Interview with Dean Drummond

OK... don't tell anybody I did this. This article appeared in
21Century Music... I get the e-mail version. Please don't tell Mark
Alburger I am reproducing this.

This is strictly for (un)fair use and research purposes. (Yes, it's
long, but not for fast "scrollers")

.......

Dean Drummond is a composer, conductor, multi-instrumentalist, music
instrument inventor, co-director of Newband and Director of the Harry
Partch Instrument Collection. Born in 1949 in Los Angeles, Drummond
received degrees in music composition from the University of Southern
California (Bachelor of Music, 1971) and California Institute of the
Arts (Master of Fine Arts, 1973). While a student, he studied
trumpet
with Don Ellis and John Clyman, composition with Leonard Stein, and
worked as musician for and assistant to Harry Partch, performing in
the premieres of Partch's Daphne of the Dunes, And on the Seventh Day
Petals Fell in Petaluma, and Delusion of the Fury, as well as on both
Columbia Masterworks recordings made during the late 60's. In 1976,
Drummond moved to New York, where he co-founded Newband the following
year with flutist Stefani Starin. Since 1977, Drummond has been
engaged in a multi-faceted career including composition, hundreds of
performances, recordings, production of Harry Partch's music theatre
works, encouragement and education of composers interested in new
microtonal resources, and many educational activities for children.

I met Dean Drummond at his guest accommodations in a decidedly
downscale San Francisco hotel on Saturday, September 25, 1999 -- two
days after his amazing concert of Harry Partch's and his own music at
Yerba Buena Center.

ALBURGER: Nice to see they're putting you up in such style.

DRUMMOND: Yes!

ALBURGER: At least the concert certainly had style.

DRUMMOND: Now of course it's a bit of a blur. We have performed
some of those pieces so many times that I can't remember specific
performances so well. I did think the performance of my
Congressional Record was one of our best.

ALBURGER: How does your personal record begin?

DRUMMOND: I got started by signing up for trumpet when band was
offered in 4th grade (Los Angeles City School District) and by
listening to my parent's collection of 78's and LP's.

ALBURGER: What music was important to you then?

DRUMMOND: When I "discovered" Louis Armstrong's Hot Five, I was
about
ten and knew that music was extremely important. I quickly became
interested in bebop and the innovative jazz of the late 50's and
early
60's, also in Stravinsky, Bartók, and others.

ALBURGER: How did you begin composing?

DRUMMOND: I can't remember exactly how I began to compose. My
earliest memory is improvising, pretty crudely, at the piano, and
then
trying to write down the best part of the improvisation. I guess I
have always been an organizer and as early as middle school, I spent
my allowance on jazz band arrangements by Dizzy Gillespie and others
and attempted to organize readings. Since I could never assemble
exactly the right musicians, I would have to arrange and transpose
the parts for the instruments we had. That's another way that I got
started composing.

ALBURGER: How did you hook up with Don Ellis?

DRUMMOND: While in high school, I chanced to see an ad placed by Don
Ellis offering trumpet and jazz lessons. I remember I was about to
turn 16 because I was just learning to drive and it was big deal to
drive one hour each way across Los Angeles -- from San Pedro to the
San Fernando Valley -- for a trumpet lesson.

ALBURGER: What was it like to study with him?

DRUMMOND: It was great. I give Don credit for introducing me to a
lot, from Luciano Berio to Indian music, from Leonard Stein with whom
I studied species counterpoint to Harry Partch, who became my main
mentor and a great inspiration.

ALBURGER: So it was through Ellis that you met Harry Partch?

