Grateful Dead

If your cable or satellite TV system carries the Documentary Channel, be sure to tune in on Saturday August 6 at 9 p.m. for an episode of the Bravo! Canada series Innovators in Music that is devoted entirely to Mickey Hart.

A couple of years ago, producer/director Daniel K. Berman brought a camera crew out to Mickey’s beautiful Sonoma County spread and spent a day capturing Mickey in his element: playing music in his percussion-filled studio/rehearsal space with fellow Global Drum Project brothers Zakir Hussain and Sikiru Adepoju; creating a eye-popping painting in his art studio; talking about his collection of miniature bonsai trees and the “found” redwood trunks he uses as percussion instruments; and talking about the “vibratory world” and his work creating music from electromagnetic waves emitted from different parts of the universe. As he tells Berman, “I love the noise in things.”

There’s no narration, no historical context. Instead it’s like we’ve suddenly been allowed to tag along for a day and watch Mickey do his thing. The music is sublime, as Mickey and his mates navigate through a sea of instruments, from African balafon to The Beam to talking drum to tabla to various electronic pads. And, as always, Mickey is extremely articulate in discussing how he creates his music and why the sounds of the cosmos have inspired him. What he is doing with his music (and his painting), he says in the show, is “expressing the unknown in a form you can share with someone.”

All in all, it’s a fascinating and compelling glimpse of Mickey’s magical world which should not be missed. Hopefully, one of these days, this and other episodes of the fine Innovators in Music series (including shows on Steve Earle, Levon Helm, Sonic Youth and others) will be released on DVD, but for now the only place to catch it is on TV. Highly recommended!

—Blair Jackson

Mickey in his art studio from the Innovators in Music program.