Ches Smith Runs the Vodou Down
From that chance encounter with Haitian Vodou music grew a lifelong fascination with its complex polyrhythms and spellbinding chants, even as his career as a drummer took him in other directions. Now, more than 20 years later, Smith is releasing a groundbreak ing album, Path Of Seven Colors (Pyroclastic Records), combining Vodou music with jazz composition and improvisation.
Smith recorded the work with his group We All Break, a cross-cultural octet includ ing four jazz musicians and four tradition al Haitian drummers and singers, who pool their talents to make a hybrid music that is stunningly original and mesmerizing in its ritualistic power.
In addition to Smith on drum set, the octet features three musicians at the forefront of experimental and improvised music — pia nist Matt Mitchell, alto saxophonist and MacArthur Fellow Miguel Zenón and bass ist Nick Dunston — combined with Haitian vocalist Sirene Dantor Rene and a trio of master Haitian drummers
Fanfan Jean-Guy Rene, Markus Schwartz and drummer/song writer Daniel Brevil, who contributed sever al original compositions. The album’s June release was accompanied by a 50-minute doc umentary on the making of the album by film maker Mimi Chakarova.
Smith has played a variety of experimental music forms as a leader and sideman, indulg ing a taste for both rock and jazz drumming. When in his 20s, Smith played with rock experimentalists like Mr. Bungle and Secret Chiefs 3. In recent years, he has recorded with jazz innovators like Tim Berne’s Snakeoil, Marc Ribot, Craig Taborn, Mat Maneri, John Zorn, Nels Cline and Dave Holland.
The group’s name, We All Break, is a reference to a staple of Vodou drumming called the kase (pronounced ka-say), a break in the main rhythmic pattern introduced by the lead drummer.
“It’s designed to kinda shock the initiates, throw themoff balance,” Smith said. “If they’re dancing to the beat, it kinda pulls the rug out from under them. It’s essentially polyrhyth mical in nature, highlighting the undercur rent of the rhythm that was in the first part.” In Vodou ritual, disorienting the initiates in this way is supposed to facilitate an ecstat ic experience in which they may become pos sessed by the spirits the ceremony is designed to summon.
The idea of combining religious and secu lar music gave Smith some pause — in fact, more so than it did his Haitian collaborators. “I had reservations, but they didn’t,” he said. “I wanted to blend the two [genres] and feature this incredible drumming, but I asked Marcus and Daniel, ‘Is this a good idea?’ They said, ‘Let’s try it.’ Daniel brought some of his friends to [our] second gig, and they approved. They saw that the drums and Haitian songs were prominent in the music.”
Smith describes his attraction to Vodou music as a physical thing. “I’m generalizing, but it felt like Elvin Jones to me — it had that kind of visceral grip on me,” he said. “It just was a feeling it gave me. I almost want to say I’d feel that way even if I didn’t play drums. The way certain rhythms went together it was really funky and powerful at the same time … and really polyrhythmic. ”
Those interests began as a young teen in Sacramento, when he and his older brother, also a drummer, would play along with rock music on the radio. “At 14 or 15, I started play ing all the time, reading drum magazines; I began to realize I’d better learn the rudi ments.” An early teacher made him mixtapes and got him listening to jazz drummers. Following up on his interest in Vodou music, Smith visited Haiti, attended Vodou ceremonies and began to comprehend the music’s spiritual underpinnings.
“I saw that was the reason for all this great music. There’s a spiritual reason for all the polyrhythms and the way the drumming fits together — it wasn’t just some art thing. The average person in that community under stands it, too. It’s not just for the musicians.”
