David "Buck" Wheat - BooBam Bamboo Drum Company

BooBam Bamboo Drum Company

Wheat had long been an advocate of George Russell's "Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization for Improvisation", the art of tonal gravity. In 1948 Harry Partch, an American composer, developed a microtonal system of music that depended on custom-built, specialized instruments of various and exotic designs, which could play non-tempered scales, for its performance. Buckwheat (the name Wheat used in later life) and his Sausalito, California roommate Bill Loughborough, a musician and electronic engineer, built instruments for Partch, such as a marimba played with a large soft mallet over the resonator, delivering barely audible, low-Hertz tones. Loughborough borrowed diagnostic and metric instruments from the Mare Island Navy Yard; using an oscilloscope and audio oscillator, they were able to work at a technical level not previously possible.

Together they moved onto a Sausalito barge with Jak Simpson, who in 1954 founded a business named the "Boobam Bamboo Drum Company". Wheat, who was also working on the President Lines cruises to the Orient as a bass player, would buy large-diameter giant bamboo in the Philippines and bring them back on the ship to build the South Pacific Island bamboo drums, which they manufactured in Mill Valley, California, as Boobam's, ('bam' and 'boo' switched around). The drums fascinated several jazz groups, which added them to their percussion sections. In 1956, Chet Baker's Ensemble used them to perform on the Today Show.

The drums' unique sound inspired Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio, who eagerly included BooBam on their tour, with Buckwheat's percussion solo being featured on O Ken Karanga, along with his last performance with group on the album College Concert, the Trio's first live recording with John Stewart at UCLA in 1961. After the demise of the Whiskeyhill Singers, Wheat became the bassist/arranger for folk duo Bud & Travis. He is heard on three of their albums; Live at the Cellar Door, Perspective on Bud & Travis and In Person, on the Liberty label.