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Artist
Ralph Peterson
12+ albums
jazzdrumsjazz drumsamerican
about
Ralph Peterson emerged in the mid-'80s as co-leader of the high visibility ensemble OTB and as a member of the Harrison- Blanchard Group. Peterson's decade-old Fo'tet is the platform by which he expresses deeply held musical principles. "I believe I was predestined to be a drummer." Raised in a musical family, he first hit the traps at 3. "My early playing was a basement experience. I played with records by James Brown, Earth Wind & Fire and Parliament- Funkadelics, where the beat was powerful and primal. I'd wanted to play since I saw Sonny Payne with the Count Basie Orchestra when I was 13. But my interpretation of Jazz didn't venture very far beyond Maynard Ferguson's Primal Scream until I was out of high school. I'm not a jazz baby. I'm a funk baby who came through the Fusion realm of George Duke and Stanley Clarke. "My life condition will be apparent in my music always." His music is marked by the focus and indomitable energy of a spirit in balance. "Like a wood nickel, I keep coming back. I'm in the game for the long haul now, and I've figured out that the key to winning the game is staying in the game." Peterson began his studies at Rutgers in Brass before moving to Percussion. "At the percussion audition I didn't know rudiments; I had never really studied the instrument. I learned how to read what little bit of rhythms I could from my trumpet studies, which began in fourth grade. "I've always loved soprano saxophone, and if they'd used it in my high school marchi
