Drums pulse with pure musicianship

The moment a person steps onto stage, a sense of distance between performer and audience is… The moment a person steps onto stage, a sense of distance between performer and audience is created. The power of live performances is the way they fold that distance upon itself and heighten everyone’s experience, but when the music is recorded that gap remains in place leaving the music vulnerable.

In popular music, that space is being filled more and more often with corporate expectations and numbing filters, with contrived honesty and researched charm. The alienation of labor in the music industry has become nearly ubiquitous, but that doesn’t mean that music itself has lost its connection to life.

The perfumed, pornographic and pleasantly depressed may stand atop the entertainment machine’s pedestal, but that only makes them the extremes of the sad end of the music spectrum.

In an apartment in South Oakland, I spent three hours with five Pitt students residing firmly on the opposite end of that spectrum: Greg Sinn, Mattan Rojstaczer, Eric Kalivoda, Cameron Witten and Gabe Kopley. The main link between the students is the University of Pittsburgh African Ensemble (http://www.uopae.tk). Most of them participate in Pitt’s African Drumming class and the related drumming club.

We carried three large African drums and a pair of bongos into a completely typical apartment building, and then stopped in front of a door onto which had been attached a sign reading, “The room is not on fire. We have a fog machine.” The main room was sort of small, but after everyone arrived and introductions were made, the jam session began and the room fit just right.

They began with a drum circle. They improvised until they found a rhythm they liked. They played with that for a bit, and then switched drums. Rojstaczer ran outside, grabbed a stick off the ground, and began to experiment with his freshly fallen drumstick.

Next, they brought a bass into it. Then came an electric guitar and, finally, an acoustic guitar joined the group. Everyone was switching instruments. The music wasn’t demanding or submissive. The music mirrored the guys’ flexibility and calm. Friends and participants in the jam came in and out of the apartment during the three hours, but the music kept going, punctuated only by laughter or suggestions.

There was a genuine lack of ambition in the room, and that’s what let them be in the moment enough to create music that was honest and enjoyable – music that didn’t need to be defined or measured. They just played. I just listened.

As the jam wound down, I started talking to a few of the guys. The apartment belonged to Witten and Kopley. Kopley was the least involved in playing the music, but he still seemed to participate in his own way. He talked about the quantity of good, free music available online at Web sites like http://www.archive.org.

Witten echoed the sentiment, adding a non-digital element: “There is good music out there, and everyone who looks for it can find it.” He said he’d be unwilling to take money for playing, at least right now. He said he didn’t want to risk the integrity of his music.

About the world of corporate artists with their awards and pretense, Witten said, “I don’t think anyone who’s really into music and expression gives any credence to it.” While he was excited about the idea of playing for more people in a slightly more structured capacity, there was no hunger for stardom in his eyes. He just seemed excited about the opportunity to play for more people.

Sinn contributed, “I don’t have any high aspirations, I just love meeting new people who are into sharing music because connecting that way yields a profound satisfaction.”

For information on the guys’ jamming or to be in one of Zak Sharif’s columns, e-mail him at rzs8@pitt.edu.