appendix which gives more detail on the known history of free drum circles and of the Griffith Park circle, and interviews with several leading players expressing their philosophy and aesthetics (if I live long enough to complete the appendix!)
But I must add one thing here: free drum circles were more than amateur music sessions. They served to break down the barriers of race, religion and class which defined American society until the 1960s (and, alas, to some extent still exist). Drum circles did this by just being all-inclusive, as best expressed by the philosophy of Tribal Rhythms; “There was a person who made a circle to keep me out … so I made a circle to include us both."
I FIND A BOSTON DRUM CIRCLE
2 and 3. TRIBAL RHYTHMS: CHARLEY HOLLEY, CURTIS JONES, SUSAN PORTER, TOM GARFIELD
“Lee!” Charlie Banacos exclaimed in the middle of a Monday lesson.
Well, actually I had spent the whole weekend on a mountain top near Chelsea, Vermont, jamming with my friends from Tribal Rhythms® in the home of two New England firemen (Thomas McCain and his neighbor Johnnie), around seven of us sitting in a circle, me on kalimba as usual. When it got too intense for me to keep sitting and playing – as it often did when I was jamming with these guys – I walked outside to the very top of the mountain, where the Randy and Johnnie had built a giant wind harp*. It was so big that the hollow part of the wind harp body was 7 or 8 feet high, so you could walk inside it and have a cigarette or a drink while listening to the sound of the “Music That’s Good for the Head” jam session coming up from 10 feet below, blending with the harp’s wind song. In fact, the body was so big that as I was listening I was joined by a horse, who walked into the harp and listened along with me. The horse was still there when I left to rejoin the jam session down below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS4_1N7HTX8&t=608s
[A wind harp, more correctly called an Aeolian harp, is a harp which is so constructed that the movement of air will make the strings vibrate, producing a smooth flowing sound. As the name indicates, it was invented in Ancient Greece. Usually, however, Aeolian harps were small instruments, just a foot or so in size.]
Telegraph Avenue is one of Berkeley’s major arteries. It runs straight into the University of California at Berkeley and where the Avenue meets the college there is a little mini-square called Sather Gate. Telegraph Avenue was for years a center for bohemian, avant-garde, hippy, or counter-culture businesses – bookstores, ‘head’ shops, coffee houses, and so on. So when it ran into the college campus at Sather Gate, this junction naturally became a place for impromptu speakers, individual commercial stands selling homemade necklaces, t-shirts, and so on – and for a free drum circle.
One afternoon I was strolling through the Berkeley campus, pleasantly high on a thin joint, when I came to Sather Gate and saw a whole group of people there. Most were dancing, and many were playing hand percussion, flute, and similar small instruments. At the center were three congeros – a middle-aged Black man, who was obviously the leader of the whole thing, and two White disciples, one on each side. All three produced the ground rhythm on which all music of the lighter-sounding instruments was based. Standing next to the jam was like standing next to an ocean of sound, and then, very soon, someone put some small percussion instrument into my hand and urged me to join in the playing. So I did, playing and dancing, and had an exhilarating experience.
After this I regularly stopped by for the weekend jam session. I didn’t see anything political in this, other than it was nice to see all the races playing together – a real example of peace, love, and rhythm.
Then I discovered that there was a political side to this. By the late 1960s there was open war between the Berkeley police force and the denizens of Telegraph Avenue. One afternoon when I was returning from a book-buying spree I saw two young – like around 15 or 16 – Black kids being detained by several policemen, obviously on the verge of a ‘My Sweet Annie’ takedown experience (see in Chambray). But before the police could take their two victims into custody there were surrounded by a circle of around 100 Avenue habitués, many shouting “What did those kids do? Why are you harassing them?” and so on. The police were so nervous and uncertain as to how to proceed that the two young Black prisoners quickly and easily vanished into the crowd.
That night, while enjoying a night stroll through the area around our house on Milvia Street, I happened upon an impromptu celebration being held in a very small ‘pocket park’ – one small square block made into a grassy place with an oil drum placed against the back fence for trash. This little park was full of people dancing, smoking, embracing, and all celebrating our victory – two young brothers saved from the police! The center of the action was the two White disciples of the Black drum leader from Sather Gate, and they were playing one of the common rhythms from there. The oil drum was turned upside down, and one woman or man after another would be lifted onto the top of the oil drum and then dance there solo, and after a few minutes would jump down and be replaced by another dancer.
So, I learned two things about free drum circles (although I did not yet know that name): that they were open to everyone regardless of race, status, or any other social definition (‘bags’ as the counter-culture described these what they considered artificial groupings); and they did have an anti-racism, ‘anti-bag’ political stance along with their free-for-all music jamborees.
