Music of the soul focus of Grateful Dead drummer’s performance

by Sarah Laubacher
Staff Writer

It was 1968 and Ohio University’s Templeton Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium was packed for an impromptu Grateful Dead concert, remembers Stephen Kropf, a former city council president. University officials pulled the plug, but the Dead switched to acoustic and the “party of the spirits” continued.

The band even stayed for a few days and slept at local farms, Kropf said.

Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart, who since then has shifted his focus to world music, returns to Memorial Auditorium at 8 p.m. today with his touring ensemble Bembe Orisha.

“Bembe means party, and Orisha are the spirits of West Africa, which is where rock and roll came from,” Hart said.

Hart considers this type of music to be about conversation — how different cultures can learn from one another in a musical setting.

“If President Bush and Suddam Hussein were playing music together, I doubt we’d be fighting,” he said.

Tim Peacock, whose company is predominately responsible for booking and promoting the event, said ensemble’s improvisational pieces draw from Mideastern, African and South American styles and expand from an initial bass ornamentation.

“(The sound) of Bembe Orisha is Iranian, Cuban, and African with an American backbeat. It’s not new age though — it’s real solid dance music,” Hart said.

Bembe Orisha member Greg Ellis said Mickey Hart’s book “Drumming at the Edge of Magic” not only changed his perspective on percussion, but also changed the way he approaches life.

“It’s about the concept of appreciating all that is happening right in front of you. Mickey doesn’t like to deal with petty confrontational issues,” Ellis said. “He lives his life as an extension of how he plays his drums. It’s about letting go, and being in the moment.”

Ellis said that after experiencing music of many cultures, machine-made, loop-driven pop hits do not affect him the same way organic music does.

“It’s like fast food — it satisfies the hunger for the moment, but it’s nothing to nourish the body. That kind of (electronic) music provides immediate, visceral satisfaction, but nothing to nourish the soul,” Ellis said.

Hart also said that rhythm is about life — “good rhythm, good life.” Both Hart and Ellis are active in the field of music therapy and are studying the medicinal qualities of rhythm in particular.

“We give drums to people with special needs, people who are autistic or even catatonic. The interaction between hand and drum gives them an external rhythm to atone their bodies to, which takes away pressure and allows natural healing processes to take place,” Ellis said.

Just as Hart’s current work heals the body, his past work healed the collective spirit.

“The Grateful Dead was about ritual,” Hart said. “It brought a lot of people together, to have a lot of fun and explore the good side of life. I think overall it made a better world.”

Peacock said the event will be a “psychedelic world music concert” — but the Grateful Dead experience will definitely be in the air.

“Everybody come out and have some fun,” Hart said. “I think it’s an adventure — it’s not cookie cutter music. You’ve probably never heard it before, but I’ll tell ya, you’ll never forget it.”