/ARTS WEEKLY/MUSIC-U.S.: Drummer’s Legacy will Long Echo

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Lisa Vives

NEW YORK, Apr 15 2003 (IPS) - "Thank you for bringing me safely home to the house of my father."

With those words in the classic song, "Akiwowo", the great Babatunde Olatunji established a beachhead for African music on the North American continent more than 40 years ago. His album ‘Drums of Passion’ sold over 50 million copies, his sound thrilled musicians in the jazz and rock genres and his followers stretched from coast to coast.

Music lovers around the world were saddened to learn of the passing of Baba one day short of his 76th birthday, when he died of complications from diabetes Apr. 6 at a hospital in Selina, California.

In a brief press statement, his wife recalled Baba’s words: "I thank the Creator for using me as a transparency to bring African music and culture to the Western world.”

History may recall Olatunji for his recording associations with Mickey Hart, Pharaoh Sanders, Stan Getz and McCoy Tyner. When he came to the United States over 40 years ago from Nigeria, he was a Rhodes scholar with designs on studying at Morehouse College and becoming a diplomat. Soon after matriculating, he realized that Americans’ view of Africa was based too heavily on images perpetuated by Hollywood jungle movies.

Olatunji, a member of the Yoruba tribe, started to spread his love for African culture, and drumming in particular, introducing its sound on many campuses across the United States.

The ensemble he formed in New York performed initially at civil rights rallies led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and with an orchestra at Radio City Music Hall. It also toured schools.

Among the countless performances he gave was a high-profile gig with the Radio City Symphony at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, where a Columbia Records executive happened to be listening. Impressed by Olatunji’s raw, exotic riffs, he immediately signed his new find and introduced him to one of Columbia’s top music producers, John Hammond. An A&R wiz who would go on to bring Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen into the Columbia fold, Hammond helped sculpt the musician’s unique sound while maintaining its searing integrity. The resulting ‘Olatunji! Drums of Passion’ set ears and souls afire.

The album opens with the classic "Akiwowo” (Chant to the Trainman). A simple, yet infectious Samba beat slowly builds as the musicians enter one by one, and Baba and the singers praise the trainman Akiwowo, saying, "thank you for bringing me safely home to the house of my father".

Olatunji headed his own jazz group for a while and then went on to play with artists such as Mickey Hart, Airto Moreira and Carlos Santana.

In 1967, jazz saxophonist John Coltrane helped him establish the Olatunji Center for African Culture in Harlem, which trained many of this country’s teachers of African performing arts.

Olatunji also taught at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck in New York state, and at other schools and colleges.

In the 1980s and ’90s, he gained status as a New Age cultural figure through his workshops on the powers of drumming.

"There’s a trinity about drums," Olatunji noted. "There’s got to be a spirit in the body of the drum. And the wood has to stay alive in order for it to produce sound. The skin on the drum is alive, too. But you’ve got to know how to tan it, because when it (encounters) the spirit of the person playing it, it then becomes an irresistible force."

Well known as a teacher of traditional African drumming, Baba was raised in a fishing and trading village, Ajido, whose traditions of musical communication and storytelling were later reflected in the work of his touring group of drummers, singers and dancers.

In the year 2000, he received the Rex Foundation’s Jerry Garcia Award, established in memory of Grateful Dead guitarist and founding Rex board member to honour and support individuals and groups that work to encourage creativity in young people.

"I’m afraid if we’re not careful," Olatunji said, "the real traditional music, the source, will be forgotten The awareness has not reached the grassroots. Children in particular still don’t understand what Africa is all about. We need to take the music from the theatres and jazz clubs to the schools."

No one was more responsible for introducing Western ears to African music. Long before phrases like "world music" and "multiculturalism" came into fashion, Olatunji was permeating the popular consciousness.

"The spirit of the drum is something that you feel but cannot put your hands on It does something to you from the inside out," said Baba. "It hits people in so many different ways. But the feeling is one that is satisfying and joyful. It is a feeling that makes you say to yourself, ‘I’m glad to be alive today! I’m glad to be part of this world’!"

Baba’s survivors include his wife, four children and a brother, Akinsola Akiwowo, of Alexandria.