UNITED KINGDOM: AFRICAN MASTER DRUMMERS APPEAR IN CONCERT AT THE ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL

Record ID: 390450

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: AFRICAN MASTER DRUMMERS APPEAR IN CONCERT AT THE ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL
  • Date: 11th November 2000
  • Summary: VARIOUS, AIRTO MOREIRA PERFORMING IN CONCERT
  • Embargoed: 26th November 2000 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LONDON, UK
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Entertainment,General
  • Reuters ID: LVA3NIQGT765ISN6RFSV5FX550JP
  • Story Text: London's Royal Festival Hall beat to the sound of a different drum recently, when seventeen African drummers descended upon its walls for a concert that kept the audience on their feet. The Master Drummers of Africa - from seventeen different African nations - invited renowned Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira along to play with them for a rare, first time performance.
    Ghana, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, South Africa - you name it, they were all there.
    Meet the Master Drummers of Africa - seventeen drummers from seventeen African countries - inviting you to a dynamic journey through the continent.
    The idea to form the group is the brainchild of Ghanaian drummer Lord Eric Sugumugu. Established in 1979, the Master Drummers draw on their heritage of 3000 years of tribal rhythms on over 100 traditional instruments - with exotic names such as mbira from Zimbabwe, kora and tama from Senegal, yentiti, adungu, shuti...the list goes on.
    Explains Lord Eric "In Ghana where I come from the drum is so important. Every hour you can hear the drum. The drum speaks before anything happens. The drum, we do it for birth, we do it for marriage, for parties, for royal burials.
    Drumming, especially in Ghana is a sacred thing. in Nigeria they use the talking drum, they are experts in that, ... so when you all the drums together you've got a beautiful hurricane."
    A beautiful hurricane it was indeed for the audience who joined the drummers on their spectacular journey to the heart of Africa.
    The Master Drummers of Africa are said to be the only group in the world to unite rhythms from many cultures - each member bringing a different dimension to the collective sound.
    Their repertoire ranges from a hunter's song from Nigeria to a fishermen's song from Egypt.
    "Africa is total freedom with discipline, with honour.
    It's a rhythm that you play not to scare, not to harm or disturb yourself. It's a complete trust" says Lord Eric.
    As part of this year's London Jazz Festival, the drummers welcomed in their midst Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira for a rare first-time collaboration that had the audience on their feet.
    Moreira - the first Latin percussionist to make a major impact on jazz - has been celebrated worldwide for his collaborations with Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock.
    "I think when music is played and shared, it's very very important. In Africa it's like in Brazil. You don't have to be a musician to play. If you have a good rhythm you pick up a shaker or something and you play and you are part of that so I think that's very important. What I really really like is that you know" he says.
    Moreira says he's been beating things since he was four years-old, somewhat an indication that he was a percussionist then already.
    "You don't become a percussionist, you are born a percussionist. You are born with that feeling of beating things and shaking things and that's what I used to do when I was a child and playing pots and pans or the floor, everywhere and making sounds with my mouth and things like that and imitating other sounds that I would hear so I was a percussionist already before I knew I was going to be one."
    The Master Drummers will soon hit the road again, so watch out for your piece of Africa.
    --ENDS--
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