Michael Baird – Danceables (SWP Records, 2024)

On these pages we have often met the multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer Michael Baird, to rewiew his publications dedicated to field research in Africa, ors his albums such as “Ferrari Safari” from 2020, recorded with the apulian percussionist Pino Basile, and “Thumbs on the Outside” from 2022. We interviewed Michael Baird to talk about his last album “Danceables”, an anthology album that collects the songs recorded between 1987 and 2022, and revisited his artistic career, his field research, and his work with his record label, SWP.

Let's start from afar how did you approach music and percussion in particular?

I was born in Zambia and grew up with African music. I literally heard drums while still in the womb! Music there is a natural part of everyday life - any occasion will do, like making up a song while waiting for a bus. The rhythm is sharp and interlocking, the singing is always harmonised, a great sense of community, and just about all music is to be danced to. I was ten years old when the family moved to

England. There I saw television for the first time, with the Beatles, the Kinks, the Rolling Stones, and I wanted to be the drummer. A couple of years later it was the Jimi Hendrix Experience that took it all further: they were sweating, and totally swallowed up by their music, very exorcistic - I found that very African.

What were your first steps into the world of music?

I remember aged seven, when we lived in the town of Livingstone, on Saturday afternoons joining in African music sessions, after they taught me the basic rhythm patterns. That has stuck with me - playing rhythm together is a very serious thing, it's a law! Every note has to be in the groove, otherwise it will all fall down, and played in a way that makes you want to move. I bought my first drumset aged thirteen, by now we lived in the Netherlands, I copied records and played in a rock-blues band with some school friends. Then came latin music (Afro-Cuban and Brazilian rhythms), and jazz. I also listened to music from Tibet, Messiaen, gamelan, funk, Africa. When I was twenty, I turned professional, playing mostly modern jazz for 10 years before my African roots took hold and I started my own group Sharp Wood, with a concept based on melodic drumming and with a ritualistic character, tagged 'Voodoo-Jazz' by a German journalist. My first steps? I had never forgotten my African roots - I see myself as an African musician, with one foot in Europe.

Can you tell us about your field research in Africa between Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Lesotho?

Well, I am not an academic, I do not see myself as an ethnomusicologist, so I have difficulty with the term 'field research': I am a musician, who also makes field recordings. In 1994 I happened to meet Andrew Tracey, son of the famous field recordist Hugh Tracey. Cassettes of copies of cassette copies of Hugh Tracey's African recordings circled amongst the in-crowd of jazz musicians in both London and Paris in the 70s - this was the real thing, you could hear this was the authentic old music! So, in 1996 I walked into the archive of Hugh Tracey, housed in a South African university, and discovered that the coating of the original reel-to-reel tapes was in bad shape: every time you played a tape there was a little pile of red dust next to the magnetic head. This was the musical memory of a sub-continent and it needed to be saved! It

seemed that fate had thrown this onto my path, and it resulted in my 21-cd series 'Historical Recordings by Hugh Tracey', which I released on my own label SWP Records. The release in 1998 of the first 4 albums of that series caused the Smithsonian Institute in Washington USA to step in with a million dollars to have the whole archive digitised. Inspired by Tracey's lifework, if I know about some beautiful music that either nobody knows about or cares about, then I want to share it with you - even if that means going out and recording it myself. I spend a lot of time, trouble, and love to get as good a sound as possible too - after all, I am a little bit audiophile myself! And I then present it, accompanied by relevant information which must also be accurate. It has to be accurate - out of respect for the musicians and the culture! So yes, well-researched. Zambia is my home, and it is full of great music, I recorded the Batonga people who also live on the Zimbabwean side of Lake Kariba, and I went to Lesotho to look for the amazing lesiba mouthbow. My field recordings are on the cds SWP 005, 019, 033, 036, 039, 041, 053 (a 4-cd album comprising 054, 055, 056, 057), 058 (also a 4-cd album comprising 059, 060, 061, 062), 066, and the lps SWP 050, 063. I wanted to record in the east of DRCongo, but it is ever ravaged by war and too dangerous, and in 2016 I wanted to record in the Tete district of Mozambique, but I was not allowed in, because fighting had flared up again between the old factions of Renamo and Frelimo. There is beautiful music in Cameroon that I want to record, also in Gabon, and Morocco. But recording fieldtrips cost a lot of money.

What were the most important moments of your field research activities?