DRUMMOND: Yes. I was still 16 (in the fall 1965) when Don loaned me
the Gate 5 recording of Revelation in the Courthouse Park and gave me
a number to call to attend one of Harry Partch's rehearsals. I
called and ended up attending a demonstration of the instruments,
mostly by Emil Richards, attempting to enlist some young studio
percussionists to play Harry's music. I was absolutely blown away by
the instruments, by the demonstration and by Harry himself, who
wouldn't answer any of my many questions and told me to read his
book.
It was easy to see that musicians were needed. I, probably
naively, expressed interest in playing and left my number. A couple
months later, Harry called and asked me to play in what turned out to
be the premiere of And on the Seventh Day Petals Fell in Petaluma,
which happened during May 1966. During the summer after Petals, I
tried to help Harry organize some rehearsals of Delusion of the Fury
but it proved to be a premature attempt. I also helped Harry a
little, driving him on errands. By this time, I had read his book
-- some of it twice -- and also we got into huge discussions in which
I would basically pick his brain or we would discuss the meaning of
corporeality: what was corporeal and what wasn't. In the fall of
1966, I began studies at University of Southern California and didn't
see much of Harry until he called me and invited me to serve as his
assistant the following year at University of California at San
Diego.
The next year was one of the most amazing of my life. Along with
Jonathan Glasier, I assisted Harry throughout the year with tuning,
minor instrument repairs, rehearsal organization, and played in the
performances that were done that year, including the first
performance
of Daphne of the Dunes. I had a pretty light schedule of classes at
UCSD which made me willing and even eager to hang out with Harry as
much as possible, which sometimes meant driving all over for a
particular hardware supply and sometimes to check out reed organs.
The following year Harry's position at UCSD evaporated and there was
no reason for me to be there. I moved back to L.A. and resumed
studies at USC. For continued participation with Harry, it ended up
being the right move though. Harry also moved to L.A. to organize an
ensemble to perform at the Whitney Museum in New York during the fall
(1968) and then to perform the first performances of Delusion of the
Fury (possibly his greatest work) at UCLA the following Spring.
What
can I say? It doesn't get much better than getting to go to New
York
with Harry Partch when you're 19 years old and then play in Delusion
of the Fury and make two records for Columbia Masterworks to boot!

ALBURGER: Sounds about right. So what did your music sound like
during these years?
DRUMMOND: My music sounded like what you might expect: eclectic and
immature, not very original. The reasons were pretty simple: I was
young and I had spent a year devoted to Harry while still practicing
trumpet for hours per day, and wasn't doing much with composing or my
other studies at USC.

ALBURGER: But after that, your lives went different directions?

DRUMMOND: Yes. I stayed in Los Angeles and at USC, never worked
with
Harry again, but drove down to visit him periodically, probably five
or six times per year until around 1973. I didn't see him much
during the last year of his life because I was having my own
difficulties: a too early marriage breaking up, first year out of
college and facing the facts of life about how much time it takes to
earn money, etc. I was just getting settled in a cottage in
Hollywood
after moving out of the apartment I had shared with my ex-wife when
my
father called to tell me that he read about Harry's death in the
paper. But that's getting a little ahead; back in 1969 I decided
that
with no performances on the horizon, I was better off in LA. Also I
really wanted to compose again and was beginning to increasingly feel
that Harry was too big an influence in my life, that I had to learn
about a lot of music and come to more of my own ideas of what was
important to me. As I started to do this, I also came to a major
realization, which was I couldn't devote myself to composition and
trumpet and do either as well as wanted. This was a very sudden
decision, but one that I have never regretted. I still remember
clearly. For the first time in my life, I considered quitting
trumpet on January 2, 1970, thought about it for about 48 hours and
then did it. When I was sure, Harry was the first person I called
to
discuss my decision. He thought it was great. Sure enough, it paid
off for me. With more focus, determination and time, I began to
write pieces almost immediately that still sound acceptable. Still
eclectic, still not really original, but at least growing in a
direction. I still like some of the pieces I composed between 1970
and 1973, but I think my first original sounding piece was in 1974:
Cloud Garden I, which I completed just after graduating from Cal
Arts.
Any time I got a tape, I would play it for Harry on my next visit.
He was always encouraging, but always frank. There was one piece he
really liked a lot (Dedication) and one he openly criticized or at
least said it made no sense to him (Ghost Tangents). It's always
amazed me on a personal level that not only did I compose the first
music I thought was original in 1974, but that Harry knew my first
wife pretty well, but didn't know we had separated, and certainly
didn't know that I would meet Stefani Starin, my second and current
wife a month after he died... and I also didn't get to play him Cloud
Garden I. To the best of my knowledge, my relationship with Harry
was
pretty unique through all of these years, 1966 to about 1972. I'm
pretty sure I was the only member of his ensembles that had read
Genesis of a Music cover to cover several times, frequently discussed
and even argued (friendly) over some of the concepts -- also I'm
pretty sure I was the only young composer who was showing Harry
his/her work during those years. One more thing comes up because I
recently reread Bob Gilmore's account of the one class that Harry
taught at UCSD. Of course everyone will have their own perception
of
what went on, but my memory differs a little bit with Harry's and
some
of the students. Harry blamed the students a bit for disinterest,
etc., but I believe that Harry, despite having the ability to explain
himself brilliantly in Genesis of a Music, just didn't have the
experience to teach effectively in the classroom. While it's true
that the music faculty and some students didn't give Harry the
respect
that I believe he deserved, creating some bitterness along the way, I
think the students who signed up for his class did so out of interest
mixed with an understandable level of misunderstanding and innocence.