Little did I know that my whole future life was to be tied to free drum circles. The training I experienced with Boston’s Tribal Rhythms®, and then my 15 years of work with Mel Wiggins, and my two years studying the Griffith Park Free Drum Circle –all led to an alternative way of making a living in music other than as a no-hope part-time college instructor, and ultimately to a comfortable life of teaching and playing religious music life in Seattle and the Philippines for the last 30 years of my performing life. It all started with my first drum circle experience at Sather Gate.
So these informal weekend drum circle jams became my lifeline, the core of my being, playing and composing. There’s a lot more to say about these circles, but for that we have to go ahead: first to Tribal Rhythms® of Boston, then to the chapter on Griffith Park, and finally and most completely the Appendix which gives more detail on the known history of free drum circles and of the Griffith Park circle, and interviews with several leading players expressing their philosophy and aesthetics (if I live long enough to complete the appendix!)
But I must add one thing here: free drum circles were more than amateur music sessions. They served to break down the barriers of race, religion and class which defined American society until the 1960s (and, alas, to some extent still exist). Drum circles did this by just being all-inclusive, as best expressed by the philosophy of Tribal Rhythms; “There was a person who made a circle to keep me out … so I made a circle to include us both."
I FIND A BOSTON DRUM CIRCLE
2 and 3. TRIBAL RHYTHMS: CHARLEY HOLLEY, CURTIS JONES, SUSAN PORTER, TOM GARFIELD
“Lee!” Charlie Banacos exclaimed in the middle of a Monday lesson.
Well, actually I had spent the whole weekend on a mountain top near Chelsea, Vermont, jamming with my friends from Tribal Rhythms® in the home of two New England firemen (Thomas McCain and his neighbor Johnnie), around seven of us sitting in a circle, me on kalimba as usual. When it got too intense for me to keep sitting and playing – as it often did when I was jamming with these guys – I walked outside to the very top of the mountain, where the Randy and Johnnie had built a giant wind harp*. It was so big that the hollow part of the wind harp body was 7 or 8 feet high, so you could walk inside it and have a cigarette or a drink while listening to the sound of the “Music That’s Good for the Head” jam session coming up from 10 feet below, blending with the harp’s wind song. In fact, the body was so big that as I was listening I was joined by a horse, who walked into the harp and listened along with me. The horse was still there when I left to rejoin the jam session down below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS4_1N7HTX8&t=608s
[A wind harp, more correctly called an Aeolian harp, is a harp which is so constructed that the movement of air will make the strings vibrate, producing a smooth flowing sound. As the name indicates, it was invented in Ancient Greece. Usually, however, Aeolian harps were small instruments, just a foot or so in size.]
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2d/35/54/2d3554e98e94496aa7cf04e5a42835ba.jpg
That was the main way Tribal Rhythms taught – by playing, by letting you participate in an experience. Although I played with and learned from them for 4 or 5 years, from 1971 until I left Boston in 1976, it was only when I started teaching on a large scale in Los Angeles that I truly realized how much they had taught me. (Although when Charley Banacos reacted as he did, I got a good idea).
The philosophy and aesthetics of Tribal Rhythms® was very much a part of the free drum circle music. In fact, that is how they met the makers of the wind harp. Charley and Curtis were walking one evening in a small New England town when they were attacked by a bunch of 8 or 10 white thugs who didn’t want ‘colored’ in their town. As tall and big as Charley and Curtis were, 8 against 2 was not good odds at all. Then Tom and Jamie happened to be driving by after a fire department drill, and not liking this racial bullying at all, slammed to a stop and jumped out to help Charley and Curtis.
As big as Charley and Curtis were, the little group of townies were slow to fight. And once they saw these two equally big firemen ready to attack their back, the townies quickly ran off into the night. The four victors of this little clash became close friends, hence the wind harp drum circle sessions in which I was lucky enough to participate.
Sometimes I played keyboard with the Tribal Rhythms jams, but usually a keyboard wasn’t available, so I played various home-made kalimbas, aka mbiras, aka ‘thumb pianos’ (a term which the use of which brought me my first nasty experience in academe). Since the kalimba (really the name of one group in Africa, but I will use here to indicate ones made in the US) is a very quiet instrument, I would usually stand next to whichever drummer I wanted to musically bond with – he (or she) would be able to hear what I was doing, and by influencing their playing I could have my sound flow into the collective sound.
But let’s go back to my experience with Tribal Rhythms/Good for the Head/Cooperative Artists Institute, and then give a brief history of that very interesting and wonderful group of artists and musicians. One evening in the early 1970s I was sitting at a long dining table in the Tribal Rhythms® house in Cambridge. At one end of the table sat Charles Holley; at the other end Curtis Jones. They looked almost like brothers – both very tall (well over 6 feet), both muscular but trim, both very African in physical appearance, both with eyes glowing and dancing with intelligence. Charley had served in the Marine Corps, but Curtis looked as if he could have also.
