Pop Music : Olodum’s Local Debut: A Drum Feast Hard to Beat

The idea of 90-plus minutes of drum music might sound tedious to anyone except percussion fanatics. But Olodum’s local debut Friday before about 500 fans at the Robert Frost Auditorium in Culver City offered an often eye-opening display of tonal range and musical variety--as well as an arresting entrance.

While saxophonist Bira Reis played on stage, the 10 drummers, their instruments riding alongside their left legs, paraded in formation through the audience twirling mallets and sticks in choreographed moves.

Four additional male singer-percussionists and three female dancers added to the spectacle.

The 18-piece Brazilian “samba school,” which gained U.S. visibility by playing on Paul Simon’s “The Rhythm of the Saints” album, favored arrangements that started with a flurry from drum section conductor Naginho do Samba’s timbales, followed by cross-rhythms from marching snare ( repique ) drums and bass tones from surdo drums of varying size.

Variety was quickly evident: The opener had a strong Middle Eastern tinge, the second was vaguely Andean and another song would have worked with a rockabilly guitar.

Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” perfectly fit Olodum’s Pan-African cultural slant, but horrible vocals and thundering drums overwhelmed the pointed, poignant lyric.

And Reis’ playing chiefly served to offer a tantalizing suggestion of what a master jazz improviser--say, samba-lover Sonny Rollins--could do with Olodum’s rolling polyrhythms underneath him or her.