Monday, July 25, 2016

2/15/87: Drums of Petaluma

This show had been languishing on my harddrive forever, and I finally gave it a close listen and enjoyed it quite a bit.  The occasion for the show and tape was a benefit performance by Babatunde Olatunji and his group Drums of Passion, with guest stars Jerry Garcia, Carlos Santana, and Mickey Hart.  Honestly, I can't say much about the music itself, but I've never seen much comment about this and most setlist information out there seems to be incorrect, so I figured I'd post a little something about it.
ticket pic courtesy Thomas Patrick
I won’t go much into Olatunji’s career here: the short version is that he was a pivotal figure in bringing African rhythm and culture to western awareness in the 1950’s, peaking with his landmark and extremely popular album Drums of Passion, released in 1960.  By the 1970’s, though, his career was in serious decline and was effectively on the skids until Mickey Hart approached him after a San Francisco club performance in 1985 with an offer to produce new recordings and, later, an invitation for him to open for the Dead on New Year’s Eve.  Those recordings, made in January 1986, yielded two albums: Dance to the Beat of My Drum (on the local San Francisco label Blue Heron, later reissued by Rykodisc as Drums of Passion: The Beat) was squarely aimed at a crossover comeback and prominently featured Santana’s guitar; the other, belatedly released in 1989 as Drums of Passion: The Invocation (also on Rykodisc), featured only his core drum ensemble.  Olatunji, who had prefigured the demand for “world music” by 25 years, was back in the public eye and had Mickey Hart and the Dead to thank for it.

On Feb 15, 1987, Olatunji’s group of percussionists and dancers played a benefit in Petaluma, CA for the local World Music in Schools foundation, augmented by Garcia, Santana, Hart, and bassist Bobby Vega.  Hart appears to have orchestrated the whole thing, and the 90 minute PBS special about the show (at youtube) credits the Dead’s crew with holding down most of the technical aspects.  Hamza el-Din opened the night with a beautiful 20 minute solo performance, then Olatunji’s group played for nearly two hours.  I presume Garcia must have rehearsed some for this, especially since he was the only one of the guests not involved with the 1986 recordings.  Although he and Santana clearly aren’t central to the music, they both fit in well and Garcia sounds comfortable and quite good when the spotlight falls on him.  Presumably in deference to him or (more likely) to the fans who were there because of him, the group plays "Fire On the Mountain," which comes off well enough — but for my money, Garcia’s best moment of the night is the solo he rips on “The Beat of My Drum” (d1t08).  Not bad, Jer!  He looks plenty happy in the video but, hey, playing on a stage packed full of master African drummers is probably harder than it looks.  The night belongs to Olatunji, of course, and the bulk of the show is heavy African percussion, which suits me just fine.

Santana, Garcia, and (I think) Sikiru Adepoju.  pic by Jay Blakesberg
From a Garcia-centric perspective, this appearance marks a start to his post-coma period of increased health and a much greater level of engagement with the musical world around him.  He returned to making appearances on friends’ studio projects (starting, probably around the time of this show, with the Neville Brothers), returned to his bluegrass roots with the JGAB, and showed more of a willingness to put himself in unfamiliar contexts, not least being his guest appearance with Ornette Coleman in 1988.  It was the start of the final golden phase of his career, and it’s neat that this one-off appearance with one of the most famous African musicians of the 20th century helped kick it off.  Maybe there are some comments to be made about Garcia's position in relation to the African musical diaspora, but right now it feels like a stretch and I'm tired.

Here’s the video.  Head to 47:50 for some heat:


Charlie Miller’s transfer of Dan Healy’s sbd sounds excellent, but the tracklist (and some of the tracking) is off.  They play all of the 1986 album material and I was able to get some other titles by googling, so here is the best I'm able to come up with:

d1t01 introductions
d1t02 ??? (Hamza el Din: oud + vocal)
d1t03 ??? (Hamza el Din: oud instrumental)
d1t04 ??? (Hamza el Din: oud + vocal)
d1t05 ??? (Hamza el Din: tar + vocal)
d1t06 intro parade/??? ; Akiwowo (acapella intro) ->
d1t07 Akiwowo *
d1t08 The Beat of My Drum *
d1t09 Loyin Loyin *
d1t10 Odun De
d2t01 Ife L'Oju L'Aiye * ->
d2t02 Ife L'Oju L'Aiye * (continued from d2t01)
d2t03 band intros, speaking
d2t04 Yambela
d2t05 Fire on the Mountain *
d2t06 ??? **
d2t07 Se Eni A Fe L'Amo - Kere Kere *
d2t08 Ilere *

notes:
Hamza el Din tracks are unaccompanied.
* with Jerry Garcia, Carlos Santana, Bobby Vega (bass), Mickey Hart (drum kit)
** d2t06 Olatunji introduces percussionist Kwaku Dadey, who sounds like a special guest.


