Have Drums Will Travel

Musician, announcer, jazz champion: Who am I today? asks Jimmy Coulter

Jimmy Coulter has an identity problem. Several, actually. Not several problems - several identities.

OK, he does play the drums - in a bunch of bands, all playing different kinds of music. But that's only the tip of the iceberg, and it doesn't begin to explain the sense you get when you're around Coulter, that you're on the edge of a whirlpool, in danger at any moment of getting swept right into the non-stop flow of energy.

I'm really driven, explains the lean, gray-bearded 41-year-old.

He explains fast. He talks fast. He moves fast. On the drums, he's some kind of octopus, a lot of arms, everywhere at once.

But it doesn't stop when he stops drumming. Jimmy Coulter is like the wind - he's everywhere, he's everywhere...

It's not only what band am I playing in, but who am I today? he says.

Who he'll be Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Royal Lanes in Wailuku, will be the voice of the annual Big Brothers/Big Sisters Bowlathon. He will share the announcing duties with Dennis Walsh.

Who he'll be Sunday afternoon is the drummer of the jazz group Quagga, playing at the weekly jam at Sir Wilfred's in the Maui Mall.

On Sunday night he becomes Jimmy Christopher, host of the Maui Jazz Society's No Ka Oi jazz show from 7 to 10 p.m. on KAOI radio.

It's as disc jockey Jimmy Christopher that Coulter is probably best known, at least in island ears.

And earlier in his radio career, at various stations over five years, Jimmy Christopher was best known for his pet goat, Julius. Julius has been named for NBA great Julius Irving.

Jimmy and Julius did shows together, although in Julius case, it wasn't live, it was Memorex.

I had recorded his voice...different bleatings, said Christopher. He put them on a cartridge, then called up the appropriate reaction to whatever he was doing.

He and the live Julius would make appearances together at Christmas parties and the like. Coulter still gets misty talking about Julius demise at age 7 last September.

Coulter also has a regular job, working 40 hours a week plus, as gardener and maintenance man at Seabury Hall. But it seems mostly a way of maintaining his musical career.

I don't really make a lot of money playing music. It just helps pay the bills...except then you've always got to buy new equipment...

One week earlier this summer saw drummer Coulter playing three different kinds of music with three different bands. He was part of the Sharks, rocking out at Moose McGillycuddy's. Then he went upscale with the Royal Five, doing society swing at the Maui Prince. And of course, his real love is the jazz combo that jams Sunday afternoons at Sir Wilfred's.

A typical day in the life of a working Maui musician might go like this: last Saturday, Coulter played at twilight for a wedding held at a lavish upcountry estate.

That was from 5 to 8 - and I had to be on-stage at Moose's at 9:30. I had to break down, and head for Lahaina. Wouldn't you know it - we'd be stuck behind tourists all the way.

But it's exhilarating. It keeps you young, he says.

He also plays whenever called with a Dixieland combo that sees action on the hotel-convention circuit.

Playing the hotel-convention circuit is right out of central casting. The musicians get to - have to? - wear crazy costumes - jail inmates one day, country and western pickers another, a bunch of sailors the next day, the Flintstones the day after that...as they march those wild and crazy conventioneers down to the beach.

There are occupational hazards. Coulter and company may be doing their version of country and western, but if the conventioneers are from Texas, they thank they know the real thang when they hear it.

When we do the Flintstone thing, they give you this costume that slings over one shoulder. I didn't think about wearing shorts underneath, so there you are, sitting on top of a building, freezing, while the people below are looking up your loin cloth. Things can get hairy.

Or there was the time he and the band were dressed as inmates as they played in the old Lahaina prison when Coulter became a prisoner himself. He had rolled up his pants since they were several sizes too big, but one leg unrolled and locked up on his bass drum pedal.

It goes with the territory. The license plate on his car is personalized to say DRUMS. His motto might as well be, Have Drums, Will Travel.

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