blood drum spirit, led by percussionist royal hartigan, and featuring bassist Wes Brown, saxophonist David Bindman, and pianist Art Hirahara, is dedicated to performing original compositions and improvisations connected to world music traditions. The ensemble draws from jazz/African American musical traditions, while integrating rhythms, songs, and approaches from West Africa, Asia, Native America, West Asia, and Europe. Our integration goes beyond musical technique; blood drum spirit sees music as an essential force, an alternative to the homogenization of culture in the marketplace. The group has built an original, exploratory, ever-growing body of work over 25 years, while acknowledging the complexity of the music itself and the apprenticeship and study required to communicate meaningfully in any given form. In our performances, we invite the audience to 'sit up close'; the performances exist not in a vacuum but in close contact with people listening. Compositions are explained, both for their musical aspects (often audience members are invited to participate through clapping rhythms) and for their context -- the meaning behind the titles and themes, including such issues as the historical and ongoing exploitation of people for profit, genocide, the environment, building a just world, and the inspiration and interconnectedness that motivates the musicians, providing context for the music and our performances. Our music is a vehicle to express the spirit of the African American heritage and the musics of the world, who we are, and what we have been given from our ancestors.

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In 1981 drummer, pianist, and tap dancer royal hartigan, bassist Wes Brown, and saxophonist David Bindman met at Wesleyan University. hartigan was a graduate student in world music, Brown was working as a freelance musician living in Connecticut, and Bindman was attending Wesleyan as an undergraduate. hartigan, Brown, and Bindman helped create the sound and material for Talking Drums, the Ghanaian-American group founded by master drummers Abraham Kobena Adzenyah and Freeman Kwadzo Donkor, heard on their album Some Day Catch Some Day Down (Shanachie 1987), and on tour throughout the United States. Along with trombonist Bill Lowe, the three also formed the collective group Juba.

We adapt elements of world cultures into our playing, including Indian solkattu rhythms and tala (time cycles); Javanese gamelan structures and drum rhythms; Philippine kulintang ensemble instruments and timbres, Turkish usul and hand drum techniques; Gaelic bodhran rhythms; Native American songs; West African instruments, melodies, and rhythms; African American clapping plays, camp meeting shouts, and New Orleans rhythms.

Some pieces employ 5, 7, 11, 15, 23, and 24-pulse time cycles, such as hartigan's arrangement of A Night in Tunisia, featuring an adapted Afro-Cuban rumba guaguanco in 7/8. Our use of time cycles is from a cultural feel and sound rather than any mathematical technique. David Bindman contributes the multi-movement compositions Threads, High Definition Truth, Crisis in (Now's the) Time, and the ballad Song for Your Return that explore many aspects of time, tonality, timbre, and form, while pianist Art Hirahara contributes the reflective Peace, Unknown. The group's recorded pieces are all extended performances, as they would be in concert. Our recent double CD blood drum spirit: the royal hartigan ensemble live in china was recorded on the group's third tour in China. From festivals, concerts, and conservatory workshops in Beijing to concerts and club performances in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Shanghai, the band has received warm and enthusiastic welcomes on each trip to China. In June 2008, the ensemble toured China for the fourth time.

Teaching and workshops

In the spirit of hartigan's U.S. Peace Corps service, a J. William Fulbright residency in the Philippines in 2006, and an Asian Cultural Council research grant for the Philippines in 2008, the ensemble members feel a responsibility to live with and share our music with people over a period of time, learning from others as well as giving. We offer residencies that include master classes, ensemble rehearsals, lecture-demonstrations, individual lessons, and workshops as well as concerts. Part of blood drum spirit's mission is educational, as Dr. royal hartigan is a tenured professor in world music at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and we all bring our collective teaching, musical, and life experiences to residencies and performances. The ensemble offers workshops for music and non-music students alike in West African drumming, song, and dance, Indian time cycles, original rhythmic concepts and practice, African American music, and jazz history and styles. For music students topics include the details of performance, improvisation, and composition, while fostering growth and insight, and encouraging people to make music that is connected to and expresses their realities.

For information on our work, or bringing us to your space, contact us at blooddrumspirit@gmail.com