‘You wouldn’t think there’s a lot to a drum, but there is,“ said Peter Musser. Peter Musser knows he isn’t always the easiest person to get in touch with. “I am an old guy, and it takes a long time to ...

Don’t tell anybody, but many practitioners of Santeria, the West African religion, purchase their batas (Nigerian two-headed drums) from a Jewish artisan in Crown Heights. “It’s almost sacrilegious to ...

Marcos Odara has been playing the conga drums for 39 years and teaching for the last 20. Odara hails from Salvador da Bahia, Brazil and now calls Oakland home. The drum master teaches Brazilian ...

FLANKED BY HIS beloved conga drums, Ray Barretto was fondly recalled yesterday as a giant of Latin music who fused the worlds of jazz and salsa. “Ray was good, always – good as a person and good as a ...

In 1917, Ramon Santamaria Rodriquez was born into poverty in Havana, Cuba. Nicknamed “Mongo” (a tribal chief in Senegal), he began playing the conga drum at an early age and as a teen, Mongo ...