BA Podcast #85: Cindy Blackman Santana!

With bonus content from Carlos Santana...

The 2024 “season” of the Burning Ambulance podcast continues…

Our first episode of the year featured a conversation with pianist Ethan Iverson, the second was an encounter with bassist Rufus Reid, the third featured modular synth composer Arushi Jain, the fourth offered an interview with saxophonist Kenny Garrett, the fifth was a talk with percussionist, producer, and all-around L.A. scene guy Carlos Niño, and the sixth was an interview with pianist, composer, and singer Amina Claudine Myers. The latest episode features drummer Cindy Blackman Santana. Click to listen.

Cindy Blackman Santana is originally from Ohio, came to the East Coast to study at Berklee and at the Hartt School of Music, moved to New York in the late ’80s and has played and recorded with a ton of people across the spectrum of jazz and rock ever since. She’s made a slew of albums under her own name, including some featuring saxophonist and longtime friend of Burning Ambulance JD Allen; she toured off and on with Pharoah Sanders; she was the drummer for Spectrum Road, a tribute to Tony Williams Lifetime that featured guitarist Vernon Reid, who’s also been on this podcast, keyboardist John Medeski and bassist Jack Bruce. And she’s probably best known to a lot of people for being Lenny Kravitz’s touring drummer for many, many years, but what some people may not know is that she did not play drums on his records — he plays drums on his records. So part of our interview gets into the question of how you make music your own when you’re playing someone else’s parts.

We also talk about her time working with Pharoah Sanders, and recording with Joe Henderson; we talk about her admiration for Tony Williams, and she gives her analysis of the changes in his style over the course of his career and how those manifested in the changes to his kit; we talk about how to lock in with a bassist, the difference in mindset between playing jazz and rock, and much more. This was a really interesting conversation. Unfortunately, it was cut short.

Around 45 minutes in, my internet cut out and took our Zoom call with it. So you’ll hear a sudden fade right as we start talking about the 2018 Santana album Africa Speaks, on which she plays. So what I’ve done is gone back into my archives and pulled up an interview I did with Carlos Santana when that record came out, in which we talked about it, and also about her contributions to the band’s music and his feelings about playing with her. I think it’s a valuable addendum to this conversation, and I hope you enjoy the whole episode. (Here’s the link again.) Thanks as always for listening.

Here’s an excerpt from our conversation, where she talks about Tony Williams:

Now you’ve talked, you know, here and elsewhere about being inspired by Tony Williams and you’ve recorded tributes to him in the past. And so I’m curious about your thoughts on his playing, because — particularly the way his style changed from the ’60s to the ’70s and after, because just purely as a listener, to me, what he was doing with Miles and what he was doing on his own Blue Note records and stuff, is like an entirely different person compared to what he did with Lifetime and even with VSOP when he went back to the acoustic jazz stuff in the ’70s. But he went back in this big, explosive arena rock kind of way. So as one drummer to another, like sort of talk me through all that stuff and what you think about that.

I think Tony Williams is the most incredible individual to ever pick up a pair of sticks on this planet. He innovated in so many different ways. Every era that he played, he innovated — and more than one time. He innovated on every part of the drum set. On the ride cymbal, the bass drum playing, the sock cymbal playing, the snare drum comping. You know, the playing around the kit, the solos. He innovated in every single way. And what you’re hearing as Tony went through the different likes and growth in his brain in terms of stretching out and playing other stuff, I believe, is an amalgamation of all the things that he liked. Because you can hear his drum influences. You can hear Philly Joe. You can hear Blakey, you can hear Max, you can hear Elvin, you can hear Louis Hayes, you can hear all these things. And other drummers, too, you know, you can hear these things in his playing in different ways and in different aspects from the avant-garde playing that he did initially before he got with Miles, to the playing with Miles. And you can hear all the growth in that six-year span. You can hear when he played with Stan Getz after Miles, you can hear what he did in that band, and that encompassed all the things that he did before that. And then with Lifetime, that following year when he started Lifetime, you can hear everything that he did before that in Lifetime. And then when he got his New Lifetime band and he was playing is — because the original band was John McLaughlin, Larry Young and himself. Just trio. The first record, Emergency. Second record, Turn It Over, they added Jack Bruce. And then after that he got his next versions of Lifetime. You know, the very next version after that was with Allan Holdsworth, Tony Newton, and Alan Pasqua. And when you hear those versions, you’re hearing, again, everything that he played in the past, plus where he was at with the new music that he was playing, the new sound that he was playing, because now he’s playing a big drum kit. You know, initially, before that, he was playing a smaller kit, which was 18” bass drum, 8” x 12” mounted tom, 14” x 14” floor tom, ride cymbal, 22” ride, 18” crash and 14” sock cymbals, you know. And then when he got with, when he started the New Lifetime, which the first record was called Believe It, you’re hearing the big bass drum — you’re hearing a 24” bass drum with a 9” x 13” inch mounted tom. Sometimes he played an 8” x 12”, but basically it was a 9” x 13” mounted tom, a 10” x 14” mounted tom, 14” x 14” floor tom, 16” x 14” floor tom and 16” x 18” floor tom. And then he had a 22” ride. He had an 18” crash. He had 15” sock cymbals; 14 or — he later switched to 15, but he had 14s and then 15” sock cymbals, 16” crash. And on the right side he had a 20” crash ride. So you’re now hearing a bigger and more broad sound, which, you know, he wanted because he wanted a bigger sound. He wanted feedback from the drums. And, you know, as the music got louder and heavier, you get less feedback from a small bass drum, even though it sounds really sweet and it’s beautiful, but you’re getting less feedback. He wanted more feedback. He wanted a bigger sound. So he went to a bigger kit. So to me, every evolution of Tony that you’re hearing, you’re hearing every aspect of Tony that came before him, you’re hearing all of his influences, plus whatever he’s thinking about now, which is one of the most amazing things about Tony Williams that you don't hear in anybody else, you know, except maybe Miles Davis, you know, or Wayne Shorter, people of that ilk. But that’s why — those are many of the reasons why Tony Williams is my absolute hero and why I say that he’s the most incredible individual to pick up a pair of sticks since drumsticks were invented.

That’s it for now. See you next week!