What is important in life, I don't know.......yes, music that moves me is important! Music that comforts the human condition is important, music that inspires, music that heals. And I have been lucky to have found and recorded some wonderful musicians who were such strong spirits - such as kankobela players Timothy Mudimba (track 6 on SWP 039 and track B4 on SWP 050), Aaron Nchenje (tracks 1, 2, on SWP 036, track 16 on SWP 039, and B1 on SWP 050), Andrew George Munyumbwe (tracks 6, 14, 15 on SWP 036, and B2 on SWP 050). Pure magic! Same with lesiba players Moshesha Hlomelang (tracks 1, 2, 3, 18, 19 on SWP 033), Sello Mothibeli (tracks 22, 23, 24 on SWP 033), tracks guardians of the tradition,

assisted by the ancestors. And the exceptional guitarist Victor Libala (tracks 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, 14, 15 on SWP 060, and tracks B2, B3 on SWP 063). Also, many community moments, such as whole villages performing siyemboka music on SWP 059, all generations of Leya women singing together at the annual rite of passage ceremony of girls into womanhood (track 2 on SWP 057, tracks 7 & 8 on SWP 019). So many good moments...

What memories do you have of your field recordings?

When I had finished my Hugh Tracey cd series in 2008 - cost me 8 eight years of my life to listen through the whole archive - the sad conclusion was that so much of the music he had recorded had disappeared, within only fifty years! Urbanisation had taken its toll, as well as globalisation. I am not a purist, I am a musician living in the 'now', but globalisation is destructive to local culture. We are heading towards a monoculture, and that is a sad place to be: humankind needs cultural diversity! Having a 'certain affiliation' with African music, I felt a need to find out what music was being played in rural areas - how much tradition was still being played, and if not, replaced by what? And so, I went out and about, looking for the best musicians, sometimes following my own knowledge, sometimes following tips. You make some wonderful discoveries and sometimes you experience disappointments. Malaria, crocodiles, witchcraft, paranoid policemen in Zimbabwe, I can cope with, after all I was born in Africa, but when I find good music and manage to make a good recording of it, I feel like I'm a lucky guy - you know, fortunato... I am sorry to say that there have also been a couple of bad memories, such as recently having to take a DJ/artist from the 'dance scene' to court - because he used samples from a recording of mine on one of his tasteless tracks, without first asking my permission. Not only did he just help himself, thereby stealing from me, but more importantly, he stole from the musician in Zambia whom I had recorded. There have been other cases of copyright piracy that I have had to deal with - one in London, one in Berlin, one in Los Angeles - and after threatening them with legal action, they all apologised and paid my very reasonable licensing deal immediately. I think it is important that your readers know that there is a lot of theft going on, specifically of ethnic music. I get the impression these guys think they can just get away with it, as they think those poor bastards out in the

jungle have no idea what's going on anyway. The court case eventually was successful,

Can you tell us about your field recording techniques?

I record with a Sanken CSS-2 stereo microphone and a Sound Devices 633 portable harddisc recorder - prior to that a Sony Professional DAT-recorder. I use a hand-held microphone technique, something Hugh Tracey always did. Sure, my mike is suspended in a gun that I hold, but the advantage is you can move in and out and up and down, in relation to the source of the music - so you can adjust while recording, a kind of instant mixing. It is easier than trying to control the musicians and playing the 'hotshot producer': you stand over there, you slightly back, and you play a little softer please, etc. That doesn't work for me, because it kills the sponaneity and the authenticity of the recorded moment. So yes, I record stereo, no multi-tracking, also easier to travel about and I don't need an assistant. But there have been many times when I have had to silently switch hands during a recording - before cramp set in! There have been occasions when I made a musical suggestion that turned out really well: examples are track 11 on SWP 054, when I suggested they sing a song without drums, a cappella, because I had heard them softly rehearsing the song beforehand without drums, to get the voicings right and it was so beautiful, track 1 on SWP 041, also a cappella for exactly the same reason, and with track 3 on SWP 041 I asked if they could also play a piece with two guys playing the xylophone instead of just one, and it turned out just great! A good recording comprises 1. an excellent performance, without any self-censorship or shyness, 2. by the best musicians, 3. in a place with the right sound reflections for the genre of music at hand, 4. no background noise ruining the recording, and 5. without any technical hitches with your equipment. To achieve that, to begin with, you must respect the musicians. I am recording my fellow musicians - my colleagues - and I am interested in the music they play. I strike up a rapport with them beforehand so that the recording situation will be relaxed. That includes settling the payment. I have paid everyone I have recorded, for the simple reason that if someone were to turn up at my door in Holland saying he wants to record me, I would ask "what's it for?" and "how much does it pay?". I can't arrive in a village, or anywhere else for that matter, record for free and then leave - that would make me a cultural imperialist! About background noise, God knows I have had problems - some very comical - with chickens, children, goats, drunks, mopeds. All part of the adventure. But some background noise is wonderful, like when there are many participants joyously dancing about, so I include the mayhem because it is authentic: when you listen to those recordings, you are there!

