Back in 1989, green activists and musicians Desmond and Sheila Majekodunmi left a unique musical testimony to their fight for the preservation of nature. This is how it all happened.

By Uchenna Ikonne
November 2018

When Sheila and Des Majek released Green Leaves in 1989, the husband-and-wife musical duo were certain that it was an LP like none other that had ever come out of Nigeria. They were right. Musically, it’s dark, dubby synth-pop and slick, slinky afro-reggae grooves stood out from the dominant standards of the day. And then there was Sheila’s voice; she sounded like nobody on the scene, combining the cool poise of Sade with the incandescent warmth of Chaka Khan. But what really distinguished it was its thematic focus. Its songs—with titles like “Mother Nature,” “Korrup Forest (In Africa),” “Green Leaves,” “Let Us Plant A Tree Today”—maintained a single-minded, ardent emphasis on nature, the ecology and human beings’ responsibility as custodians of the planet.

“It’s not something many people were talking about back then,” says Desmond Majekodunmi a.k.a. “Majek,” “especially in Nigeria. But it was an issue we were passionate about and determined to cast light on.”

The album didn’t generate much buzz in the Nigerian market, but it did earn the pair a meeting with the then-very hip Virgin Records in London to discuss a possible major record deal. “So we went to Virgin and the guy listened to it intently. He’s saying ‘Well, the voice is great. And I really like the music, but… every single song on the album is about the environment! Can’t we do maybe just… one song about the environment and then do some, you know, commercial material?’”

Faced with this proposal, standing at the crossroads between abandoning their values to access potential international stardom and holding firm to those values in relative obscurity, Sheila and Des Majek instinctively understood that there was only one pragmatic choice for them to make.

“We walked out,” Majek says. “Just like that, we walked out on Virgin Records and never looked back.”

Some three decades later, Majek looks back on that brash decision from the perspective of maturity. “Yes, that was youthful arrogance,” he concedes. “Of course we should have compromised a little bit, maybe done half and half, some environmental material and then some other stuff. Given them at least a commercial single. That probably would have been the sensible thing to do. But we were so caught up in our passion, we were like ‘Raaaaaaahhhhh we’ve got to save the world!!!’”

“I don’t regret it, though,” he says.

Mother Nature

As Majek talks about the ups and downs of life, he never sounds regretful but rather equanimous, and deeply grateful. He and Sheila were together for over twenty years, having first met in the nineteen seventies in Lagos, when he was an up-and-coming technician in the music industry and she was a promising young vocalist. Their respective paths through life that had brought them together, however, could not have been more different: While Sheila had had a hardscrabble upbringing with her bohemian parents, Desmond Majekodunmi had grown up in relative privilege in the southwestern city of Ibadan, where his Nigerian father was a doctor and his English mother was an educator. Later in his teens, his parents sent him to continue his studies in Ireland. (“I think that must have been around 1967,” he says, “because I remember that soon after I got there I attended the Jimi Hendrix Experience concert at the Olympia in London—amazing show!”) It wasn’t long before he joined a band himself and started gigging around the Dublin club circuit and contemplating a career as a professional musician.

“In 1969, I met this guy named Phil Lynott who was singing with a band called Skid Row,” Majek says, “and he decided he wanted to start his own group.” Lynott in many ways cut a rare figure that paralleled Desmond’s in the Dublin music scene. They were about the same age, both tall, both from mixed, black and white parentage. “He needed a drummer and of course I had been playing drums since I was in a pop group in high school.”

“So I came in and auditioned, and I got the green light,” he continues. “But then something went off in my head and… I started thinking about my parents. I just thought about my father sitting at a dinner party, and everybody is talking about their successful children. You know Nigerian parents, they want you to be a doctor or a lawyer, an engineer… especially back then! So everybody is talking about what their children do, and then ask my father ‘What does your son do?’ ’Oh, he’s a drummer in a rock n’ roll band!’ Ugh… I just couldn’t do it.”

Torn between his passion for music and his desire to please his parents, Majek compromised by studying to become an audio engineer. That way he could keep his foot in the world of music while maintaining a job that suggested relative respectability. After all, the job had “engineer” in the title so it sounded important at dinner parties. Who could beat that? “And,” Majek adds, “I was the first black audio engineer in London.”

Doing his apprenticeship at De Lane Lea Studios at Wembley, he worked with the cream of early seventies British rock, including Fleetwood Mac, Wishbone Ash and Deep Purple. In addition, Majek himself also played with Kokosachi, one of the many London afro-rock groups that sprouted up in the wake of the success of Osibisa. Soon enough, he crossed paths again with his old mate from Dublin, Phil Lynott, and his new band Thin Lizzy, as they were recording in London. “Phil needed a flatmate,” Majek remembers, “so I gave him a room at this place in West Hampstead and we stayed there for a while. We collaborated on songs and stuff, and I engineered their album.” The Thin Lizzy album Majek worked on was the band’s second, 1972’s Shades of a Blue Orphanage but by the time they scored their big hit “The Boys Are Back in Town” in 1976, Desmond Majekodunmi was already moving on, having accepted an offer to work for PolyGram back in Nigeria.

