Twenty years ago I bought a log drum, a long rectangular wooden box with slits on top, from an import store because it looked so cool. I'm not much of a percussionist, but over the years I've had a few students who were. One, in particular, used to come in to my office and create wild African rhythms. Dance music.
Then, a few weeks ago, I decided to give the instrument to my best friend's son, a talented young jazz drummer, as a high school graduation present. I wanted to give him some examples of recordings that used log drums and that led me to Tim Adams' "Images of My Spirit."
Adams, the principal timpanist for the Pittsburgh Symphony and a music professor at Carnegie Mellon University, doesn't play dance music on "Images of the Spirit." Instead, his music is sparse, elegant and mystical. It's like listening to rain drops in the rain forest as the trees gently brush against each other in the wind.
He's accompanied by Dwayne Dolphin, one of my favorite young jazz bassists, who I first heard playing spirited funk jazz on Fred Wesley's "Amalgamation" album in the mid-'90s. There isn't any funk coming out of Dolphin's piccolo bass on "Images of the Spirit," but in his own gentle way, he grooves just the same.
My young friend is used to banging away on tunes by Art Blakey, Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Great music, to be sure. But he's a smart guy, a National Merit Scholar, and a sensitive kid. I'm betting he'll use the log drum, with "Images of My Spirit" as a guide for meditation, introspection, as he faces the challenges of college. And if he feels like partying, the log drum's a great instrument for that, too.
