The Los Angeles Times; Los Angeles, Calif.; Aug 22, 1999;
MARY McNAMARA;
Such is the premise of "Heart and Hands," a photographic tour through an American universe of instrument makers by Jake Jacobson. Irked by what he considered an unfair European assumption that there was no real instrument craftsmanship this side of the Atlantic, Jacobson set out to find and record our vast and diverse culture of musical artisans. From Alabama to Wisconsin, Jacobson turned up makers of every kind of sound-making device: stringed, reed and wind instruments, keyboards and drums, instruments of brass and steel, every kind of wood, and bamboo and gourd. He visited factories, studios, vocational facilities, even prisons, capturing 250 people of all ages, colors and regions, bound by just one thing: They make the things that make the music.
Musicians make music to fill a need. To create a sound that is not already there, to capture a feeling, to move hearts, minds and bodies. But first comes the instrument, and the instrument maker. As it turns out, they work to fill the same need and more: to preserve a tradition, to teach, to perfect the harmony of tool, process and result.
The result is a book of photographs and brief quotes that eloquently
testify to the idiosyncrasy and devotion of a handmade American subculture.
A traveling exhibition sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute that begins
in Washington in April 2000 will carry the message as well.
"Music is a great tool for teaching," says Zehnder,
of the latest twist his musical career has taken. "It sits in the brain
a little deeper than words."
That is a sentiment Rasheed Ali completely gets behind. Gets behind and pounds on. Five years ago, Ali, a longtime professional keyboardist, agreed to do a little teaching, bringing music appreciation into the Eagle Rock Montessori school his two sons attended. He quickly discovered that rather than lacking appreciation, the kids lacked instruments, so he hauled in a few coffee cans and showed them how to make drums.
"I'd grown up listening to my brothers play the drums," he says. "And my dad had made me flutes out of bamboo. I realized people had always been using what they found in the environment to make instruments. I was just using urban things. Everyone can find a coffee can."
He liked teaching so much it became a running gig--in local schools, at Pasadena's Armory Center for the Arts--and he went through a lot of coffee cans. After about a year, a friend gave him some gourds to use, but he says they just sat around his apartment, at first. Then one day, inspired by research into traditional gourd drums from West Africa, he picked one up and made a drum.
"It was like a drug," he says, laughing. "I couldn't stop. I have like 200 drums in my house."
Big drums and little drums, plain drums and fancy drums, drums of every color and shape, each of them with a different sound, a different timbre, each of them a product of much trial and error.
"This was not an intellectual pursuit," says Ali. "I didn't want to read a book on the mechanics of drum making. I'm a visual learner, so I just studied successful drums. At the L.A. Craft and Folk Museum, for example, they have drums you can look at and play, and I would see how they were put together. The most complicated thing was the lacing, but a lot of it is common sense."
He also drew on his own familial heritage.
"My family is from the Caribbean," he says, "and they use cowrie shells in ritual there, so I use a lot of cowrie shells. Some I carve, some I stain. I really try to blend the art with the music. At first, as a musician, I was trying to make the perfect drum. Then I started getting into the art."
In the end, however, they are meant to be played. Now part of a band called Rain People, Ali has added percussion--on his own drums--to his keyboard work. The drums fit well with the group's progressive jazz, but, he says, they really lend themselves to more traditional African music.
"In Africa it is said that instruments can only play in their own tongue," Ali says. "Maybe it's because of the materials, because there is no plastic or fiberglass, but these drums sound like what they are. Traditional."
They will also be part of "Rhythms of the Soul: African Instruments in the Diaspora" a three-venue exhibition opening Oct. 16 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the California African-American Museum and the Fowler Museum at UCLA. Ali's drums will be at the African American museum, and so will he; in addition to performing, he plans to do drum-making workshops during the exhibition.
Because as much as he loves his drums--and he loves his drums--he loves the kids more.
"I remember, when I was a kid, the day the teacher asked us what instrument we wanted to play. They don't do that anymore, and that is so sad," he says. "Kids are uncoordinated around instruments because they have had no contact with them. And when they make their own," he says with a laugh, "you should see how they guard them, and how often they play them."
His own sons, Kareem and Rohan, now 8 and 10, are becoming quite accomplished music makers--they joined their father at last year's drum festival at the Pacific Asia Museum.
"For me it's meditative," he says. "It's spiritual. When I make my drums and when I play them, I felt as if I were channeling some ancient spirit. It sounds New Age-y, but I really feel a connection with my ancestors."
Music is a keystone of ritual and tradition and community. For the instrument makers, that community can be as small as the family, or as large as the world.
back