“I helped PolyGram set up a multitrack studio and worked with a lot of artists there,” Majek says. Some of the musicians who benefitted from the Majek Touch in the studio included Sir Victor Uwaifo, pop-soul crooner Perry Ernest, teenage rock idols Ofege and the legendary Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. He also continued to work with artists on the other side of the Atlantic, such as the Jamaican crossover reggae band Third World and their breakthrough 1978 Journey to Addis album. (Majek: “The one that gave them the big hit with the cover of ‘Now That We’ve Found Love.’ I think I actually played a drum track on that song.”) But one of the associations Desmond made during this period turned out to be one that would change his life.

“When I came back to Nigeria, that was when I met Sheila,” he says.

Sheila Andrea Green’s parents—African-American jazz musician Ivan and white American nurse Jeanne—like a lot of beatnik youth in the Eisenhower era, had fallen under the sway of Kerouac-esque wanderlust. They left America in 1957 to trek through Mexico and Guatemala, where Sheila was born in 1960. Over the course of a few years (and a few more kids) they would make their way across Europe before motoring across the desert into West Africa, finally arriving in Nigeria in 1971. As they made their way into Lagos, the family’s rickety van broke down in the middle of one of the city’s infamous “go-slows,” causing a major traffic jam in an episode that got featured in the popular Lagos Weekend tabloid. Immediately, this strange, nomadic multiracial family became minor celebrities. For the next few years, Ivan got work playing with Fela and writing columns about his travels in the Nigerian Punch newspaper. As Sheila came of age and showed signs of being a gifted chanteuse, she joined her father, working with prominent dramatist Moses “Baba Sala” Olaiya and juju superstar King Sunny Ade.

The Greens achieved further fame when Ivan Green’s story took a curious turn: Shortly after his arrival in Nigeria, he was confronted by an old Yoruba woman who insisted he was her long-lost son who had disappeared as an infant back in the nineteen twenties. Green described this meeting in From the Bottom to the Top, he and Jeanne’s third-person memoir, published in 1983:

“Now,” the old lady began, “a long time ago, over 40 years to be exact, my son Bolaji, was stolen from me when I left him with my mother. Oh, it was a terrible thing. For years, I looked for him, spending money here and there. Two years ago, I had a dream. My son returned to me and he brought a wife and five pickins with him. You, are my son,” she said firmly.

“Whoa now, wait a minute,” Ivan said. “I understand your concern for your son, why that would be a terrible thing to happen; but why do you think I’m him? I have no tribal marks like yours. I don’t know anything about Africa except what I’ve learned in the short time I’ve been here. “

“I did not put any marks on your face, but I did put a mark on you so I would always recognize you. Let me see your right arm?” she asked.

Ivan looked bewildered, but he held out his right arm.

“I am correct,” the old woman said, pointing to a mark on his right forearm.

“That’s fantastic,” Jeanne said.

“It’s too far-fetched to be true,” Ivan concluded. “I can’t believe it.”

“It’s true-oh. I, Esther Afoloju Bamijoko say it’s true.” She turned to the women and they began speaking in Yoruba again. Just then, Mr. Kamson joined the group. He spoke at length with the women, and then turned happily to Ivan.

“I see you’ve met your mother,” he said.

“It was crazy,” Majek says. “He had grown up in a foster home in America so he never really had an idea of any family or where he came from before that. And here’s this old woman telling him that he got missing by the riverside when he was five years old. There were a lot of sailors around the seaside then and so they thought maybe the sailors had somehow taken him with them. And now these people were telling him he was back home. So if he wasn’t Nigerian before, the whole family became Nigerian then!”

Feeling Good

Taking on the name “Bolaji Bamijoko,” Green became the living personification of the “back to our roots” mood pervading the black diaspora in the seventies. All of which was good for his visibility, but his focus was on launching Sheila Bamijoko as a star. When Desmond Majekodunmi entered their lives, Sheila had been singing with the Swiss-Nigerian jazz-funk bandleader Tee Mac, performing at his Surulere Night Club and on his weekly television show.

“Sheila had some incredible, incredible talent,” Majek recalls. “Fela bowed to this girl, man. When she sang, when he heard the notes she was hitting, he had to give her that respect!” Other music heavyweights they encountered agreed: “We’d actually met Stevie [Wonder] earlier in Lagos when he came for FESTAC 77, and then we met up again in London. I remember when we went to his hotel room, Marvin Gaye was there, and Sheila sang a bit for them. Man… Stevie was just swaying his head in ecstasy, and Marvin was just nodding, really digging it. That was the effect she had on anybody who heard her voice. Mick Jagger, all of them… they just loved her singing.”

Meanwhile, Sheila was having a different, more intimate kind of effect on Desmond, and he on her. The two fell in love and quickly got married, despite Ivan’s fears that marriage would distract her from focusing on her career. The opposite was the case. The newlywed Majeks moved to Nairobi, Kenya where Desmond had gotten a job as a producer and engineer with CBS, and at the new sixteen-track studio Desmond set up there—the first in East Africa—they started working on Sheila’s solo LP to be entitled African Connection.