Jay Blakesberg
PS.  During the introduction to the show, the foundation director mentions Garcia's recent appearance in Doonesbury.  If you're curious: http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1987/02/05/



6 comments:

  1. "this appearance marks a start to his post-coma period of increased health and a much greater level of engagement with the musical world around him"

    I would note the 11/21/86 Los Lobos sit-in, maybe also the 11/1/86 Ritual and Rapture thing, but, yeah, the most exciting aspect about the post-coma period, to me, is to see Garcia being in the broader musical world again after 8 years or whatever.

    Thanks for the setlist notes!

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  2. That's true, I forgot about the Los Lobos thing. Still, it's a big step from getting out of the house to see Los Lobos and being pulled onstage for a quick La Bamba, to playing (and presumably preparing for) a full set with Baba Olatunji's troupe of drummers. No matter: both indicated better things to come (for a little while, at least).

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  3. I've wanted to post on this for a while, and the 34th anniversary seems as good a time as any. This was an enjoyable show and not knowing the music (except for FOTM) kind of gave it an added layer of fun.

    A few personal experiences from this show - there was a meet and greet thing after the show in the Banquet Room next to the Auditorium. I can't recall how much this cost ($50 maybe?) but I remember thinking it was kind of weird to do something like that (no regrets in hindsight and that donation also was for the beneficiaries). I'm also thinking it was limited to 50 people, but 34 years later, I'm not sure.

    Floor plan here if interested: https://tinyurl.com/1lrowpyx

    Between the show's end and the start of the meet event, I ran next door to the bowling alley to get something to drink. As I was coming back for the meet, just as I entered the (now empty) auditorium from the lobby, Jerry and a security guy entered from a door somewhere near stage left. So it was just Jerry, his security guy, and me in the auditorium, them walking towards the kitchen door as I headed for the banquet room door. We all got to the doors at about the same time, so trying to be cool, I said "hey man, how's it going" to him and got an "alright" or a "good" or something like that.

    The banquet room was set up with a row of tables in front of the kitchen area where Mickey, Jerry and Carlos were seated with a line of people waiting for their meet turn. There were food carts in the room and not very expensive champagne available (the plastic champagne glasses gave me a laugh). It was a pretty festive atmosphere and not what I was expecting.

    I took my place in the meet line, and right before I got to the tables, Carlos got up and headed into the kitchen and disappeared, so no Santana greet for me.

    As I got closer to where Mickey and Jerry were sitting, you could see people having their picture taken with Jerry and hear the well wishes, etc. (still pretty soon after the '86 health issues). When I got up there, the person in front of me laid what looked like some gel tabs on the table in front of Jerry saying how fresh it was ("just made yesterday" or something like that). Jerry says something like "really looks good" and picks it up and puts it in his front shirt pocket (probably ended up on the desk at Club Front). I was taking all that in and then it was my turn. This show was a couple of weeks after the Jan. 28-30 1987 run at the SF Civic (my birthday run), so I kept it very simple and thanked Jerry for my birthday show. "You're welcome" and then I said something about staying healthy and hanging around for awhile and he replies "I'm trying, I'm trying"! Got the back of my ticket signed by Mickey and Jerry, shook their hands (I think Sandy Rothman's got a story about shaking Jerry's hand that brought back a memory when I read it) and that was it. Stopped at the 7-11 down the street before I headed home and Olatunji and several others were inside. Olatunji was the only one I recognized so told him I had just seen him down the street and would he sign my ticket. Very happy guy and my ticket is signed by Mickey, Jerry and Olatunji.

    Fun show, fun experience, fun night!

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    Replies
    1. Watching Barton Hall May 8, ‘23 and I was remembering the Petaluma show. Such a small venue. I was one of the fortunate ones to go to the reception. The champagne! I did get to talk to Carlos a bit. Got Jerry to sign my ticket to one of my best friends who loved him. I can see myself dancing on Fire On The Mountain video of show! Great times.

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  4. Thanks for this! I just received a fileset, can't really match it up with your tracklist. The tracks are as follows, in length: 01-6:40 02-8:56 03-6:-4 04 - Beat Of My Drum 10:24 05-9:17, 06-9:54 07-14:54 08-10:27 09- Fire On The Mountain 11:03 10-11:22 11-16:50 12-13:18

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  5. Lovely blog thanks for taking the time to share this

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