Building a Bridge Between Two Rhythmic Cultures Indian Clave Every piece of music has a story to tell, and the one we’re looking at this month, “Indian Clave,” started at a festival in Croatia, when I performed with Horacio “el Negro” Hernandez for the first time. It was during a long ride to dinner one night of the festival that the music came into being. “I have a rhythmic idea I worked on with [master conguero] Giovanni Hidalgo,” Hernandez recalled. “Giovanni had been shown it by the percussionist Sikiru Adepoju. It has a cool 6/8 vibe with a very syncopated and illusory time feel.” Here’s the basic rhythm: When Horacio showed me that pattern, it got me thinking of a comparison between it and some of the time structures you find in South India, especially in a style called Pallavi, which involves modulating a rhythmic idea from 8th notes to […]

March 2013 Issue