“And then Wayne Vaughn who used to play keyboards with Earth Wind and Fire. He came to Nairobi for a one-week holiday and he was staying in the same apartment block as us. He and Sheila hit it off like a rocket. He wanted to take her back to America to tour with EWF! I told her to go, it’s an amazing opportunity. But she said no, no… she can’t just leave her husband behind and go off with these guys.”

“We all collaborated on some stuff together, though,” Majek adds. “There was a song we were working on, called ‘Catastrophe’… Later, when he got back to the States I guess he ended up working some more on that idea with Maurice [White] and it ended up being a big hit for them as ‘Let’s Groove.’”

However, Kenya would change the direction of the Majeks’ lives in even more profound ways, giving them a new inspiration and sense of purpose. “I observed how much of Kenya’s economy was built on taking care of the environment,” Majek says. “Agriculture and ecotourism makes up more than ninety percent of their income. When I came back to Nigeria in the early eighties, I decided that I wanted to become a farmer. So we joined the Nigerian Conservation Foundation and started an agroforestry farm.”

The Majeks continued work on advancing Sheila’s career as she went on to work with South African musician Themba Matebese a.k.a. T-Fire. The release of African Connection, however, was hamstrung by politics. Still, their new commitment to the environment and agriculture took more of a central position in their lives, even becoming the focus of their music as they started to work on songs that would combine the two worlds, and hopefully wake up Nigeria and the world to the importance of protecting the environment. “We had pretty big goals,” Majek laughs.

The result was Green Leaves. While the album is credited to “Sheila and Des Majek,” Desmond mostly plays the background, leading the band and working behind the mixing desk. “I wasn’t allowed to sing on that album,” he says. “She wouldn’t let me sing! So I was relegated to doing some rapping, and if I behaved myself, maybe the occasional backup vocal. I couldn’t sing next to her because she had such perfect pitch… When she’d sing a note, it would be like a shockwave. To sing with her, you have to be very, very precise with your musical abilities, and my ear was just not up to hers.”

Korup Forrest (in Africa)

The album received a relatively low-key rollout on Polydor upon its release in 1989. It just seemed too… different from anything that was going on musically, and the subject matter was alienating. Nigerian listeners were not used to music asking them to think about the environment. It seemed preachy, elitist and distant from what could be considered as the concerns of common people. But the record received a much more enthusiastic response within the environmentalist community, a statement of purpose for the still relatively small, nascent movement in Nigeria. “The people in the Conservation Foundation were quite excited,” Majek says, “and they were very high-level people with access to leadership in the movement around the world. They were the ones who invited the Duke of Edinburgh to Lagos and gave us the chance to play for him, and present him with the album… We played, and we totally blew him away. He was over the moon for the record. At the end of the day, the Palace wrote a letter of recommendation for us to go to England to meet with Richard Branson.”

“And that’s how we got the recommendation to Virgin Records, even though that didn’t work out.”

“But still, a lot of good things came out of it. As a result of all that, we were able to persuade the federal government to establish a Ministry of Environment and set up forest reserves. We had a considerable influence on the culture of environmental protection. We started conservation clubs in the schools, got environmental issues on the education curriculum. We got a lot of work done to protect the Nigerian environment. In retrospect, not nearly enough—we still need to do far, far, far more. But at least it was a step in the right direction. And it continues today.”

Unfortunately, one thing that did not continue was the union between Sheila and Des Majek. The couple had decided to end their marriage by the end of the nineties, but they remained the best of friends as Sheila relocated to the United States. Sadly, she fell ill and died while still in her forties, but Desmond Majek remembers her fondly, and cherishes the time they spent together, and the work they did together. And that is the subject for which he expresses the most gratitude.

“It was such a privilege to have a relationship with an artist as talented as Sheila was,” Desmond muses. “Such a privilege! What an incredible musician. What an incredible person. I’m so glad we were able to do what we did before she passed on. And she’d be very happy about what’s happening now. Because people are finally catching up to what we were trying to do.”

And yes, in Nigeria society is catching up to the message Sheila and Des were preaching years ago, as the government allocates more and more resources to anticipating climate change and caring for the environment. Today, Desmond Majekodunmi heads LUFASI—the Lekki Urban Forest and Animal Shelter Initiative—a twenty-hectare forest park in the upscale Lekki section of Lagos. He also runs the agroforestry farm Majekodunmi Agricultural Projects and the consulting firm Desco Tourism & Trade Developments, producing documentaries and broadcasting a radio show to spread the message of conservation.

But we’re catching up to what they were trying to do musically too: Green Leaves was an album that was ahead of its time, thematically and sonically. And what sounded completely uncommercial and out of place in 1989 sounds fresh and contemporary thirty years later.

So listen to this sinuous, sexy, otherworldly music from Sheila and Des, and if you get a chance… plant a tree today.

