Garbanzo

I seem to have an abhorrence for the ubiquitous trend of self promotion, but, now that I have a website, I feel obliged to give it a go…  

I like to keep myself surprised by life, and over the years I have been an anthropologist, clown/fool/street performer (named Garbanzo), mask-maker, theatre director, writer, house-builder, sculptor, environmentalist, and photographer. For many years now I have been focussing my creativity on music.  

So whence did this love of music arise? I grew up in the UK. My parents were wonderful, but did not quite intuit my childhood musical needs. They always told me to “stop tapping” rather than getting me a drum. When I wanted a saxophone they bought me a plastic toy saxophone instead. I did take some piano lessons, but these were in a dark basement. I was supposed to practice while my friends were outside playing in the sunshine. At the village elementary school I was press-ganged into the church choir (and the uniform) by the two teachers (who happened to be church choir-mistress and church organist).  I was only free of them at the age of eleven when I started at the Grammar School.

At about that same time my sister and I were given a stack of 78rpm vinyl discs – mostly Fats Domino. At last some music that I could relate to! I soon became part of British youth’s obsession with the blues, jazz, and black music in general. In spite of this I never picked up any instrument.

Years later I became an anthropologist and when I was twenty-one I lived for a year in North-East Brazil, studying candomblé and other African-influenced spirit possession cults. Sacred drumming was an integral part of these. Sometimes every night for hours, for weeks at a time, I would be immersed in these polyrhythms.  Gradually they must have permeated my consciousness.  Returning to London, I bought my first set of bongos, and played in the Notting Hill Carnival until my hands bled (as I had yet to learn how to hit the drums correctly).

I finally quit anthropology while writing the concluding chapter of my doctorate. I had come to see it as an intrinsic part of the colonial enterprise. I then moved to Vancouver and became a clown/fool/trickster/street performer, and learned the accordion. I also heard the bamboo flute for the first time. It was a beautiful haunting sound which I followed through a building until I came to the source – it was a shakuhachi being played by master Takeo Yamashiro. After that I became obsessed with all kinds of bamboo flutes, finally favouring, and studying, the bansuri of North India.

So that, dear readers, if you are still there, is what has led me to the instruments that I play today: bansuri, congas, bongos, and keys. As for why I create the type of music that I do, well that’s a related but different story…

– Garbanzo

music for living
music for dreaming