DH: This is a very bilaterally symmetrical set up. Do you notice yourself playing in any particular directions or spatial patterns more than others? RR: Not really. I don’t always need to use five congas, but when I do, then yes, I stay on my right side a bit more. With two or three congas, I’ll stay to the right side more, but I try to stay pretty symmetrical with most of my playing.
DH: Do you ever switch the drums around or do you keep them in the same configuration? RR: I keep them in the same exact configuration, and I always tune to those notes because they’re the most useful notes for what we play. Plus I find that it works almost in every kind of situation, even outside of Santana.
GEARBOX Percussion LP
DH: How do these new heads hold up? Do they hold their tuning or do you find yourself having to tune during the show? RR: The beauty of the Remo head is that they’re plastic, not leather. For me they take a few days to get seated, but from that point on, I never have to tune them again. Very, very rarely do I have to retune them.
aware of, at least consciously. He plays his whole kit like all the drums are timbales. When you’re playing timbales, you’re playing rimshots, mostly, and when Joey’s playing his drums, he’s playing rimshots across his head toms and floor toms on almost every hit. Because of the attack, it’s easier for me to hear what’s going on. It’s more accurate for me.
DH: This thing with Joey, are you going to be recording in Europe or the States? RR: I’m going to start off recording in Joey’s studio. The bass player I’m going to use there is a wonderful guy by the name of Rene Camacho. I’ve played with him a few times and I love his playing. Joey’s bringing in a keyboard player that he knows. I don’t know the guy, but I trust Joey’s musical intuition.
DH: How long have you been using these heads? RR: This is a brand new head. Karl and I were instrumental in helping them develop the prototype for the original plastic head for the conga, which was Fiberskyn I. That was about 10 years ago. Remo sends us the prototypes and if they can get by us, they figure they’ve got something. [laughs]
DH: I know he uses small drums, with his first tom usually being an 8”. Does that help to get him out of the frequency range of the congas? RR: Yes, it does. When I’m playing with him, it’s like playing with a drummer and a timbalero at the same time, and that really works for me.
RR: You could say that – Mr.
Ed Thigpen lives four blocks from me! [laughs] He’s kind of like my father in some respects. My wife used to baby sit his two children, Michel and Denise, after his wife died. She met him in a jazz club where he was playing, and he asked her to baby sit his two children when he used to have these parties at his house. She told me she used to sit in the kitchen and talk for hours with this heavy-set black woman and older black gentleman who used to come by; well, they turned out to be Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie.
My wife learned at a very young age to appreciate people for what they are. She didn’t know who those particular people were, but she really got to like them as human beings. That’s something I really love about my wife – she’s not affected by fame and won’t put up with the bullshit.
As you know Ed Thigpen is one of the most dignified gentle-men on the face of the earth. He’s the epitome of a gentleman. Besides being an unbelievable player, he’s a wonderful human being and I hope to grow up to be like him.
DH: Are you writing the music? RR: No, I’m going to be taking old songs and revamping them. I’m trying to develop Latin funk. I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag, so I’ll just say that I’m going to use older songs that sit on the fence between those two styles. My dream has always been to put together a band that’s a combination of Santana and Tower of Power – the Santana percussion section with the Tower of Power horn section and the snap funk.
DH: Do you have any other kind of regular gig when Santana’s not on the road? RR: At the moment, no, but I’m getting ready to put my own thing together. I’m going to be going into the studio with Joey Heredia, actually. [laughs] I haven’t figured out all the rest of the personnel yet because I’m living most of the time in Europe now. At the moment the bass player I want to use for Europe is Moussa Diallo. He’s from Mali, originally, but he’s now living in Copenhagen, the same as me.
RR: Not at the moment, no. Instrumentation will be drums, congas, timbales, bass, keyboards and maybe a vocalist.
DH: I know that you and Karl have sat in with Joey Heredia and that you also did a clinic with Joey in Germany last year. What’s it like to play with him? RR: I love playing with Joey, but initially I wasn’t sure what it was about his playing that I loved so much. I talked to him about it when we did the clinic tour. I was obviously aware that he tunes his snare really high, but he told me something that I wasn’t really
RR: Eventually! [laughs]
DH: Is Joey going to cover the drums and timbales simultaneously, like he usually does? RR: No, I’ve asked a very dear friend of mine, Orestes Villato, who used to play timbales in Santana, to do the timbales on the recording.
DH: Scandanavia, and Denmark in particular, seems to have always been a haven for expatriate American jazz musicians. Is that still true?
• www.raulrekow.com • www.santana.com/players/raul.asp •
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