They were all graduate students and good musicians, but there was a
definite communication gap mostly caused, I believe, by the fact that
Harry didn't really get into the role of educator, understanding what
his students knew and didn't know, and then building cohesively from
there. This actually worked out very much to my advantage since I
was asked to set up a series of sessions in which I tried to explain
to these students what Harry was trying to explain, a task that very
much challenged me to clarify my own understanding at the time. What
else can I say about Harry that hasn't been said? He was a great
friend despite the age difference. He could be difficult,
cantankerous, sometimes impossible, but he was almost always
brilliant, interesting, inspiring, even incredible. I loved him
dearly.

ALBURGER: He is dearly missed. After his death, you eventually
wound
up staying in New York for much more than a recording session.

DRUMMON: Ever since I was 12, I dreamt of coming to New York, mostly
because it was the center for jazz. The trip with Harry in 1969
whet
my appetite further. I had very little professional reason to be in
L.A. I was earning my living as a bookkeeper, which I could do
anywhere. Teachers at Cal Arts, like John Bergamo, had come from New
York and had made it sound great. Finally, I had a girlfriend,
Stefani, who had grown up outside of New York, hated L.A., and wanted
to leave as soon as she completed her degree at Cal Arts. The
clincher was that I got a Fellowship in Composition to Tanglewood.
They were going to send me a round-trip plane ticket, but I asked for
the cash equivalent and paid for Stefani and myself to ship half of
our belongings by Greyhound and then we drove across the country with
the other half on top of our little Datsun. After Tanglewood,
Stefani
and I were allowed to stay on briefly in the composer's cottage.
After a brief period in which we considered moving to Boston, we
started looking for jobs and an apartment in New York and moved to
the
city in December, 1976.

ALBURGER: And eventually in New York, you founded Newband.

DRUMMOND: Yes. It didn't take long to understand that New York
didn't have a support system for immigrant artists. If Stefani
wanted to perform and I wanted to have my pieces played, we needed to
hustle our own gigs instead of hoping the phone would ring. During
the spring of 1976, I sent out a bunch of letters proposing a concert
of music composed by myself and a few friends. It was quite a
surprise when someone from the programming office at New York
University called up to hire the band, assuming we were cheap, which
we were. She asked me what the band would be called for publicity
purposes and I thought for a second and said "Newband." We were very
fortunate to have encountered some great young percussionists, James
Pugliese, Rick Sacks, and Steve Paysen -- all students of Ray des
Roches at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Louis
Goldstein, a great pianist from Cal Arts, was at Eastman, and came
down to rehearse. We were joined by Allen Blustine, a.k.a.
Devendra,
then and still one of the best clarinetists in New York, and that was
the beginning of Newband. Even though I was still heavily into
Harry's music, I was just beginning to construct the first prototype
for the zoomoozophone. Newband's first concerts weren't microtonal
at all. By 1978, I had completed the first zoomoozophone and that
changed everything. With a new instrument we had to create a new
repertoire which took several years. By 1982, Newband mostly
presented a microtonal repertoire.

ALBURGER: And eventually you and Newband became the caretaker to the
Partch instruments.

DRUMMOND: Becoming caretaker of the instruments was a matter of
great
coincidence. By around 1988 or 1989, Newband was beginning to come
into its own. We had performed in some pretty prestigious venues,
been to Europe and had released our first CD. In 1989, we were
contacted by the Andrew Mellon Foundation and invited to apply for a
large grant that would allow the ensemble to grow. We were
encouraged
to think of a large project that would help develop those aspects of
our ensemble that made us unique. One night I had the wild idea that
we should apply for a grant to build the seven Harry Partch
instruments necessary for a performance of U.S. Highball. With
Danlee
Mitchell's approval, I applied, and much to our amazement, we got the
grant. Less than a year later, we were well on our way towards the
completion of two instruments when Danlee arranged to come to New
York
with the instruments for a performance at Juilliard. I wasn't
connected to this performance at all, and first heard about it when
David Lang of the Bang on a Can Festival called me to say that he had
asked Danlee if the instruments could stay in New York for a
performance at Bang on a Can. Danlee was unavailable and made such a
performance contingent on my participation; David was calling to see
if I wanted to. That led to three performances at Bang on a Can
followed by a period in which I kept checking with Danlee to see if
the instruments could stay for one more performance. All this time
the instruments occupied a loft on West 31st Street, right underneath
a gigantic laundry that was cleaning all of the linens for several
hotels. The spin cycles were amazing; the whole building shook.
The
following year (1991), Newband staged The Wayward for eight nights at
Circle in the Square, once again sponsored by Bang on a Can. It was
a shoestring production, but very exciting nonetheless, directed by
Tom O'Horgan. Danlee came out from San Diego and asked me if I
would
want to take the instruments on "permanent loan." He was getting
ready to retire and didn't want the pressure of caring for the
instruments. I was happy to. As a lot of the instruments needed
renovation, I requested that the Mellon Foundation allow Newband to
spend much of the funds doing that.

