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Don’t sweat it if you’ve never heard of drummer and composer Steve Reid...you’re not alone. But if you’ve never heard of the people he’s whacked the skins for—among them John Coltrane, Jimi Hendrix, Fela Kuti, James Brown, Miles Davis, and Sun Ra—then you must be new to this planet.
Either way, Reid doesn’t take it personally when his name draws blanks, only because there’s a positive side to remaining incognito. “I’ve played at the circus, at weddings, everywhere,” says the 64-year-old Bronx-born drummer, on the phone from Lugano, Switzerland, where he now lives. The relative anonymity, he explains, has allowed him to move freely across genres without getting pigeonholed. “I did what I could to get work. I never got caught up in being a heavy metal drummer or a jazz drummer or a funk drummer. That’s why I was very happy that until the last couple of years I was really unknown.”
As the colorful details of Reid’s incredible multi-decade journey have gradually come to light, his stealth status has changed significantly. Recently there have been two high-profile collaborations with Kieren Hebden’s Four Tet project on the ultra-hip Domino label. Now the Steve Reid Ensemble’s new album Daxaar (Domino) is bound to spread his rep even further. A culmination of influences and ideas that have been percolating for years, the album gets its title from an archaic spelling of the Senegalese capital of Dakar, which is where Reid and two of his regular musicians—keyboardist Boris Netsvetaev and DJ/programmer Hebden—packed off to begin recording in early 2007.
Reid asked around and assembled the best local players, and gave them one instruction: play what you feel. The result is a freewheeling groovefest that blurs the lines between jazz, funk and native African styles.
“It was funny,” Reid says about the concept of open-endedness that he wanted for the album. “When I first got there they said, ‘Well, what do you want to do?’ And I said, ‘I just want to play.’ They grew up in another system over there. For the guitar player, Jimi Mbaye, who has played with Youssou N’Dour, I figured this would be a good time for him to show that he’s got other skills besides his African thing. Then the other players were heavily jazz-influenced—the trumpet player, Roger [Ongolo], surprised me, man. I think he and the other guys surprised Jimi too, because the first thing he said was, ‘I didn’t know these guys were here!’”
Reid lets out a long and hearty laugh—something he does often when talking about both his current pursuits and his storied past. This trip to Africa wasn’t his first. He last visited more than three decades ago, when the purpose of his sojourn was, he says, “to receive.” But when he returned this time, “I wanted to bring something back.”
Music has always been a quest for Reid, and from the start his path took him directly to the masters. Growing up in the Bronx, he says, “I happened to live on a street called Lyman Place, with Thelonious Monk living right across the street, and the great Elmo Hope, another piano player, living upstairs from us. So I heard jazz very early. Then I got into a rhythm and blues thing and playing in the church. I played for dances.”
Reid got one of his first breaks when the regular drummer for Motown’s Martha And The Vandellas failed to show up for a gig. Martha Reeves liked how the youngster handled himself and invited him to play on her next record, “Dancing in the Street,” which became one of the best-sellers of 1964 and is a classic today.
From there, one connection led to the next. After moving to Queens, Reid was often invited to play at Coltrane’s house. “I was too intimidated to show up at a gig. He would always tell me to come on down and I would never show up,” Reid says, laughing again.
By the late ’60s, as the civil rights movement heated up into something more progressive and militant, Reid was caught up in the spirit and joined the Black Panther Party. He also became infatuated with Africa, and after graduating college he hopped a freighter for the 17-day voyage. He traveled between Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria and other countries, making music with the likes of Randy Weston, Guy Warren and Fela. “He knew where he got his shit from,” says Reid about the Nigerian Afrobeat legend. “But he was basically killed by the system. He mixed politics and music, and you’ve gotta stay out of politics because music is so beautiful. In politics you have to be a liar and a thief. It’s required to get elected. So there’s no blood on the music. I used to always ask Trane, ‘What do you think about the Vietnam War?’ He would say, ‘You just have to listen to my music and that explains what I think about peace and love.’”
When he returned to New York, Reid began building a reputation as a session drummer. James Brown, another Queens neighbor, called on him, and there was one memorable studio jam with Hendrix, but the tapes have apparently disappeared.
“Jimi Hendrix was a beautiful guy, but you’ve really got to have self-discipline in this life,” says Reid. “Jimi was like Bird [Charlie Parker]. He just succumbed to it. You’ve gotta have people around you who love you. A lot of guys that leave prematurely don’t—especially the ones that leave on drugs. You’ve got to put the music first and not the other stuff.”
In addition to playing with Miles, Reid honed his jazz chops with the great Sun Ra, with whom he played off and on for some 15 years. He also put in time with many of the pioneering free-jazz artists, including Archie Shepp, Lester Bowie and Henry Threadgill. The only real break in his career came when Uncle Sam requested Reid’s presence for yet another session: in the Army. He chose jail instead of Vietnam. “They gave me four years,” he says, “and I wear it like a badge. I played some music in there.”
As much as Reid loves talking about the past, he’s always been about moving forward. “All the people I like moved the music and they kept on going,” he says. “A lot of the masters are leaving the planet, so I just hope that some of the younger players don’t get too caught up in the money and what’s popular and just really try to follow the music. That’s when we’ll get the next Coltrane. But I’m happy that I’m helping to create the opportunity for the people to hear some good music.”
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