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Manu Katche
Manu Katché is often called a forgotten drumming
hero. He has not appeared many times on the cover of magazines like
Modern Drummer and not even in brochures of the companies he endorses.
In spite of 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.
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.
http://www.manu-katche.com/home.htm
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