ALBURGER: In your own works, you now utilize Partch's instruments,
plus a few of your own.

DRUMMOND: I have invented two instruments, the zoomoozophone and the
juststrokerods. Both were built purposefully to be in tune with
Harry's instruments. I have always liked metallic ringing percussion
sounds. For me the zoomoozophone especially is a great complement
to
Harry's percussion instruments and goes especially well with diamond
marimba, boo, and also harmonic canons.

ALBURGER: It's so true. Your workshop the other day very well
demonstrated that. So what are the pieces that you have written that
are most important to you?

DRUMMOND: Well, that's a difficult question and the answer might
have
been different several years ago as it will probably be different
sometime in the future. Right now I would say that The Day the Sun
Stood Still is my favorite instrumental piece; The Last Laugh (a live
film score for the silent film of the same name by F.W. Murnau) is my
biggest piece definitely; and Congressional Record is probably the
most fun. Other favorites are a couple small recent pieces,
especially Mars Face. My favorite "older" pieces are Then or Never,
Ruby Half Moon and, really old, Zurrjir (1976).

ALBURGER: Speaking of Congressional Record, your style seems denser
and more contrapuntal than Partch's. Do you share this perception?

DRUMMOND: Sure. It seems obvious. Harry was more interested in
line and less interested in vertical constructions.
ALBURGER: I understand there was a bit of a scare that the Partch
instruments would not have a proper home?

DRUMMOND: Fortunately that's over. Housing the instruments has
always been a problem. It's a bigger problem now, because we cart
around my instruments, several replications, plus all of the
instruments Harry built at the end of his life which weren't part of
most of the moves he had to make. Basically, there are only two ways
that one can provide for the instruments: pay commercial rent or find
a supportive institution. The second way is in most circumstances
much preferred. During Harry's lifetime, institutional support (i.e.
at universities), went hot and cold. After he died, Danlee kept the
instruments at California State University (San Diego), where Danlee
was already a Professor of Music. When I first took charge, I wasn't
connected with any institution, and Newband struggled to raise the
money for the loft rent every month. After 15 years in Manhattan,
Stefani and I and our two children needed much more space than our
apartment, and larger apartments were very expensive. We moved to
Nyack, a great little village about 30 miles north of Manhattan, and
I
looked for commercial space there. Amazingly, the local high school
band director, Bert Hughes, knew all about Harry and I was quickly
offered temporary space in an unused room in the high school. That
lasted two years and then we were invited to be Artist Ensemble in
Residence at Purchase College, State University of New York, by
Donald
Steven, Dean of Music. Five years later, Donald left and was
replaced by a new dean who immediately asked us to move out. It
wasn't much notice, certainly not enough to line up another
institution, although we tried. We spent a year rehearsing in a
factory warehouse pretty far out of the way in Sloatsburg, New York.
That takes us up to a little more than a month ago when we were
invited by Ruth Rendleman, Chair of the Music Department at Montclair
State University in New Jersey, to move the instruments there.
Things
seem much better at Montclair than at Purchase. The faculty and
administration, including Susan Cole, President, has been most
supportive. The bitterness about Purchase seems part of a distant
past now, fortunately. Montclair is simply a better place to be, a
better university in general, and much more convenient to Manhattan
for musicians and composers traveling to practice and rehearse.

[Dean Drummond has been hired as Assistant Professor of Music at
Montclair State University and authorized to build a Harry Partch
Institute at Montclair -- a place, finally, where the Partch
instruments will live, and where interested students can receive a
degree studying the late composer's music]