Raising Hamid
Drake, who plays trap set and frame drums on the disc, moves easily between Western jazz and the percussion traditions of Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. He’s sought after both at home and abroad, and his recordings and collaborations number in the hundreds; he’s worked with everyone from Don Cherry to Herbie Hancock, Bill Laswell to Pharoah Sanders.
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Born in Monroe, Louisiana, in 1955, Drake was brought to Waukegan the following year to live with his aunt and uncle. “My aunt wasn’t able to have children, so her sister, my biological mother, allowed her to raise me,” says Drake. “But I grew up with that knowledge, and went back every summer to Louisiana to visit my biological parents and my brothers and sister.” By the time he entered grade school, his aunt and uncle had moved to Evanston and were renting from the Andersons, old friends from Monroe.
Longtime friend and percussionist Adam Rudolph had turned Drake on to what would soon be called “world music,” and in the late 70s he studied congas, tabla, djembe, and frame drums at Kendall College in Evanston, later traveling to Africa to further his education. To date he’s visited Mali, Senegal, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, and Sierra Leone. “Learning these very old, well-established styles . . . taught me to give the ultimate respect to my teachers. And fortunately, I’ve always had great teachers, whether it was Fred Anderson or someone like Don Cherry.”
Drake himself is a dedicated practitioner of a form of tantric Buddhism called Vajrayana, and says he’s aligned with Sufism as well. His bookshelves are filled with religious literature, and his house and garden are decorated with Buddhist statues and prints. Perhaps closest to his heart among all his projects is the new disc Collusion With Wonder, recorded with a band called Inji and inspired by Buddhist master Traktung Rinpoche and his wife, master A’dzom Rinpoche.
This Sunday the Lyons Den ends its eight-year run as a live-music and comedy venue with a night of drinking and karaoke. Owner Joe Tozer sold the North Center club to Jamie Hale and Tony Griffin of Ginger’s Ale House, who plan on reopening it as a European-style soccer bar next month. Tozer was near the end of his lease, and his landlords wanted to raise his rent from $3,800 to $5,800. He decided to sell, he says, “mainly so I wouldn’t have to start charging six bucks a beer.” Tozer will keep the bar’s name and PA system, and he’s already scouting around town for a new location.