(c) Alexis Maryon

Saxophonist, composer, actor, and tap dancer, Idris Ackamoor is the founder of The Pyramids in 1972, resurrected ten years ago. Since 2010 the band has toured throughout the world with original members and a line-up of new players. As for this brand new album, ‘An Angel Fell’ produced by Malcolm Catto and recorded during an intense week at Quatermass studios in London. Time to go back to the complete story of this under known master.

In Land of Ra we can see a tribute to Sun Ra. Did you know him? What was his influence?
The original name of the composition was “Land of Jah” as a tribute to the beautiful Island of Jamaica. I changed it when I updated the composition adding lyrics and a new reference to “Land of Ra” referencing a double meaning to the Egyptian Ra, god of the sun, as well as a tribute to Sun Ra. I did not know Sun Ra personally but I always was inspired by his music and theatrical stage performances. He is still one of my favorite composers and performers. Equally, I have always loved Marshall Allen’s and John Gilmore’s playing.

Cecil Taylor was also a mentor, who was looking for other ways. What was your relationship with him?
Cecil was one of my major influences musically and philosophically and one of my greatest teachers along with my principle mentor, historic clarinet and reed master Andrew Cyrille (who had played with Jelly Roll Morton and Freddie Keppard in the 1920s), and the late alto saxophonist Charles Tyler. I was a student at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and studying in the music department. One of my music professors, named John Ronsheim, wrote a large grant to bring Cecil Taylor and his group including the late Jimmy Lyons on alto, Andrew Cyrille on drums, dancer Ken Miller, percussionist Cliff Sykes, and poet James Thompson. Professor Ronsheim decided to give me a work-study job to help prepare the way for Cecil and his ensemble to come to Antioch. During Cecil’s stay he taught classes and conducted the Cecil Taylor Black Music Ensemble. I took Cecil’s classes and was a member of the Ensemble playing alto saxophone in the alto section, along with Jemeel Moondoc and Bobby Zankle, both of who are major innovators in the jazz world now.

Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor have been classified in free jazz, yet their music is often different in their intentions. What do you think of this word, free jazz? A paradoxical jail or a radical opening?
I don’t and never have used the word «free jazz». If someone wants to use that word to describe a certain genre of jazz I don’t really have a problem with it. I am not much into slogans, or types. I understand the need for marketing purposes to have a name to attempt to identify a category of music. However, I must quote one of the masters of African American music, Duke Ellington, who said, «There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.»

You toured in Africa during the 70’s… What did you find, discovered?
I found my true self! Africa was a spiritual and revelational journey and adventure for me. I will never forget it and it will always be a part of one of my greatest experiences and influences beyond all others. I took a musical and spiritual journey to Northern Ghana traveling to Tamale and Bolgatanga, Ghana. It lasted about two weeks and during that time I played with the Dagomba people of Tamale who introduced me to playing with the King’s drummers. I also journeyed to Bolgatanga and participated in several magical musical rituals and ceremonies including performing at the Second Burial of a Fra Fra King, as well as, undertaking a healing ritual in the African bush with a Shaman who performed the «ritual of the washing of the legs». I collected many instruments and also became a percussionist playing a variety of instruments including talking drums, balafons, and a variety of flutes.

Lalibela


 

When you were going back, you had recorded three Afro-jazz albums, “c” in 1973, “King of Kings” in 1974 and “Birth / Speed / Merging” in 1976 on independent labels. Why this choice of independence ?
I wanted a way to get the music of The Pyramids out to a wider audience. In America it was the time of crossover music and rock and roll, and this was the type of music that was being played on the radio as well as recorded by record companies. They were not recording the music of Cecil Taylor or The Pyramids. Cecil was already beginning to self-produce and distribute his music while he was at Antioch College. Sun Ra was also continuing to self-produce and distribute his music. It was a natural development for me to be inspired by these innovative and independent musicians who also wanted to take control of their own musical destiny. The Pyramids were some of the first DIY musicians to take control of their music and fiercely independent!

The first Pyramids LP’s from the 70’s are now strong collector’s pieces. Haw many of each of them have been printed at the time
We printed 1000 copies of ‘Lalibela’ and ‘King of ’ and 5000 copies of ‘Birth/Speed/’. Many of the Birth/Speed/Merging LPs we’re unfortunately lost during a move.

