Gambian drumming CD to aid African musicians

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Mike Bennett went to Africa not knowing what to expect. He came back a whole new drummer.

Bennett, who has been affiliated with local bands BirdHouse, Beatroots and A-Train, has learned much about the complexities of rhythm on two trips to the West African nation of Gambia.

Now he’s returning the favor, exporting the music of Gambia around the world as co-producer of the new CD “Gambia … for the People.”

“We wanted to release a CD and have a percentage of the profits go back to the musicians,” said Bennett, 40. “One of our goals was to keep expenses down, to get more money back to people who are so incredibly poor. ”

Bennett and co-producer Zachary Soares, a College of the Atlantic graduate, didn’t set out to release a recording. They were just documenting the music of the region for their own use.

“It hit us that we had some great stuff, digitally recorded,” Bennett said. “Then we began to seek out and record people. It’s a field recording, no doubt about it, but it has more popular appeal than an ethnomusicological piece of work. If you go to Gambia, this is what you’re going to hear.”

It took Bennett and Soares eight months to prepare the CD, then it was mastered by John Dyer of Blue Hill.

“Gambia … for the People” is available across the state and the nation, and even in Sweden, Germany and England. It’s being reviewed in Rhythm, Dirty Linen, Roots World and fRoots magazines.

It’s hard to believe that Bennett, a born-again hand drummer, was originally hesitant about African rhythms.

Bennett was destined to become a drummer. His father, Charlie, was a drummer who had his own big band. From a young age, Bennett was banging on the old blue sparkle Ludwig set that his older brother, John, kept in the garage. He began formal training in fifth grade.

He’s a classical- and jazz-trained drummer. He began at Berklee School of Music in the late ’70s, then lobstered with his brother for several years before finishing up at the University of Maine in 1993, graduating with a degree in music education and specializing in percussion. Although he’s a full-time musician, he also has 20 to 25 drum and percussion students.

He branched out in Cuban and Brazilian rhythms, with the conga his first hand drum. He heard about a drum circle on Thursday nights in Hancock, which was where he first got introduced to the djembe, a style of African drum.

“At first, I was a little resistant,” Bennett recalled. “I had all these different things I was working with.”

It took a trip to Gambia to convert him. He first went for a month in January 2000, with Gray Parrot and Chris Covert’s Jobo Kunda travel service.

Bennett admits to having some trepidation.

“I was scared to go,” he said. “I wasn’t a world traveler, and I didn’t know what to expect. I was totally set at ease that first day by some of the friendliest people I’d ever met. They made me feel so comfortable. They just took me right in and made me part of their family.”

Bennett pointed out that Africa is the central spot from which much of the world’s hand drumming originated, disseminated globally through the slave trade.

He added that while some may view parts of African life as primitive, their music certainly isn’t.

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. “It’s some of the most challenging rhythmic drumming I have ever done. They’ll take three, four, five rhythms and intertwine them in ways that are just incredible. You just can’t find that in our kind of music.”

Bennett said that music is so much more a part of everyday life there when compared to the United States. There are particular songs for naming ceremonies, circumcisions, weddings, funerals and harvests.

“There were 3- and 4-year-olds who could clap specific patterns in a song,” he said. “This stuff is just ingrained in them. They absolutely live and sleep it.”

It took Bennett some time to catch on to the Gambian music.

“I didn’t know where the beat was in some of those songs,” he explained. “You have to come at it from a whole different way of looking at it.”

In his first year, Bennett learned the djembe, then he added the balafon in his second year. He now knows 10 to 15 native songs.

Bennett plans to return to Gambia in early December. He will take CDs with him to have cassettes made and passed out in quantity to the musicians on the CD, to sell or use for promotional purposes.

Bennett and Soares will rent a compound for a week to record more musicians. They hope to produce a second compilation album, then, down the road, come out with Gambian solo albums.

Also Bennett wants to make a documentary film.

“It would follow the everyday lives of four or five musicians, to show what’s really going on over there,” he said.

The drummer has learned in other ways beside musically.

“It’s enriched my heart and my belief in the goodness of everyone,” Bennett said. “I just feel more trusting. I’ve learned so much about myself, and what I feel is important.”

“Gambia … for the People” may be purchased at Music Bar, Bar Harbor; Grasshopper Shop, Ellsworth; Wild Rufus, Camden; Burdoch’s Natural Foods, Southwest Harbor; University Bookstore, University of Maine at Orono; or on the Internet at gambiaforthepeople.com; amazon.com; cdbaby.com; and theorchard.com.