A Drummer’s Dream
A Film by John Walker
Featuring: Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez, Raul Rekow, Dennis Chambers, Mike Mangini, Nasyr Abdul Al- Khabyyr, Kenwood Dennard, Giovanni Hidalgo, forty student drummers, and John Walker.
John Walkers’ latest release, A Drummer’s Dream, is a remarkable film, as entertaining as it is enlightening. The central theme hinges on a prescription for musicians, specifically drummers, namely that they ought to adhere consistently to the highest standards of execution, all the while honoring humans and the elements of nature. To do this is to place oneself within striking distance of a rich, rewarding life filled with joy, contentment, and boundless energy.
Walker brought a camera crew with him last summer when he spent a long weekend in the thick forests and vast finger lakes that sit on the cusp between cottage country and the wilds of the Canadian Shield. Accordingly, you are there and swoop down over the treetops to a lush, green-hued clearing in the woods. In this secluded spot, forty drumming novices have assembled for a drum camp led by a cadrė of the hands-down finest drummers in the western world. Joining the unlikely scenario, John Walker, once a promising drummer, is about to discover if his yearning to drum can prevail against the adage you can’t go back.
When we arrive at the site, cleared ages ago for a farm, we encounter the diverse groups. One consists of forty beginning drummers who are brimming with excitement and eagerness to convene with their heroes. Miraculously, the latter have arrived in spite of the airlines. The meet and greet has already taken place when we join them. Like Walker, we’re interested in seeing if the drumming experience can foster togetherness, sharing of knowledge, self betterment, and, most important, joy.
Although the novices know their hosts and soon to be mentors by name and deed, nothing has prepared them—or the audience—for the extraordinary episodes of drumming that will light up the old barn each night. It seems that the masters have fallen under a similar spell, that of natural beauty blended with rare opportunities to commune, free from traffic, urban clutter, and social constraints.
The masters display signature feats of control, dynamics, power, and unbelievably complex chops that transfix non drumming viewers and inspire those already seduced by the pulse. Drawn together by the love of drumming, novices and masters begin to bond. Thoughts race and collide. Ideas flow. Smiles replace base urban greetings. And when sticks drop, those huge personalities emerge, somehow with added presence. The novices sit in awe, just as the masters, too, begin display a childish glee at what they’re hearing: drums in their native surroundings echoing the purest of intents. The timbres multiply as the stars in the night sky and delight replaces wariness. Each flurry of strokes, each stunning roll from toms to cymbals, and each feat of impossible coordination points to some super human power that exceeds the sum of the assembled talents. In this green haven, we feel a growing force that uplifts spirit and flesh, validates every moment spent honing craft, and rewarding that natural congruence of preparation, passion, and love.
The reviewer T. Bruce Wittet is Editor in Chief, Drums Etc, Assoc. Editor, Muzik Etc (Canada),
Senior staff writer Modern Drummer Magazine (USA), past contributor to Down Beat (USA), Rhythm (UK) et al.