You have a special link with France since this is where your band, The Pyramids, was born. Tell us more about this episode?
I wrote a proposal to the Antioch College Abroad Program to leave America with three Antioch students (my ex-wife flutist Margo Simmons, and electric bassist Kimathi Asante) and travel to Europe and form a band and work. The college agreed to send us with the condition that we had to at least spend some time at a university for several months. Once we did this we would be on our own to form a band and attempt to find work as professional musicians. We selected the University of Besançon and we took 6 weeks of Intensive French. We arrived in this idyllic small city in the French countryside and began our year abroad! While we were at the University we each stayed in three different dormitories that were shaped a lot like a pyramid. Hence the name! Following the six week language program we were speaking French pretty good, but when we left after the end of the intensive we went to Paris and then to Amsterdam. While in Paris we were introduced to musicians like tenor saxophonist Frank Wright and we also met a young drummer our age named Donald Robinson. He became the first drummer with The Pyramids and followed us to Amsterdam and months later to Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Ayler’s and Pharoah’s messages (‘Music Is The Healing Force Of The Universe’, ‘Love Is Everywhere,’ …), are spiritual jazz essence. Do people need now more than ever music with a message?
I have always believed that musicians are spiritual messengers! Just like the ancient griots of Africa musicians are the repository of the collective cultural memories of a people. Whether it is John Coltrane’s ‘Alabama’ as a homage to the four black schoolgirls killed in Birmingham, or Charlie Parker’s ‘Now’s The Time’, the powerful music of Bob Marley or Fela Kuti, or ‘Soliloquy For Michael Brown’ from my album. These are the compositions and the musicians I most admire and listen to. Musicians who are not afraid to compose and play music with a positive message. I also loved the freedom and uncompromising music of early Albert Ayler whose very style and intensity sends its own kind of spiritual and political message! I was fortunate enough to study and play with Albert’s cousin and alto player, Charles Tyler.

Nsorama from King of Kings

 

We are witnessing a revival of spiritual jazz, also known as cosmic jazz, whose values you carry. What could be your definition of this music?
I can only define my music. As I mentioned before I understand the need to use words to categorize and market music. However, I am an Artistic Being! The music I play is cosmic in that it is expansive and encompasses the past, present and future of the Omniverse! I also live in San Francisco! In the early 70’s the city was the epicenter for mind altering drugs, flower power, and freedom. I love the music of Jimi Hendrix, Sly and the Family Stone and Santana. But equally I grew up in Chicago. The home of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. I loved Martha and the Vandellas. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. And of course The Impressions. Then I was birthed into John Coltrane, nurtured by Cecil Taylor, destroyed and reinvented by Albert Ayler and the album “Bells”. Altoist Charles Tyler passed a message on to me I will never forget! Clifford King was truly «The King»! He taught me to play dogs and cats, lightning and rain, and invent my life. I mention all of the above because they are the aggregate of cosmic music…music of the Omniverse!

Your were a tap dancer, you had worked with Bill T. Jones, great choregrapher… What is your relationship to dance? Do you think music is a «body and soul» affair?
Yes, I am a tap dancer. Or more appropriately, a «hoofer». Legendary hoofer, the late Al Robinson, was my mentor and teacher. He taught me to tell stories with my feet. I am one of the repositories of amazingly complex and sublime «Al Robinson» steps. I also studied with the master Steve Condos. I also number Bill T. Jones as a friend and collaborator. His creativity and intellect is of the highest form. I danced a duet with Bill in the Cultural Odyssey production, “Perfect Courage”. Music is a «body and soul affair». I seek to be a very physical saxophonist with the stance of a basketball player at the free throw line. Breath to me is the most important aspect of my playing. I play like i’m swimming. Breathing deep, relaxed, but intense!

In your new album you talk about global apocalypse, climate change and the healing power of music. Why this title : An Angel Fell? A subliminal message?
Everyone who listens to the music and lyrics of “An Angel Fell” will have their own story to tell. It is my phantasmagoric journey just below the service of awareness. Something I dreamed or thought I dreamed but in fact it was a reality. A love story. A story of loss and recovery. A story of memory, minds, bodies, and spirits crossing time… falling through space. What’s your story?

When we see the coming to power of many nationalists, including Donald Trump in the USA, but also in India, Japan or Europe, are you pessimistic about the future of the planet?
I don’t have a pessimistic bone in my body! I embrace the positive and hope abounds. I’m from a people who were taken as slaves and who triumphed against all odds! My mother was one of those golden warriors. I saw my father (who is now 96 years old) stand up fearless looking into the barrel of a gun held by a white man. I was there as a teenager helping him as a janitor in the sixties. So, no I am not pessimistic about the future of the planet. I have seen real live angels in my life… they are everywhere… in the prisons, on the playgrounds, next door…

Tinoge

 

What are the main dangers for the next years ?
Indifference! Listen to the album.

The political commitment was very strong in the 70’s, and again there is a movement of more militant musicians. Do you believe that music is the weapon of the future, as Fela said?
A friend of mine said, «Musicians are the ambassadors of the soul». I believe this. For me weapons and music are diametrically opposed! Try to live one day without music in your life! Music is omnipresent! The eyes are the windows into the soul and the ears are the black hole into space. Music is change and change is music! See the clouds part with the sun. It’s a new start everyone!

“Tinoge” is co-written with Max Weissenfeldt and a few others. Are you surprised by this new generation, who often knows history better than many jazz specialists?
There are many of the new generation who respect what came before but are not anchored to it. I find it exciting when genres are broken down and barriers come tumbling down! Joshua fought the battle of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down! Musicians young and old have to speak with one voice, blow with one horn to tumble down walls of hatred, disrespect, and division.

How did you work with Malcolm Catto? What did he bring you?
Malcolm gave 100% to the recording! He has such large ears and the ability to help guide and produce a recording session in a respectful and mutually supportive manner. The more we worked together the better we understood each other. I found him to be very nurturing of my compositional needs and vision for the album which was worked out in my waking dreams for many years.

