Life in the key of ‘O’

Alex Coolman

Kurt Rasmussen hasn’t changed apartments in 18 years. Now he’s finally

moving out, and it’s easy to see why he waited this long.

Rasmussen’s Costa Mesa apartment is filled with drums: drums in enormous

cardboard boxes and drums in cloth travel bags and drums in hard-shell

travel cases. He has tambourines and cymbals, timbales and bongos, piles

of drumsticks and mallets, and seemingly every other device that could

conceivably be used to raise a percussive racket.

They are the tools of the trade for Rasmussen, a professional

percussionist. They just happen to be very bulky tools.

The reason Rasmussen is leaving, despite the equipment-shlepping required

to do so, is that he’s just accepted a job in Las Vegas with Cirque du

Soleil, the Canadian performing arts show that puts American circuses to

shame with its aesthetic and technical complexity.

Rasmussen will be the percussionist in the band for Cirque’s intricate

underwater ‘O’ show, which is about 90 minutes long and fairly

challenging musically.

‘It’s a combination of a lot of things,” Rasmussen said, describing the

program he will play. “It’s an eclectic mix of classical, jazz and world

ethnic influences.”

Ironically, the motivation for Rasmussen’s move is a desire to stay put

more often. He’s been traveling for years as a percussionist and musical

coordinator for Paul Anka’s band, as well as taking numerous side trips

for other projects.

“I’d been wanting to get off the road for a long time,” Rasmussen said.

“I finally just hit the wall.”Besides working with Anka for the last 10

years, the drummer has performed with artists from Sergio Mendez to

Quincy Jones and groups such as the Long Beach and Atlanta symphonies.

His music has appeared on dozens of records, as well as on television and

radio programs and movies such as the recent IMAX film “Everest.”He has

also been active over the years in the local music scene. Rasmussen had a

steel drum band at the Ritz Carlton in Laguna Nigel and a Latin jazz band

that played the Studio Cafe through the early ‘80s. As a teacher, he has

worked at Cal State Long Beach teaching Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian

percussion.Most exciting for Rasmussen has been the experience of playing

in Brazil’s Carnaval, the enormous celebration that consumes the streets

of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in the days before Lent.Rasmussen is a

member of the Brasilian Escola de Samba Vai-Vai, one of the drumming

groups that performs in Carnaval parades. For a primarily

English-speaking drummer, he said, membership in an escola (“school” in

Portuguese) is a rare and remarkable honor.

More surprising still, for Rasmussen, was the experience of Vai-Vai’s

winning the top award at the parade the first year he drummed with the

group, in 1998, and then doing the same thing in the following year.”It

was the best experience of my life as a professional player,” said

Rasmussen, who was one of 500 main drummers forming the escola’s

“bateria,” or core percussion group (the complete escola has 5,000

drummers).

Vai-Vai’s theme for the first year’s parade was “Banzai Vai-Vai,” which

meant that Rasmussen had to perform the group’s energetic 70-minute

precision drum routine in a chain mail Samurai costume -- all while

sweating in the tropical heat and 100% humidity.

“You’re judged on your songs, on your singers, on your dancers, your

floats,” he said. “Everything is scrutinized.”

For the competition, Rasmussen had his left arm tattooed with the

distinctive Vai-Vai logo, a mark that all the drummers of the escola are

expected to display.”It would have been dishonoring the school if I’d

have gone down there without it,” he said. “I would never have gotten a

tattoo otherwise. I mean, I was scared.”In addition to this permanent

reminder of his role in the escola, Rasmussen’s wrists are encircled with

numerous bracelets and colorful ribbons, each of which, he says,

represents specific honors and ceremonies he has experienced in

connection with his drumming.”These ribbons are all blessings,” he said.

“They have to do with Candomble,” an Afro-Brazilian religion practiced by

many Samba players.

But if the outward evidence of Rasmussen’s participation in Carnaval is

conspicuous, he says the experience itself was far more vivid.

“I can’t even explain the feeling you get,” he said. “They helped me to

remember why I even started playing.”Rasmussen’s roots as a percussionist

go all the way back to his childhood in East L.A.’s Lincoln Heights,

where he was frequently exposed to rhythmic Afro-Cuban styles of

music.”There was a park across the street where they would play rumba,”

he said. “I heard it all the time and I grew up digging it.”The love of

the drumming in such musical styles is what has brought Rasmussen through

his varied career to his current position with Cirque. Although the group

is perhaps best known for the complexity of its staging and the the

acrobatic dexterity of its performers, Rasmussen says the music is

something that struck him the first time he saw the show.

“The sound system [at the Bellagio hotel, where Cirque takes place] is

amazing,” Rasmussen said. “I really like the music.”

But transporting his entire life -- and his life’s gear -- to Las Vegas

is proving to be a bit of a chore. In addition to all the African jun-jun

drums and djembe drums that he has packed carefully away and the

Brazilian pandeiro that has its own hard case, he also has to transport a

few delicate and eccentric instruments like the gamelon gong he picked up

in Java.As if this weren’t challenge enough, Rasmussen has to cope with

the all the additional gear he has acquired through another hobby, one

that has nothing to do with his professional life: Rasmussen has an

enthusiasm for toy robots.

“It took me eight hours a day for three days to pack up all the toy

robots I’ve got,” he said, gesturing at a bedroom full of cardboard

boxes.

“These are all robots. These boxes.”