GRATEFUL DEAD DRUMMER MICKEY HART GOES GLOBAL AGAIN

Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart has just released the Global Drum Project and he’s currently bringing it on the road to a town near you.

Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart is currently out on tour in support of his Global Drum Project, which was released earlier this month. The CD features the collaboration with some of the best drummers in the world including Zakir Hussain from India, which he won a Grammy with for their last effort, Drum Planet.

Hart talked about the interplay between himself and Hussain over the years.

“Well, Zakir is a man of order. I’m a man of chaos. I can take his order, and he can take my chaos and we meet together and we enjoy each other personally and musically. He says I teach him a lot. It’s hard to imagine, but I know he teaches me a lot as well. So somehow the chemistry between us is very powerful medicine. I’ve known him since he was a kid, 17, before he could even speak the language. But, we’re bonded. His father was my teacher, so that was the beginning of our relationship. And of course now he’s the maestro of maestros. He’s the greatest living rhythmist on the planet.”

Hart also sees both differences and similarities between this project and his involvement with the Grateful Dead.

“Well when you play with players like this, that are so skilled, every night is a wonder. You come off the stage, ‘Wow. I really learned something.’ It was like that when we started the Grateful Dead at the end of the ’60s. Every night we learned something. So, when things are new and they’re played at this kind of a skill level, it’s nothing short of miraculous when you get off the stage. It’s never the same twice — kind of like the Grateful Dead. This is improvisational in its own way.”

The Global Drum Project toured through October 27. Following this, he’ll be making a series of recordings from the show available this winter on Shout Factory records.