Are you going to perform on stage with Heliocentrics?
I am ready anytime!!!! And would love it!

Check the complete new record on Strut website

Before being half of the duo Kon & Amir, label manager of Wax Poetics and boss of 180 Proof Records, DJ Amir is first and foremost an accurate record collector and music lover. That’s why, on the occasion of the reissues of Strata pioneering spiritual jazz LP’s at BBE, we asked him to go back, on his story as a digger, but also on the history of the mythical Detroit label.

When did you start digging records?
I started digging seriously for records probably around 81’ or 82’ but I started collecting records way earlyer than that.

What LP’s did you buy at first? Do you still listen to them?
The LP’s that I started buying when I began my journey into collecting records were Stevie Wonder ‘Innervisions’, Grover Washington Jr. ‘Mister Magic’ and ‘Inner City Blues’, and any James Brown records I could get.
I still listen to all of these records. It’s funny a lot of people think that record collecting is all bout finding and listening to just the rarest records on the planet. This is so not what I am about. I love music (cue in The O’Jays) common and rare!

Do you have a particular style or favourite period?
I guess my favorite period of music is definitely the 60’s and 70’s of music ; everything from jazz to soul to funk to disco. For example, I love not only hard bop jazz but also jazz fusion. Whatever the music genre it has to have some complexity that still keeps the essence of funk from the soul.

Are you still digging, buying vinyl, visiting record shops?
I am definitely still digging and collecting vinyl. Although, not as much as I used to because as I have gotten older life and relationships start to become more important then digging all day everyday. However, when I can I am going to record shops more than online. I find that shopping online doesn’t give me the same exciting feeling as actually going to a record shop.

What was your first release on 180 Proof Records?
My first release on 180 Proof Records was the previously unreleased Kenny Cox ‘Clap Clap ! The Joyful Noise.’ This was released at the end of 2012. By the way, Kenny Cox was the owner and founder of Strata Records, Inc.

Kenny Cox
Clap Clap A Joyful Noise

Why did you choose this name: 180 Proof Records?
I chose the name 180 Proof Records because it is kinda of a play on 180 Gram vinyl. I wanted my records to be at the highest sound quality imaginable and the packaging to be impeccable.

What could be your editorial/esthetic line?
My editorial or esthetic line is something I borrowed from Strata which is «All Musics For All Peoples». Basically, the sound that I am trying to bring to the world is for everyone that has a heartbeat.

What could be the label’s leitmotiv?
The leitmotiv that best fits what Strata was all about is their moniker «The Sound of Detroit». They tried to represent the sound of Detroit in the best way possible.

You talk about mission about the rediscovery of Strata Inc.. A heritage mission? Memory? Inheritance?
My mission to rediscover Strata began when I was running Wax Poetics Records. I had contacted Lyman Woodard to reissue his Saturday Night Special album and he lad me to Barbara Cox the owner of Strata. Also I was commissioned around the same time to create an online exhibition for the Scion iQ museum that centered around lost youth culture. I decided to submit something on Strata and I was accepted.
My mission is to bring the history and legacy of Strata to not only the world but also to the Black American community in America that may not know about the legacy of labels/movements like a Strata Records. For example, how Strata was not only a record label but also an artist collective based on the idea of an artist run and controlled label. They also founded the first jazz music program at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio in 1970 and started community food based drives in Detroit.
Strata came out of the insurrections as most Detroiters call the riots of 1967 and 1968. This lead to a revolution in art, culture and politics. I definitely feel it is my inheritance and duty to tell the story of Strata !

About Strata Inc label, you had evocated a catalog which includes 30 unreleased masters in addition to the label’s 6 official commercial releases. Will you publish that?
The catalog of Strata I will definitely be publishing once I have gone through all of the masters. It is very expensive to transfer and remaster original reel to reel masters. In addition, it is also has been very difficult researching certain masters and artists because there has been little to no information on the original master tape.

Remember the day you listened to Strata’s first album? What a feeling?
I certainly remember listening to my first Strata record which was the Lyman Woodard Organization ‘Saturday Night Special’ album. At the time I knew about Strata Records but had not heard any of the records. It just so happens that I had a friend who wanted a rare hip hop promo 12” of Common Sense aka Common ‘The Bitch in You.” I traded my Common 12” for a mint copy of the Lyman album. When I first heard the album was blown away by the soulful and funky grittiness of the album. The grooves were so infectious that it instantly became one of my favorite albums.

