Mike Bennett has been on a very long, sometimes strange trip for most of his life. His journey is the lifelong study of the drum — jazz drumming, funk drumming, rock drumming, African drumming and everything in between.
Bennett, who teaches percussion classes at College of the Atlantic, has been a part of the Maine music scene since his teen years. Now 48, Bennett will go back to his roots tonight, with a show with the Mike Bennett Trio, featuring Kim Cass on bass and Ryan Blotnick on guitar. The group will play at 7 p.m. at Hammond Hall in Winter Harbor, in the last concert of Schoodic Arts for All’s Jazz and Classical Concert Series.
“I would consider myself a groove drummer. Whatever style I play in, I’m most concerned with the groove,” said Bennett. “My versatility is my strong point, but it’s always got that basic groove sensibility.”
Bennett began his journey on the drum at a young age, playing as a teenager growing up in Southwest Harbor. In the heydey of the Blue Hill music venue the Left Bank Cafe, a mecca for folk and jazz throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, Bennett was the in-house drummer. He played in A-Train and the Patty Wicks Trio, and was in the funk-rock fusion bands the Beatroots and Birdhouse.
Bennett graduated from the University of Maine in 1993, with a degree in music performance, and also studied with jazz drummer Alan Dawson, a former member of the Dave Brubeck Quartet. His pedigree as a jazz drummer is rivaled by few in this state. But Bennett, a restlessly creative soul, was always looking for more.
In 1998, though, a stint playing with a Down East drum circle turned his attention away from jazz, and towards a more elemental style of drumming: West African music.
“I had started playing a lot of hand drums when I played with the Beatroots. Congas, bongos, timbales, all that,” said Bennett. “Some friends I drummed with said that they had been to the Gambia, and that it was an amazing experience. I decided to give it a shot. And I absolutely fell in love with the place.”
Bennett has returned to the Gambia each winter for a decade, and has studied with the same three drummers for the past 10 years: Amadou “Boss” Joof, his djembe teacher, Keba Mane, his balafon teacher, and Mamjam Janha, his sabar teacher. The djembe is the large, goblet-shaped hand drum popular among beginner hand drummers in this country, while the balafon is a kind of West African vibraphone and the sabar is a drum played with one hand and one stick. The learning experience Bennett has in the Gambia is vastly different from any he has had stateside.
“Here, a student probably studies for an hour or two, once a week,” said Bennett. “There, I take probably 10 or 11 lessons a week, for hours at a time. [Music] is intertwined with every aspect of the culture. There is both an everyday purpose and a spiritual purpose to it. They don’t do it to make money or be famous. They do it because it’s a part of life.”
Sadly, the economic reality of the times made it impossible for him to go back again this winter.
“I usually go for three and a half to four months, from the beginning of winter until February or March,” said Bennett. “This will be the first year in 10 years that I haven’t gone. Airfare alone is $3,000. It’s very disappointing, but that’s the reality. There’s always next year.”
Nevertheless, Bennett’s drum journey continues — especially as he returns to his roots this weekend with his jazz show. His approach to jazz is informed now by his training in African drumming. In his younger years, he was more concerned with flashy solos and showing off. Now, he is devoted to the endless exploration of rhythm.
“I come from a place now where I want to make people be able to dance and feel the music, as opposed to experiencing it on some kind of intellectual, cerebral level,” said Bennett. “If it doesn’t groove for me, and fit into a sort of natural biorhythm, it doesn’t really do anything for me.”
The Mike Bennett Trio will play at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 9, at Hammond Hall in Winter Harbor. Admission is $15 for adults, $7 for students. For more info, visit www.schoodicartsforall.org.