In 1987 you founded your label SWP Records. How did the idea of trying your hand at recording come about?

I am a musician who completely by accident has an own label. As a young drummer at my very first studio recording date in 1975 for a modern jazz lp, I felt my recorded drum sound was completely scheiße and thus actively got into recording techniques. This did not make me popular with most studio sound engineers! Then in 1986 for my first own group, the percussion trio Sharp Wood, I produced an album’s worth of recordings and existing record labels were hesitant when I approached them. For example, Manfred Eicher of ECM Records said phone me back in 10 months time, as he had a bunch of new productions already waiting on the shelf. Being highly pregnant, I couldn't hang about waiting for someone else to finally make a decision, so I released it independently and we sold the lp SWP 001 ‘Percussion’ at our concerts. And I decided to also release the second Sharp Wood album myself. By the way, the cd SWP 052 'The Sharp Wood Years' is a compilation of the three Sharp Wood albums - all tracks wonderfully remastered, as audio technology has moved on since they were recorded. SWP Records is a one-man operation. It's a lot of work - but at least I don't have some halfwit producer leaning over my shoulder all of the time saying "Michael, if we change some things, we'll make more money...". But what is killing small independent labels is the culture of Spotify, Deezer, and other streaming platforms. We are living in a digital culture that has been created to make life as easy as possible for the consumer, but us producers are getting peanuts. You have no say in the prices that they offer your music for, it's a kind of digital slavery, and you are told you have to play the game. So, in February 2020 I opted out of all digital platforms, including AppleMusic (previously iTunes), because you have no say in what you earn from the downloads either. The entire SWP Records catalogue can now be found online exclusively on Bandcamp, a platform for independent artists and labels, where we set the prices ourselves and Bandcamp takes a very reasonable commission of 15% for providing the platform. My prices are low and fair: for downloads and physical cds and lps go to swp-records.bandcamp.com, and for physical cds and lps to www.swp-records.com where you can even save some money with a special deal.

With SWP Records, you released the Zambian popular music series, a series of wonderful compilations spanning from the 1960s to the 1980s. What wonders have you unearthed?

Zambia lies geographically in between Congo to the north and Zimbabwe to the south, but also musicologically. When you look at it like that, it has to be interesting! Zambian independence was in 1964 and The Big Gold Six, a sextet named after a cigarette brand, pioneered the musical transition from the colonial era to an own style of popular music in the 60s, stars in the 70s were Nashil Pitchen Kazembe and Emmanuel Mulemena. All of them with lovely vocals, happy guitars and rhythms. But in the 80s a traditional rural kalindula song from Luapula Province became a massive hit: it was played with electric guitars and drumset and it was the first time this had been done. The 'kalindula era' had started, with many traditional songs translated onto the modern instruments - this was a golden age of Zambian popular music, a truly homegrown sound! Halfway through the 90s it was ousted in popularity by imported rumba from Zaire, but kalindula never went away. One of the big stars in the new millenium was Brian Chilala, known as 'The Rebel', his satirical lyrics addressing both moral and political issues, and backed by the Ngoma Zasu band - powerful dance music, continuing in the kalindula pop tradition, on the compilation cd SWP 047. I remastered the tracks from between 2004 and 2008 with great care and expertise. Brian and I became good friends. He died in a car accident in 2019. We miss him greatly.

How did the ‘Forgotten Jazz’ series come about?

It is not a series, it's just music that I think deserves to be heard, and it was forgotten. So, again, I want to share it with you... If another label had released this music, that's fine - then I could buy the cd, saving me a lot of trouble. But if that music is not available and I strongly feel it should be, and I can find good audio sources from which to remaster, then I'll do it - if I also have the financial means. Yes, the 3 albums you are talking about happen to be jazzy, but one could say SWP 070 'Dom Tower Bells' is also an album of forgotten music...

