Manu Katché is often called
Manu Katchè certainly
a forgotten drumming hero.
qualifies as a great drummer.
He has not appeared many
He has played with many
times on the cover of
great artists such as Peter
magazines like Modern
Gabriel, Joni Mitchell, Sting,
Drummer and not even in
Robbie Robertson and
brochures of the companies
Youssou N'Dour, to name a
he endorses. In spite of
few.
that, Manu is very popular
amongst a wide range of
American, European and
African artists who
recognize his main talent:
blending a worldwide
variety of musical styles into
the regular drumset with
great musicality, style and
passion.
His Style
Manu Katché can be considered as one of today’s leading drummers.
Contrary to other drummer’s drummers like Dave Weckl, Vinnie
Colaiuta or Dennis Chambers he is not a virtuous drummer on first
hearing. However, in his ability to lay down a basic groove and
ornament it with short tom or cymbal strokes in a most peculiar,
surprising, but very musical manner, he is practically inimitable and
virtuous in his own way. This ‘ornamented groove’ is most typical of
Manu Katché and it is what makes him recognizable on every album
he plays on. I remember, for example, standing in a Florentine shoe
shop and hearing an Italian record with those typical Katché drums.
I
asked the woman behind the counter what CD they were playing and
it turned out to be the latest CD from Pino Daniele. I bought the CD a
few days later and indeed....it was him playing the drums on the first
five tracks. The fact that Manu Katché is a drummer whose style
you
can recognize makes him quite special. Unlike, for example, guitar
players, drummers cannot easily manipulate their instrument, and they
have to ‘keep the groove going’ all the time, so they have just a limited
amount of musical freedom. Some drummers can be recognized by
their sounds (Phil Collins, Jim Keltner), some by their infinitely
returning fills (again Phil Collins) others by their capability to play
seemingly impossible drum parts (Vinnie Colaiuta), but Manu Katché
is above all recognizable by his style. Contrary to drummers like Dave
Weckl or Steve Gadd and ‘thanks’ to the fact that he is not a typical
virtuous drummer Katché hasn’t got a lot of conservatory-, music
school-clones. It would be quite senseless to try to imitate him,
because his style is mainly based on musicality and his vision on
drumming as a sort of landscape- painting. Sounds are for Katché
like colors. He uses his drumsticks as brushes and his drumkit like a
palette. Like in real painting, tiny touches of color in bigger,
colour-contrasting planes make the difference. For that reason he
uses small cymbals (splashes) to add color to his playing. Stewart
Copeland, another drummer who is very recognizable by his style,
used to do the same, but his drumkit during the last Police tour looked
more like a whole percussion department of a symphony orchestra.
There is nothing wrong with that, but for a more introvert drummer like
Manu Katché three, four splashes are more than enough. Painters
also use only a small amount of basic colors.
His Kit:
Katché links:
unofficial Homepage (very good):
http://www.xs4all.nl/~jaschong/
Transkriptons
http://www.nwlink.com/~ulys/transcrip.htm