Mickey Hart - In the Groove (2022)

The Return of Planet Drum “In the Groove”

Rhythm and percussion form the universal pass key to the world’s music, the underlying connection that can unite an American rock and roll drummer who started in the marching band world with the master of Indian tabla, the “Mozart of the Nigerian talking drum,” and one of the great conqueros (conga players) alive. Mickey Hart, Zakir Hussain, Sikiru Adepoju, and Giovanni Hidalgo are Planet Drum. The origins of Planet Drum lie in Mickey Hart’s 1968 encounter with the great Indian tabla player Allarakha, best-known as Ravi Shankar’s accompanist. Already a member of the Grateful Dead, Hart had by all measures achieved considerable success, but his passion for studying other rhythmic worlds was just taking off. His work with Allarakha introduced unusual time signatures into the Dead’s repertoire; then the master gave Mickey his greatest gift by introducing Mickey to his future life partner in rhythm, Allarakha’s son, Zakir Hussain.
Of the new album 'In the Groove': “Jazz with a backbeat,” Mickey remarked. “It’s a dance album. It was always on my mind to do something with Zakir that made people dance, as opposed to just listen. But I thought it was time to dance, for Planet Drum to dance. This is celebratory. It has a spatial quality that none of the others have, and it has a backbeat, which makes you dance. I wanted to make a record for people to enjoy and come out of the viral load world of the last two years…this is a trance dance band. I kind of combined everything in this one—thanks to the updates of technology, we could work with space as well as the groove.”
“It’s a groove album,” said Zakir. “Very little virtuoso soloing, but four of us in sync within the groove adds up to something incredible. It’s a real challenge to do just enough in support of the groove, adding exclamation points, but never disturbing the groove atmosphere. It’s a feel-good, jump up and down, tap-your-toes dance album. It also has a combined organic and electronic sonic experience that’s very warm.”