Can you tell us about your artistic collaboration with Pino Basile with whom you released the splendid ‘Ferrari Safari’?

A friend sent me a Youtube video of Pino playing cupaphon. I immediately wanted to play with this guy - just like me, he too was playing drums melodically. And it so happened that shortly afterwards he was playing in Utrecht where I live! We met, and the vibe was good. The next time he was in Holland we went to my music practice place, played together and I made a recording. That recording caused me to think that we should deepen this musical meeting more. And that is what we did: the next time Pino was in Holland to perform with the AVA Trio, he organised his schedule so that he had two consecutive days free - as a percussion duo we worked on ideas, and then recorded several takes of them, again just in my practice room but now with three microphones instead of one. We both felt that the quality of the music was so good, that I set about mixing these 'field recordings' made inside. The results can be heard on the cd SWP 064 'Ferrari Safari' and also on the lp SWP 064 'Ferrari Safari'. Tracks such as 'Allatatto Al Seno', 'Desert Dessert', and 'Karimba & Kankobela' are an adventurous mix of tradition and modernity - the kind of 'african abstractions' I am looking for.

Let's come to your most recent albums. I found ‘Resonance Vibration Frequencies’ very fascinating. How did this album come about?

Well-being a drummer/percussionist, aside from wood and skins of course, I also love metal. When you strike metal, it has the longest vibrations, much longer than wood or skins. In 2018 I chanced upon a champagne cooler in someone's dusty box-room, you know, a largish aluminium bowl in which you can put several bottles on ice, and I tapped it softly with my knuckle - booom! Wow! So I borrowed it and recorded the sound at very close quarters to capture every vibration - and the seed for the project 'Resonance Vibration Frequencies’ was sown. Sound is vibrations, music is all about vibrations, in fact that is all music is: soundwaves travelling through the air, caused by vibrations.

Can you tell us about the research you did for this album?

In 2002 I recorded the cd SWP 018 'Gongs And Bells'. Central in that project were the vibrations of the instruments and I discovered that when you play one after the other, the vibrations will meet up, influence each other and become one. Like throwing pebble into a pond, followed by another - the ripples in the water will eventually unify. They 'sync up', sometimes in ways that are mysterious. Science calls this 'the phenomenon of spontaneous self-organisation’. In 2022 I listened to my 2018 recording of the champagne-cooler again and was inspired. I soon borrowed a metal vase with a nice sound, another friend had a metal wine cooler, and at home I had a aluminium cooking pan lid with a warm sound. I now had a family of four lucid sounds of different frequencies. All I then had to do was select and try out metal instruments which complimented those sounds. And let my creativity take me to new places.....

How did you work on the recordings of ‘Resonance Vibration Frequencies’?

My Sanken microphone and I are the best of friends - it is so accurate, it doesn't lie, it always tells the truth. Because it is a directional microphone, it only records what is in front of it and nothing gets in via the side or from behind, so you get great clarity. In contrast to my field recordings, when I move in with the hand-held microphone towards the source of the music, with this project the microphone was stationary on a stand and I moved towards it with each instrument, getting in extremely close to capture every vibration and every overtone. So I 'played' the microphone, going in close and moving away, also moving the instrument up and down and from side to side thereby optimising the stereo picture - there are no electronic effects used on this album. Track 2 is the champagne cooler and a synthesizer sound, but otherwise everything you hear on this album is natural. And all recorded in my living room, which has enough sound reflections for everything to sound alive. Of course I had to have complete silence - so no heating on, no ventilation, no fridge, no computer, no neighbour moving about, no police helicopter overhead, and also very often having to hold my breath because the microphone is so sensitive. As a consequence I recorded mostly at night. I combined the sounds, and performed the layers. The compositions are built on silence. Together they form a suite which tells a story which invites introspection. 'Worldmusic' aspects on this disc are that we hear lamellophones from Africa in a brand new way and, equally, gongs and bells from Asia in a contemporary way. As far as I know, combining gongs with thumb-pianos has never been done before: Africa meets Asia soundwise! And I really wanted to avoid creating yet another boring pretentious 'meditation' or 'new age' nonsense album. Having recorded in 96Hz/24bit and after mixing, I wanted to present the wonderful clarity of those files, as well as the

reduced cd quality of 44.1Hz/16bit, so SWP 069 is a SACD with both qualities on it - plus a third partition of 5.1 surround sound. Yes it is a luxuary product! With a beautiful booklet full of profound photos and useless thoughts! Just to clarify, the recording business calls this a 'SACD' but it is in fact a dvd, and it can be played on any cd-player and every dvd-player.

