Rhythms That Heal at Ashby Flea Market Drum Circle

The rumble of the drums is a familiar sound to anyone who frequents the . Every fair-weathered Saturday and Sunday, when the tents go up in the parking lot of the Ashby BART station to sell wares, there, too, are the bongos, congas and djembes, and the hands that bring them to life, pounding out a tireless beat that can be heard from blocks away.

It’s not just drums - there are other percussion instruments like claves, castanets, cabaças, maracas, xylophones, and sometimes there are flutes and horns too.

To the casual observer, the drum circle may seem to be a weekend gathering of hobbyists, a pleasant diversion for Flea Market visitors. But for those who come to play from sunup to sundown, it’s about much more than entertainment.

“I’ve been drumming since 1965,” said a soft-spoken man named Sonny who gave only his first name. He is one of the long-standing drummers whose memory extends to the earliest days of the drum circle. He spoke about the passion and dedication of those for whom drumming was not just a hobby.

“It was a way of life. Guys lived for Sundays,” Sonny said, recalling gatherings at Sproul Plaza on the U.C. Berkeley campus, where the drum circle took place until just a few years ago.

That intensity has not gone away. The players at the flea market, most of them middle-aged, still slap, sweat, groove, throw their heads back and lose themselves to a beat that does not let up for hours on end.

One man danced furiously in the middle of the circle, skillfully shaking a cabaça (a Latin instrument made of beads strung around a wooden cylinder), sweat pouring off his face, until he couldn’t dance anymore. He slumped on the ground for a few minutes, drank some water, then got up to dance again.

When asked why they come, many of the musicians spoke about personal transformation, catharsis and a therapeutic effect.

“I’m shy,” Guy Fuerte said when asked what brings him and his conga out every weekend. He certainly doesn’t seem it - he’s warm and friendly. He moved to Berkeley from Hawaii 15 years ago, started coming out to drum, and found that it helped him relax and open up. He’s been coming ever since.

“My girlfriend is seeing that I’m starting to change,” Fuerte said. “Even at 55 it can happen.”

Every day at work Uriah Russell, who plays the bass drum, helps people struggling to find a place to live that they can afford. “I’m a social worker - I help people get housing in San Francisco. Housing is very difficult in San Francisco,” he said. “I come here because it regenerates me.”

Lesley Fortson has been coming for more than 30 years. An approachable, gregarious person, it’s hard to believe him when he says, “I used to be very militant.”

It’s true, he said, but he feels that drumming has helped change that.

A Vietnam veteran, Fortson calls himself a “survivor of Agent Orange.” He said he’s spent the last several decades traveling, and drumming, up and down the coast of California.

“I drum to heal people,” says Fortson.

“You see that guy there?” he said, pointing to a man with shoulder-length grey hair pounding on a djembe (a West African drum). “We were drumming at Venice Beach, in the sixties! He’s from Santa Cruz, so he’s one of those peace guys.”

Later, the “peace guy” took a break on the perimeter of the circle, grooving contentedly to the beat while managing to keep a cigarette perched in his lips. He politely declined to speak to this reporter.

It’s an open drum circle, and anyone can come and play, regardless of skill level. Most of the players at the flea market are amateurs, and the vibe is not about pulling off complicated rhythm patterns or showing off skills, says Butch Haynes, a longtime member of the group.

Haynes is one of a few drummers there with professional chops - he’s drummed with the likes of Santana, Miles Davis, and Oakland legend Ruth Beckford - but he loves the casual, open feel of the Ashby drum circle.

“It’s therapeutic, it’s a kind of group therapy,” he said. “It’s wide open for anybody to come and play, and to heal themselves.”

This is a very valuable thing, Haynes feels, for people who might not have other opportunities to get the kind of release and emotional fulfillment they get from making music together.

“For a lot of cats,” he said, “without the Ashby Flea Market, you got nothing in terms of what you do the most, which is try to bang on your drum.”

Haynes laments the “gap” he sees between the drummers and the visiting public. Asked what kind of relationship the two groups share, he said, “Virtually none.”

“There are no people talking to the drummers,” he said, and the drummers themselves are so focused on their drumming that they’re “hardly even aware of the public.”

Most of the people there, he feels, see the drums as “background music for the Flea Market. They’re not feeling connected.”

Haynes would like to see that change, which is why he’s anxious for the drum circle to gain more media coverage and attention, and ultimately a greater appreciation among the public.

Not all of the drummers necessarily agree with him about public exposure - some object to being filmed, photographed, or recorded by members of the press or even bystanders with cameras or cell phones. Haynes believes that they feel they’re being exploited, or perhaps misunderstood by people who may see them as entertainment or an attraction.

Other players, though, say they’re happy to see people taking an interest and recognizing that something special is going on. They feel that percussion, and gatherings like the drum circle here, have the potential to improve lives and bring people together.

“I drummed with people for 10 or 15 years before I ever had a conversation with them, and yet they felt like family or a tribe to me,” said Mika Scott. He believes that percussion is a form of communication deeper, and more universal, than language.

“Everybody has different life experiences, different cultural backgrounds, and everybody brings that to the rhythm and it’s all kind of shared amongst us,” he said.

Haynes hopes the drum circle at Ashby can be a way to bring communities together.

“The drum is a very powerful instrument, all the way back in human history,” he said.

On a recent weekend, most visitors to the Flea Market did seem to hardly notice the musicians. There to shop, they walked by the drum circle without a glance. A couple drummers mentioned that it’s a common sight to see harried, disinterested parents dragging along kids who are trying to pull away because they’re captivated by the rhythm.

A sizable audience never gathered around the drummers, though there was always somebody stopping to listen. The connections listeners had with the drums were as varied as the listeners themselves.

Some appreciate them as a nice complement to the main attraction of the Flea Market. “It really sets the vibe,” said a spectator who came mainly for the shopping.

Others don’t have much of an opinion. One casual listener, searching for something to say about the drum circle, settled on, “It’s usually bigger.” She quickly moved on.

And then there are those for whom there are, apparently, no words to describe the feeling they get from the drums. A woman swaying to the beat in the shade, looking serene, revealed the depth of her feeling when approached by a reporter and asked for a comment.

“Oh honey, I’m sorry, I’m in a whole ‘nother place,” she said.