Michael Shrieve is best known for his work in Santana’s band. This album is named after the famous album “Drums of Passion” from Babatunde (Michael) Olatunji. That gives it a special place in my heart because my mother knew Olatunji quite well at one time, and we had a couple autographed albums in our house when I was growing up. She used to tell me about him.

Now, I have mention that I didn’t really care for that music. It wasn’t my thing. I think I could appreciate it more now, though, and just the general connection to my mom would serve it well. This album incorporates a lot of that vintage African music, but also brings prog rock, fusion and more to the table.

Guests on the disc include Olatunji (posthumously), Jack DeJohnette, Zakir Hussain, Airto Moreira and Trey Gunn. This is a unique musical exploration that really does a nice job of combining disparate elements into a cohesive sound.

Percussion and vocals make up this track early. The lyrics are not in English. The tune grows out later into proggier things that have definite elements of trippy, mellower fusion.

Percussion starts this track, as well. We get plenty of trippy world music in the mix on this number. It gets rather freaky at times. Again, the vocals are not in English. The instrumental stuff later really gets into some cool proggy territory.

Atmospherics with some piano makes up the concept at the start here. This turns jazzier as it continues, and in some ways it reminds me of Dark Side of the Moon era Pink Floyd.

This instrumental has a lot of trippy music augmented by tribal drumming. There is some African singing later. This gets very traditional before it’s over.

The percussion on this feels less tribal. The music is artsy and cool.

There is much more of a rock sound here, but it’s quite art rock based. This is a classy instrumental that gets into some freeform fusion territory and has some cool percussion work.

There are some rather understated vocals on this. Overall, it’s another trippy sort of jam that has a great groove.

This is strictly a percussion solo. It’s quite traditional African in sound.

There is a trippy kind of vibe to this number. It has some atmospherics along with an intriguing percussion arrangement.