‘Dom Tower Bells Utrecht’ collects the recordings of the fourteen bells of the Dom Tower in Utrecht. Can you tell us about this record?

I have lived in the old centre of Utrecht since 1975. The 14 bells of the Duomo are amongst the best in all of Europe. They are only all rung together twice a year - on January 1st and in August to open the Festival of Old Music. By the Utrecht Bell-Ringers Guild. Especially in August that celestial sound shakes the whole citta, your whole body trembles with joy, your mind is filled with forgiveness! For years I wondered how to record this beautiful music. Hire 4 cranes and 20 microphones? The bells are at a height of over 60 meters above the ground and sound comes out of all 4 sides of the tower - so how the hell can you possibly make a recording that does justice to this magnificent sound?! I thought about it for many years.....being in different locations in relation to the bells in the tower, moving about.....listening.

What particular techniques did you use to record the bells?

No technique at all! My technology are my ears and I know my microphone well. After years of experience recording in all kinds of improvised situations in the African bush, I have learned that it's about the sound reflections: music takes place in a space, and what we hear are the vibrations in that space. For these bells I have stood listening on top of a multi-story carpark roof in the centre of town, I have stood right underneath the tower, I have stood around the corner, I have stood in the cloister garden next to the cathedral, and eventually the best spot I found was in the south corner of the Dom Square, about 200 meters from the tower, in front of the stately buildings of the university where you get reflections from two sides, as well as the sound coming down from above. Funnily enough, the finesse in any recording comes down to micro-acoustics. And no wind on the day, plus politely signalling to the people close to where I was with my microphone, to please be as quiet as possible. The square filled up with hundreds of people anyway as the recital progressed - I knew that was inevitable - but in a way it is the right kind of

'background noise', you are there! After mixing, I took the file to a top sound-designer in the Dutch film world to master, and he managed to place each bell in the stereo picture such that every one is clearly audible. I am pleased with the result - no one had ever attempted to record those bells properly before.

‘Danceables’ is an anthology album that brings together a selection of tracks from your records from 1987 to 2022. How important was it to realise this discographic retrospective of your career?

Ah well, looking back is highly suspect, isn't it?! We should all be looking forward! Actually, after releasing SWP 067 'Thumbs on the Outside' in 2022, a friend said to me "you should put together your most danceable tracks and release them as an album". So I thought about it, made a selection of 'the most danceable tracks' and indeed, I was confronted by a body of work from over the years that is original and highly danceable: my rhythms and beats, some voodoo, some ambient, some trance, whatever you want to call them - I was already an 'afro-futurist' before the term was invented! So okay, let's remaster these tracks and see how good we can get them to sound. And it is important to dance, it clears the mind.....

What are your favourite albums?

I still like 'Are You Experienced' by Jimi Hendrix, 'Natty Dread' by Bob Marley, 'Horowitz Plays Scriabin', 'Footloose' by Paul Bley, quite recent is 'Land Is Talking' by Dewa Alit - there is so much good music. But in all humility, many albums on SWP Records are also my favourites: SWP 043 'African Gems' is a knockout, all of my Hugh Tracey albums, SWP 066 'Mutanuka And Syasiya', SWP 058 'Music from Barotseland', SWP 033 'Lesotho Calling' is special, the lps SWP 044 'Congo Guitars, SWP 045 'Congo Traditional', SWP 051 'Malawi Grooves', SWP 063 'Zam Groove', and the 'Kankobela of the Batonga' cds SWP 036 & 039 and lp 050.

What projects are you currently working on?

I am currently mixing the recordings made last September of a quintet I put together with Michael Moore, Hans Hasebos, Jon Birdsong, and Henk Raven, playing contemporary jazz. The album title is 'No Dogmas Allowed', which I think describes the music well. And at the end of March into the studio to record my new Trio CBD, with French electric guitarists Rémy Charmasson and Philippe Deschepper. Possible album title 'No More Pain' - but we first have to record the music! I also have a second album ready with more forgotten highlights of drummer Phil Seamen, and there is a project on the horizon with Othnell Mangoma Moyo from Zimbabwe. Every day I work at improving how I hold my drumsticks. And I have two small granddaughters - both of them major projects!