I was born and raised in Austin Minnesota, the home of SPAM®. I spent my formative years attending public schools, Friday night ball games and St. Olaf’s Lutheran Church with other hardy descendants of Northern European stock. Hardly a ringing endorsement for a guy who makes his living as a percussionist, I know, but my parents taught ballroom dancing and my mother loved to sing. I think my dad even had an old pair of bongos around the house and some Stan Kenton records. It’s a mystery how the soil is prepared and the seeds sown for our beautiful futures to bloom.

As is the case with so many musicians my age, it was that magical Sunday night when Ed Sullivan introduced The Beatles that really sparked the fire. Seeing this, my mom hooked me up with a great drummer named Bill Apold, and I started taking some lessons. In junior high, I formed my first band, Captain America with my friends Bill Ness and Mike Edwards. I'm still trying to live down a rendition of ‘Inagaddadavida’ we played at a Friday night mixer.

A few years later, Santana came across my musical radar. I was drawn to their "exotic" sounds and rhythms. I started frequenting the library, checking out any record that had a conga player or, mysteriously, a “percussionist” listed in the credits. The dye was finally cast during my junior year in high school, when I had the chance to see both Weather Report and The Paul Winter Consort. I remember being absolutely enchanted by the Consort’s stage set up. It was crammed full of drums, xylophones and gongs. Little did I know that I would later end up using that motif as a model for home decorating…

In 1974 I was working at a golf course with middle-aged Cuban immigrants and young African American brothers for $90 a week. I was at a Steak and Ale one Friday night when I had the realization that the guy up on stage singing Beatles songs and tapping randomly on a set of white conga drums was probably making a lot better money than I was and the hours were better. Deep inside, I made the commitment then and there.

I left Florida and returned to Minnesota to get serious about studying conga drumming. I guess it never occurred to me that a massive Cuban population might have been a good resource. So, back in Austin I joined my first "serious" band, Dogarama. That band eventually transmuted into a group called Clear. We took Southern Minnesota by storm with an odd mix of English styled pop, reggae and Steely Dan. It was a transforming experience in a number of ways. Clear wrote and performed a lot of original material. Our keyboard player was a gifted composer and we were all contributing to the writing. I got a little taste of the satisfaction found in creating my own music and the process became a little less mysterious to me. By this time, I was old enough to successfully grow facial hair, I started shopping at women's clothing stores for my stage wear, apparently unaware that percussionists typically carry a somewhat macho persona. We lived in a "band" house, an old farmhouse we rented from a pig farmer, and traveled the Midwest in a converted blue school bus. I met Roberta, the mother of my two children, during that period and learned a little bit about being in love and on the road.

Next stop, Minneapolis/St. Paul, where I intended to study music at the University. I didn't have the required reading skills and wasn't accepted into their program, I started joining bands and looking for a teacher. In 1977, shortly after I had moved to the Twin Cities, Steve Tibbetts contacted me and invited me to participate in a record he was making. It turned out to be a good match for both of us. Twenty-three years, many thousands of miles traveled, five kids and ten records later, no punches have been thrown, we are close friends and still making music together.

Steve was a godsend for me. I was playing in country bands, belly dance troupes, Latin combos, Top 40 bands and fusion groups. All of them were an important piece of my education, but the work I was doing with Steve was the most rewarding and compelling. Working with Steve on YR and the following ECM projects, I began to see a way to channel my particular tastes and skills into original music. It was liberating. There were no rules, save for paying attention to our internal compasses and the spirit of discovery.

In October of 1981, Steve and I set off for Oslo to do our first recording for ECM. It was the first time out of the U.S. for both of us. At first blush we were somewhat disappointed. After seven hours on a plane we touched down somewhere that looked a lot like Duluth. It was a bit overwhelming for two rubes from the Midwest to be recording at Talent Studios in Norway with Jan Erik Konshaug and the dark and legendary Manfred Eicher. In our minds, mega-stardom, seemed like the next step. Young minds and healthy ambition are wonderful things. While we never achieved anything that looks like fame or riches, our work together consistently receives high critical acclaim and we have made some great records and live performances. Over the past 20 years Steve and I have toured all over Europe and North America. The trip to Oslo also seemed to ignite the fires of wanderlust in both of us. Since then, our individual and collective adventures have taken us all over the world.

Encouraged by Steve, and the need to replicate tracks on stage, I began studying tabla drumming with Marcus Wise. Marcus’ teaching has been invaluable to me even though I never went on to play classical Indian music. The concepts and techniques have informed my work in many ways.

In 1985 I went back to school. I was thinking about getting a "real" job, but instead I opened myself to a world of more interesting possibilities and found peace with the idea that my deepest passion was for making music. I also met Sowah Mensah, an event that changed my life forever.

Sowah is a master drummer, multi–instrumentalist and composer from Ghana. Not only did I begin my ongoing study of Ghanaian music with Sowah, which has taken me to Ghana three times, but he has also become my closest friend and advisor. My relationship with Sowah and Ghanaian culture has been an invaluable lesson in respect, dignity and the spiritual basis of music.

It has quite literally changed the course of my life and my art. I am still trying to learn the music and apply the moral and aesthetic principals so deeply embedded in the tradition. Above all, I have learned that music is an opportunity for us to come together and manifest our boundless potential.

In the early 90’s I became interested in Zen Buddhism. I was a reluctant student but somehow it began to look like something that was a part of me that I had been missing. These days I teach drumming to children, perform with a wonderful variety of great musicians, make records and practice Zen. All of this has been slowly simmering or etching its way into a river of activities and learning that keeps my heart alive.

Life is strange and unknowable. Looking back I can see some of the threads and how one interest fed or completed another but often the way has seemed really confusing. I am lucky that I get to make music nearly everyday. I have been blessed with good teachers, great friends and loving family. There is no way to know where the river goes, what comes next?

Gratitude and joy going forward!