Fred Anderson and Hamid Drake

Sometimes the most obvious projects – the ones that are sure to work – are the ones that keep getting put off. Worst case scenario: they never happen. The notion of recording tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson and drummer Hamid Drake as a duo is something that has been kicked around for years, simply because they play so beautifully together. And of course they’ve recorded together many times, particularly in recent years, releasing CDs on Okka Disk, Eremite, Delmark, and elsewhere. But always in the company of others. The Anderson-Drake relationship always provides a nucleus for those ensembles. Here, then, for the first time, are Fred Anderson and Hamid Drake: pure, unadulterated nucleus.
Perhaps the Anderson-Drake connection is so deep because they both hail from the same birthplace: Monroe, Louisiana. Anderson moved up to Chicago before Drake was born, though, in the early ‘40s. Musical from his youth, Fred was also extremely humble – still a prominent trait – and spent the ‘50s listening to others play and woodshedding, waiting for the right moment to step out onto the stage and offer his own story. He developed his enormous tenor sound, in part, by practicing outside, bouncing melodies off of buildings and down the city streets, and he created his own practice books, out of which he developed an inimitable melodic conception, grafting together bebop phrases in unexpected ways.

By the early ‘60s, Anderson was performing in public regularly. He was, as is well known, one of the founding figures of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), and he led his own groups through that decade, including a band with Joseph Jarman that recorded one of the first AACM dates under Jarman’s name. Based in the north suburb of Evanston, Fred was extremely supportive of young talent – another continuing trait – and in the early ‘70s he established a workshop for just that purpose. Hamid (then known as "Hank") was an upstart drummer, the same age as Fred’s middle son. Fred first heard him play in a jazz-rock band called Kart Wolf (an outfit that actually opened for Fred’s great quartet with Steve McCall, Billy Brimfield and Lester Lashley once!), saw great promise in him, and from there nurtured his playing, introducing him to Edward Blackwell’s drumming, and raising him almost as his own offspring; in fact,Hamid’s family and Fred’s family lived together for a couple of years. Hamid would sometimes sit in with the Realistics, the funk band of Fred’s eldest son, Eugene, who also played drums. As Hamid says, of his mentorship with Fred: "We’ve been knowing each other a long time." A nice idiom, it keeps their relationship in the present tense, rather than looking back, past tense, at how long they’ve "known" each other.

If you’re wondering why this duet is such a natural, this is the answer. Anderson and Drake evolved an intensely personal understanding over more than 30 years of playing together. As the ‘70s wound down, Drake continued working in various settings, playing in reggae, African and r&b bands, learning music from other traditions around the world, including studying tablas, and eventually replacing Eugene in Fred’s band with reed-player Douglas Ewart, which also included electric bassist Felix Blackmon, one-time member of Kart Wolf. This foursome was augmented by trombonist George Lewis, and a historic ensemble was born, the first major group to include the nucleus: Fred Anderson and Hamid Drake. A version of the group toured Europe, recording for the Moers label, and they played and rehearsed together every week for years. Hamid rapidly grew into one of the most in-demand drummers in the world, touring with Pharoah Sanders, Don Cherry, Yusef Lateef, and forming Mandingo Griot Society with kora player Foday Musa Suso and Drake’s longterm friend and musical partner Adam Rudolph. In addition, his hi-hat sound was used on Herbie Hancock’s pop hit "Future Shock", spreading his immense (uncredited) creativity around the globe.

Fred and Hamid played together only sporadically in the ‘80s. Fred was busy establishing the Velvet Lounge, the bar and musical venue he still calls home base, and Hamid was touring and jobbing. But in the early ‘90s, they started to work together more frequently again, as Fred’s international profile began to rise to a more appropriate level and he started releasing more records and performing more frequently outside Chicago. They continue to perform together whenever possible, sometimes in trio with drummer Michael Zerang, sometimes in quartet with bassist Tatsu Aoki and guitarist Jeff Parker, rarely just by themselves. But when they do play together alone, all those years of shared history come to the surface. Anderson has worked with many great drummers – he’s released stunning duets with Steve McCall and Robert Barry – but somehow nobody quite complements his snaking lines and unique way of building momentum like Drake does. They fit together perfectly, Anderson’s substantive tenor moving in and out of Drake’s other-worldly hand-drumming – gorgeously recorded here – and his astonishing, more-powerful-than-ever trap work. Thank goodness this pair didn’t go undocumented.

The center, the core, the backbone – the nucleus of Chicago’s creative jazz.

- John Corbett, January 2004