Charley started a rap which went on for over 5 minutes. I was blown away by the brilliance of what he was saying and the smoothness with which he said it. [Unfortunately, this was over 50 years ago, and I remember the event but none of the words or even topics of discussion. I just remember my emotional reaction].
Then Curtis answered from the other end of the table, with an even longer and even more brilliant reply. This back-and-forth dialogue, intellectual tennis, kept going for a long time, and my mind was long past supercharged with the ideas they were presenting and the intelligence with which they were presented.
A biography of Coltrane says that some of his biggest fans couldn't continue to sit in the club where Coltrane was playing because the music was so intense they couldn't take any more without a break, so they would step outside for a few minutes to catch their breath ( J.C.Thomas, Chasin' the Trane). When I read this book in the 1990s, I thought back to the first CAI dialogue I had heard, and said yes indeed! It was in the midst of winter, and a heavy snow storm was falling on Boston. But I was so energized by the dialogue that I had to walk it off. So after an hour I charged down the street from the CAI house to the Charles River Bridge - ran over the bridge then stopped to look at the river through the falling snow - then fast walked again from the bridge to my apartment in Allston-Brighton.
But I was still brimming with an energy overflow! So, I walked back across the Bridge to the Cambridge side, and then started feeling a little tired, and walked slowly back home through the falling snow.
I sat through many more discussion at CAI headquarters, both at Cambridge and at their later more permanent home in Jamaica Plain. CAI mortgaged -story house, and the second floor was a library = what a library! Wall to wall books on all four sides going up to the ceiling! The third floor was for music jamming and practicing - it was full of hand-made instruments, most modeled on African instruments. I always played kalimba (loving to listen to drums but having minimal skill at playing them), and Curtis and Charley mostly played drums, but sometimes also played smaller, side percussion instruments such as shakers, rattles, etc.
The top floor was the kitchen and dining room and general meeting room, and this was where the conversations, raps, and dialogues went on into the night.
Curtis and Charley were similar in other ways also - both were great teachers, both were full of positive energy when it came time to teach or play or talk. They were also very courageous. When Boston was undergoing the racist school riots against busing Black kids to white schools, CAI continued to send their van into the middle of the toughest neighborhoods, and stood up in 6th grade classes giving talks on inclusive values ("why is there room in the tribe for the one who walks backwards? Because he is the one who can warn the tribe if a lion is attacking from behind them.')
I went with them on one trip - included was Tom Garfield, a classic New England fix-it man and inventor (possibly some Benjamin Franklin got reincarnated into him at birth) and Arnie Cheatham, a most dazzling saxophonist. (in the 1980s I once saw Arnie play a ten minute solo on a clarinet or soprano sax - memory slip again - and stay WITHIN an octave, never going outside it for more notes higher or lower, and never repeating himself. You try playing for ten minutes within an octave and not repeating yourself once, even on an easier instrument such as the keyboard this is very hard to do.)
[At this time the racial antagonism was so fierce that Mel Wiggins got a brick thrown through the windshield of his little VW and decided on the spot to leave Boston and move to LA, where I was to meet him and start our lifelong music association, Creation City.]
Despite all this, Charley and Curtis charmed their all-white mostly Irish audience, and as you can see in this photo that Susan was kind enough to send me, the kids were completely under the Curtis-Charley spell, watching the conga drumming with wide eyes and wider smiles.
Charley was a great teacher. Always enthusiastic, always asking what you were doing now, what was your current project. And always boosting you, giving his student and/or follower and/or friend a lot of extra momentum. A talk with Curtis would ensure extra energy for extra hours of practice time.
And despite all the paperwork and business meetings with school administrators, there was always time for a little carnival:
Tribal Rhythms started as a band in the late 1960s. By the mid-1970s it was recognized by the City of Boston Education Department as a major component of the educational system. This was the result of constant hustling by what was now the hard core four of the group/commune, especially by Curtis Jones and Susan Porter.
Curtis wrote much of the 100s of pages of theoretical and sociological explanation of the CAI methodology (workshops, lectures, etc.)/ Susan, a member of Tribal Rhythms from the beginning, had a lot to do with winning those Education contracts that helped to buy the house in Jamaica Plain and kept CAI afloat for all these years.
Once Charley and Curtis passed, Susan continued to keep the CAI project going. Susan was also a visual artist, creating abstract tapestry and book designs, like this:
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| Book design by Susan Porter |
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| Curtis Jones, Charley Holly, Susan Porter, and Tom Garfield |
Charles and Curtis are gone- but they truly left their mark on countless people, made a big and positive impact on the society they lived in, and inspired many music students to become full-time musicians. In the Jewish term, Charley and Curtis were righteous and holy men: Zaddikim!
Their memory is for a blessing.
““There was a person who made a circle to keep me out … so I made a circle to include us both." (Cooperative Artists Institute)
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