Drumming from the Center of the Sun

Monti Ellison
with the
Duke Djembe and Afro-Cuban Ensembles
Bradley Simmons, Director
November 21, 8pm, Baldwin Auditorium

Monti Ellison's first forays into African drumming traditions came with what he calls the "Afro-Cuban explosion of the 1970s." During this time, master performers, eager students and cultural openness aligned to allow an array of drumming traditions to bloom in New York City. On November 20th and 21st, Duke students and the broader community will hear and feel the creative energies of a drumming master inspired by 1970s African diasporic movements.

"Before that time, drumming was foreign to the US, exotic--people didn't really start playing until after [the Broadway smash hit] Hair..." Ellison remembers. "I was one of the first to gather to play in Central Park. People didn't get it--they thought it was voodoo or something..." During the '70s, Ellison explains, master drummers from Africa, Cuba, Haiti and Brazil were immigrating to New York City to perform and make a living: "they couldn't make money at home, so they moved to New York and had to build from the ground floor. They didn't come here with their groups, so they had to form new groups and train new players..." As a young artist, Ellison found himself apprenticed and working intensely with some of the world's most prolific and renowned drummers.

From the ages of 13 to 19, Ellison trained first as a dancer, then also as an actor through HARYOU-ACT (also known as Harlem Youth Opportunities Limited), a government-sponsored program supporting Harlem youth with artistic and vocational experiential opportunities. Ellison reminisces that "I was growing up as a child-artist," learning from dance greats like Percival Boyd (Dunham technique), Thelma Hill (Horton and Graham techniques and jazz), Louis Johnson (ballet and jazz) and Charles Moore (African dance). He points out that Bradley Simmons, the director of Duke's Djembe and Afro-Cuban Ensembles, was already well-established in the Afro-Cuban movement and professional music performance communities, and served as a "kind and encouraging" influence to Ellison as he was first emerging as a young performer.

By the time he was 24, and with the confidence of his mentors and supporters, Ellison realized that "in two years I developed a monster technique--before I knew it I was working with some of the best [organizations] around." During a fifteen year tenure with The Alvin Ailey School, a professional dance institute reputed for promoting African American artists in New York, Ellison served as head musician working with the school's maturing dance talents. Ellison recalls that "Alvin hired me because they knew they needed to get to their roots." Though the school was successfully training dancers in traditional art dance methods like ballet, Ailey recruited Ellison to help expand the program's offerings and bring African-inspired dance to the fore. For Ellison, the creative experience at The Ailey School "was like being at the center of the sun." Surrounded by creatively energizing performers and artistic movements, Ellison further developed his drumming skills along with a unique intuition for accompanying dancers. His reputation at The Ailey School won the attention of musical greats like Harry Belafonte, for whom Ellison performed as featured soloist, and Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul (headed by Steven Van Zandt, guitarist with Bruce Springsteen), with whom Ellison toured internationally for several years.

Ellison draws from all his professional experiences in teaching his own drum students, particularly as they perform live with dancers themselves. He explains that his drumming is "different from [that of] drummers who learned to play rhythms...I understood what the dancers were doing. I don't think of rhythm, I work with the steps that they're doing. You have to look at the dancer and play the dancer." When fostering his own protégés, Ellison reminds students that most great master drummers are also dancers. He observes that many students may "get the patterns but not the essence" of the artistic performance--according to this master, developing that intuitive know-how requires a certain training of the spirit rather than just the fingers, hands or rational minds. He clarifies by drawing an analogy from the book Zen in the Art of Archery: when developing a skill, talent or passion, he says, "it's not really that you aim at the bulls-eye, but at the bulls-eye within yourself. In the art of drumming, it's all in the path we choose to get to the center of yourself."

Of late Ellison's dedicated his energies to teaching several dance and drumming classes for Loyola Marymount University, CSU-Long Beach, Orange Coast College and St. Joseph's Ballet. Additionally, he continues performing professionally with groups like Rhapsody in Taps, an organization founded by his wife to honor the tradition of tap dance. Ellison feels strongly about recognizing the vast array of American performance traditions arising from the African American experience. He cites artists like Bradley Simmons as custodians of traditions like African diasporic drumming practices through their talents and historical memory. "When we were starting out [in learning African-inspired drumming], the American master drummers had to swim upstream" as they established art forms based on diasporic traditions. "These pioneers should be honored" for the histories they built and continue to represent.

Monti Ellison performs with Duke's Djembe and Afro-Cuban Ensembles on November 21st in Baldwin Auditorium (Duke's East Campus) at 8pm. He'll provide a master class open to the public (for ages middle-school through adult) in Baldwin on November 20th at 5pm. Please contact the Duke Music Publicity Office for more details at 919-660-3333, or see the calendar listing at www.music.duke.edu.

-Joyce Kurpiers