No one on the planet can rub hands together like Keith Terry can. No one else can maneuver their palms and produce a syncopated sound that resembles a jazz brush hitting a drum. You have to see it to believe it. And when you do, you’ll be converted to Keith Terry’s musical universe, where — he insists — virtually anyone can do what he does. It’s simple, he says, and it’s all free. No expensive instruments are required. Just an ability to get into “body music” — the art form that uses hand-rubbing, hand-slapping, foot-tapping, voice-warbling and anything else that makes a sound from the body that people are born with.
Terry, who is based in Oakland, says body music predates every musical form there is, which is why people respond to it so quickly. “It’s in our genetic memory,” Terry says. “Body music is the first music, and I think people somehow tap into that.”
Terry shows off his moves today at theInternational Body Music Festival “Mini-Fest” that also features the Mexican-American music and dance group Los Cenzontles (which is based in San Pablo); the San Diego-based group Cerro Negro, which does flamenco dance and music; Danny “Slapjazz” Barber, a San Diego artist who practices traditional Hambone or “patting Juba,” which first developed among African slaves in the American south who had no access to instruments and relied on body percussion; Bay Area belly-dancer Elizabeth Strong, who has an international reputation for a repertoire that incorporates styles from Egypt, Turkey, Bulgaria and other countries she has studied in; and Khalid Freeman, a young Los Angeles dancer and body musician whose skills are as enthralling as Terry’s.
Many body musicians come from dance or music backgrounds, and frequently alternate between their different loves. Terry, who mixes tap-dancing and other elements of dance with his background in drumming and music, says he sees body music “as a link between music and dance. I love that place — that gray area.”
