Ensemble Bash’s World of Percussion No. 2
Kumpo | Stewart Copeland | Side drum | Berimbau | Cults Percussion
WoP #1
In the early days of Ensemble Bash, we worked closely with the wonderful Ghanaian musician Paulinus Bozie. We first met him in Ghana where he was playing with the Ghana Dance Ensemble, then when he came to the UK to join Adzido, we spent as much time as we could studying with him.
He taught us a simplified version of the Senegalese dance Kumpo and it’s never left our repertoire for long. It’s a stunning, high-powered, flamboyant piece of music for djembés and dun-dun.
But we never learned the dance.
Watching this video, we can see why. And we’re unlikely to start now.
The Kumpo is a ghost who visits the villages of the Jola (or Diola) people of Senegal, exhorting them to good behaviour.
You must never ask the real identity of the Kumpo. You must never touch the Kumpo. Do not look inside the palm leaves.
And don’t get in the way of that stick.
WoP #2
“Drums are really easy to play… they really are! It’s a joke! Anyone can do this!” shouts Stewart Copeland before rattling off another snap-tight, driven groove.
Stewart Copeland, former drummer of The Police, was one of the first composers that we had a long collaboration with, commissioning and recording two of his compositions, joining him on two tours of Italy, and recording two CDs and DVDs with him on drums.
Stewart is an astonishing drummer, composer, raconteur and innovator. He’s loved by everyone who meets him, he’s good-looking, charming and entertaining. He never gives less than 100% to anything he does. He’s a magnificent musician.
In spite of all this, we love him and love what he did for drumming. This won’t be his last appearance in WoP, as we have many more examples of Stewart being Stewart lined up.
It’s a Stewart Copeland world, folks. We’re just lucky to be allowed to live in it.
Here he is in 1981 chatting to Jools Holland.
By the way, he’s currently on a spoken word UK tour ‘Have I Said Too Much - The Police, Hollywood and Other Adventures’. More details and tickets (if there are any left) here. Though the tour will be nearing its end by the time you read this, he’s announced more dates for 2025.
WoP #3
Google N-gram is a search engine that shows the frequency of any word in anything printed between 1500 and the present day, more or less. It’s an easy rabbit hole to tumble down - trust us, having checked the relative frequency of countless combinations of words or names (is Brannick, Benjafield or Hiscock more common in literature?).
Last newsletter we shared the N-gram for drum kit / drum set. We’re not planning for this to be a regular feature, but given how often orchestral percussionists get asked the difference between a snare drum and a side drum (there is none), we thought you might like to see what’s more common.
Side drum would appear to be the winner, but snare drum does show two massive and unexplained spikes in 1896 and 2002. Go figure.
PS It’s Hiscock, though not by much, with a massive spike in 1880, and with Brannick just sneaking ahead of Benjafield from the early 90s, when Ensemble Bash started. But who was the famous Victorian Hiscock? Will we ever know? Will we ever care enough to find out?
If you want to play with Google N-Gram, it’s here.
WoP #4
Last WoP we shared Richard’s ‘One Minute with Ensemble Bash’ where he demonstrated the marimba.
This time we have Stephen showing off the berimbau, a deceptively simple instrument from Brazil.
In 2005 we were lucky enough to work with the Brazilian master musician Naná Vasconcelos, who showed us just how much subtlety could be drawn from a piece of bamboo, a wire, a stick, a shaker and a gourd.
Well worth checking out any of his recordings or videos.
And if you’ve ever seen anyone practising the Brazilian martial art of Capoeira, it’s almost certainly been accompanied by one of these.
WoP #5
What we’re listening to
This is very lovely.
We almost want you to listen to it without telling you anything about it, but here goes.
Cults Percussion Ensemble has nothing to do with ‘cults’. Cults is a suburb of Aberdeen, where a certain Dame Evelyn Glennie was brought up.
Aberdeen was lucky enough to have an inspirational and innovative percussion peripatetic teacher called Ron Forbes. Although Evelyn started to lose her hearing at 8 years old, he developed her ability to hear through her body rather than her ears.
Here she is at the Polar Music Prize in 2015, being reunited with him after 25 years.
Ron organised Cults Percussion Ensemble in 1976, with a group of young female musicians, average age of 14. They recorded an album at the time, rereleased many years later by Trunk Music. We like to think it’s stood the test of time.
And Evelyn went on to do OK, didn’t she?
Enjoy. This is all rather haunting and beautiful.
Bonus WoP
In January, Chris (along with Ensemble Bash’s agent Jackie Mann) will be hosting a weekend ‘Everything You Wanted To Know About Percussion - But Were Afraid To Ask’.
It’s aimed at amateur orchestral percussionists with some experience, but who have perhaps fell into percussion without proper training, or were taught many years ago and want to brush up on their skills.
If you’re in the Oxford (UK) area on the weekend of January 11/12, we’re running a pilot trial. Details on Facebook here and tickets here.
It’ll be a fun and motivating weekend - early bird tickets availability ends November 10th!