The Lyman Woodard Corporation
Creative Musicians

Strata is emblematic of a 70’s jazz scene. What were its characteristics? And what differences with nowadays?
While Strata is very emblematic of the 70’s jazz scene there are definitely some differences. For example, not many jazz labels whether independent or commerical were community based artists collectives that focused on the revolutionary nature of art and culture. Not many labels were able to approach colleges and universities to propose starting a jazz music program or open their creative space so that local artists could come to rehearse or perform.
Morever, Strata was dedicated to the upliftment of the Black community of Detroit. As I mentioned before, Detroit suffered through two riots which devasted the city.The first riot is 1967 was caused by the constant harassment and killing of Black people by the Detroit police. This lead to a severe crack down by the National Guard in which several people were killed. Then in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated and like many inner city Black communities Detroit erupted. The assassination of Dr. King also birthed the creation of the Black Panthers as well as other political and social movements like Strata.
Nowadays, jazz has become marginalized by mainstream America and has lost a bit of its edge and ability to speak to the youth. There are some examples of those who are trying to ‘push the envelope’ in jazz like Kamasi Washington, Gregory Porter, or Thunder Cat. However, for the most part, jazz does not hold the weight cultural and artistical that it used.

Strata East is best known, and yet Strata was created before. Charles Tolliver even says that this was the exemple which served them. How do you explain this lack of recognition in the official jazz sphere?
I think the lack of recognition of Strata in the official jazz sphere stems from the lack of releases. Unfortunately, they were only able to release 6 albums. Strata East I believe has over 50 releases or more. I know some of the biggest jazz record collectors that either not heard of Strata or do not know the difference between Strata East and Strata.
Furthermore, Strata East was able to do records with the likes of Gil Scott-Heron, the Heath Brothers, and Shirley Scott to name a few. Being able to have such jazz heavyweights record with Strata East definitely helped to cement their legacy as one of the great jazz labels.
Lastly, just being based in New York City also helped Strata East gain access to more funding as well as the artistic talent.

Kenny Cox was at the creation of the label. What were his motives at the time?
As the creator of Strata Records, inc., Kenny Cox was motived to create an artist collective based on self-reliance and pushing forward the art and culture of jazz. I don’t think Kenny saw Strata becoming something with a cult status. Most artist and labels never envision this. They just create from the heart and soul.

Larry Nozero
Impressions Of My Lady

Was there a vision, an objective, a political one?
Again, the vision and objective of Strata was to create a movement based on artist collective based on self-reliance and pushing forward the art and culture of jazz. In addition, I firmly believe Kenny was trying to elevate the Black community of Detroit and America as a whole.

Detroit is a big city on the map of Great Black Music. How do the different scenes that compose it dialogue together? And do you think Strata Inc. is a good example of their eco-system?
The different music scenes in Detroit worked somewhat well together. For instance, many of the artists that recorded with Strata were musicians that played on a lot of Motown records. For example, Larry Nozero actually played the horn on the Marvin Gaye song ‘What’s Going On.’ Also Lyman Woodard was the musical director for Martha Reeves and the Vandellas.
Additionally, there was a lot of collaboration between labels like Tribe Records and Strata in Detroit. Both shared the same goal of self-reliance, community uplift and artistic freedom. Labels like Strata are a perfect exemple of the eco-system of the Detroit music scene. Hence, why Strata’s moniker was ‘The Sound of Detroit.’

The young DJs of Detroit still remember these rich hours?
There are some young dj’s in Detroit who remember the legacy of Strata but it is really the older dj’s like Theo Parrish, Moodymann, Juan Aktins, Carl Craig and others that remember Strata legacy the most. Mainly, because people like Moodymann have worked with some of the Strata artists like Norma Jean Bell. I remember when I first met Theo Parrish almost ten years ago and he was surprised that I was the one that reissued the Lyman Woodard ‘Saturday Night Special’ album through Wax Poetics Records. He was excited to talk about how he grew up listening and following Strata as a child.

Why and when did Strata Inc. stop?
Unfortunately, Strata closed its doors in 1976 due to lack of money to continue to run the label. Like most independent labels, when your distributor doesn’t pay you on time or at all it is very hard to keep things running.

Bert Myrick
Scorpio’s Child

Do you have other ideas for reissues, other than Strata Inc.?
I definitely have other ideas of labels that I want to reissue but for now I am keeping that a secret !

There are more and more reissues of old LP’s, and more and more record labels (major or indie) now release their new artists on LP, or EP. Do you think that the LP reissue market could ever reach saturation point?
I do think the reissue market is beginning to reach a bit of saturation but labels like myself that continue to not only release great music but also educate and evelate music will always survive.

Have you received many negative answers on some of the LPs, artists, unreleased tapes, you were trying to reissue?
The only negative feedback that I have received from some of my releases is that I have made some of them double vinyl. There have been some people complaining that they have to get up to turn over the vinyl too quick and that the high quality that I present my releases is really for the bourgeoisie not the masses. You cannot please everyone!

What is the LP you dream of reissuing?
The LP if it ever does exist would the project that Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, and Tony Williams supposedly recorded. It is also rumored that Jimi had asked Paul McCartney to join them on bass. That would be the ultimate release for me!

Maulawi
Street Rap

Click here to check for Strata Catalog

Brian Shimkovitz, the soul behind the Awesome Tapes from Africa record label, is a true pioneer when it comes to African music: he was the first new generation digger to target lost tapes as his main excavation goal when hitting the motherland. His curiosity led to classic vinyl reissues such as Hailu Mergia, Ata Kak or Penny Penny. Read the full story here.

