As it rolls from hall to hall, this party seems oddly like Mr. Reich's "Drumming," which begins with a set of bongos and moves first to marimbas, then to glockenspiels, before using all three.
On the couch nearby, Chris, a sleepy-eyed man with a Nordic complexion and a blond buzz cut, plays a set of bongos, stopping every so often to clap appreciatively as the young girl flits and spins.
Eddie Jackson, 64, known as the "musical mayor of Staten Island," whipped his fingers along a set of bongos, and John Dunne, a k a J. D., 59, who has been playing the drums since he was 11, effortlessly tapped out a clever rhythm.
"One time," he recalled of Mr. Marley, "Bob came in around 2 in the morning and told me, 'Go wake Scratch.' Then he sat on a stool with his guitar and started singing this new song: 'There's a natural mystic blowing through the air....'... " Mr. Burnett, still half asleep, patted out the rhythm on a set of bongos.
Ah, the painting: a large acrylic of a dark-skinned man -- I've always imagined him to be Haitian or Jamaican -- knees apart, palms calloused, eyes closed in percussive bliss, drumming on a set of bongos that seem to glow internally, the painting's sole source of light.
When they had everything properly arranged and lit Aran picked up an acoustic guitar, Kelly picked up a flute, Fred Thomas (who plays in Saturday Looks Good to Me, which Kelly used to sing for) picked up a set of bongos and a djembe, and the thirty or so representatives of Ann Arbors sizable indie rocker, weirdo artsy crust punk, and hardcore witchcraft scenes sat in a semicircle around them. .
When I was a kid, all I wanted was a set of bongo drums.
Each transformation mask uses a different instrument: Deku Link plays a multi-horn instrument called the "Deku Pipes", Goron Link plays a set of bongo drums tied around his waist, and Zora Link plays a guitar made from a large fish skeleton.
Mr. Reich was a presiding spirit for the concert, which began with So Percussion performing Part 1 of Mr. Reich's "Drumming," with two pairs of deadpan musicians facing each other over sets of bongo drums, tapping out evolving, polyrhythmic patterns.
More information is at www.us.playstation.com/games.; RHYTHM MACHINE -- If wrapping a video game controller in a death grip is not your idea of fun, Nintendo (www.nintendo.com) offers a different path to play one of its newest games: a set of plastic bongos.
And the lead role will be played by Jim Carrey, who is such a fan of Kaufman's that he owns a set of his bongo drums and was willing to audition for the part.