When did you start digging records?
I have been collecting LPS since I was maybe 12 years old. I was obsessed with garage sales as a kid growing up in suburban Chicago. But my main collection is cassettes from various parts of Africa. I first visited West Africa in 2002.

What cassettes did you buy at first ? Do you still listen to them?
I was interested in Ghanaian hiplife, the rap style they have been doing there since around 1994. I still listen to some of the very first tapes I found, including music by Reggie Rockstone and VIP.

What Lps did you buy at first? Do you still listen to them?
When I started looking for records I was in a heavy Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin phase, a rite of passage for suburban white American males. I haven’t played these records in a while but that’s only because I am distracted by hundreds of disco 12”s.

Do you have a particular style or favourite period?
I think my digging for LPS these days focuses on late 70s jazz, early disco, and contemporary classical music, especially works that use computers or synths. I also like dollar-bin new age records and ethnographic field recordings from Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands/Australia.

Are you still digging, buying vinyl, cassettes, visiting record shops?
I travel a lot and don’t have money or space in my bags for vinyl but when I visit African countries, which is about once a year, I always bring back and ship home by mail as many tapes as humanly possible. But I never buy out entire stores or purchase like thousands from distributors. I hand select what I get even if it is in the hundreds.

When did you decide to focus mainly on cassettes reissues? What was your first release on Awesome Tapes From Africa?
I started ATFA the blog in 2006 as a way to spread information about music that isn’t easy to find or well-distributed outside of Africa. After a few years Secretly Distribution approached me and asked if I would like to do a label with the help of their business expertise and network. The first release was actually an LP by Malian singer Nahawa Doumbia. But the focus on tapes was because when I became interested in African music and started doing research in Ghana, tapes were the main thing you could find. I had always listened to tapes anyway, having grown up a serious Deadhead.

Why did you choose this name : Awesome Tapes From Africa? A kind of other sounds library?
I try to avoid using the term “other” or anything like that. Awesome Tapes From Africa the name came to me suddenly while talking about the hundreds of tapes in boxes under my bed in Brooklyn with my roommate one. I thought it sounded good. I realize it is kind of a cheesy name but it works for me. I feel more creative and I can focus better when I have some limitations. If the project were to include MP3’s or Guatemalan music it would be too overwhelming for me. Plus I am truly in love with the music from many parts of Africa and I have never even remotely gotten bored of any of it.

Because they show another part of african music, from another point of view, could we give a kind of ethnologist stamp on your records?
I studied ethnomusicology, african studies and anthropology at university and spent a year doing fieldwork about rap in Ghana. But ATFA was very much a reaction to what I feel is a self-serving approach in much research – the work spent in the field typically does very little for the people who gave their time to the research. So the project is meant to be for everyone and it is purposely not jargon-heavy or exclusive in terms of background knowledge. I am not interested in measuring how much people know or flexing my knowledge. It is all about NOT being an expert and just opening oneself up to music and people. The liner notes and marketing materials are more focused on telling the artists’ stories as humans who make music in a specific context, to help them reach fans and make a living beyond their borders. As opposed to looking at their music as an example of a larger movement and framing it in a more sociological or ethnographic sense.

Do you feel sometimes not so far from a firm like Folkways because you put on regular market some recording sessions done only for a their countries?
Comparing oneself to Folkways is impossible since that is such a monumental outfit that also is a product of a certain time in history. Before the Internet the ability to travel and explore musics in other countries was not available to many people. Folkways collection is the result of decades of work by dozens of researchers, communities and collectors. And it is unabashedly uncommercial – they lose lots of money and are quasi-governmental these days. Some of the texts feel dated now but still contain vital info that we can no longer collect. ATFA is a bit more focused on popular musics and things that everyone in urban parts of Africa can have access to, rather than disappearing folk forms and the like. I am very interested in the cassette and popular music as a mass produced artifact you can buy on the street or download on your smartphone.

Ata Kak
Daa Nyinaa

How do you find tapes? Is it something harder or easier than digging Lps?
Finding tapes is more aimless than digging for LPs sometimes because I often have limited options. Most shops across Africa have stopped selling tapes so whatever music I find I sift through, rather than searching for specific artists. I am most interest in the stuff I haven’t heard of or didn’t know exists.

How do you decide on the choice of reissues?
Reissues on ATFA are always complete albums. I am not into compilations because I am trying to expand artists’ careers. Therefore the recording must be all good, not just one or two songs. I want to release a variety of stuff, from a variety of regions and sensibilities. ATFA is meant to surprise people with music they didn’t know about and/or artists that are legends in their homeland but less well-known outside. I am into music that is super modern and also music that is relatively old or features traditional instruments. I am keenly aware of trends among labels reissuing African music and I avoid doing whatever they are doing.

One of our favorite (and one of the Superfly shop best seller) is Hailu Mergia. What an incredible story! How did you get in touch with him?
Funny thing about Hailu Mergia and I is that we met very easily. Searching for him was the easiest of all the artists I’ve worked with because when I Google’d him I found his phone number, called him and we decide to work together. It has been one of the most rewarding and positive experiences in my whole life. I found his tape a a shop in Northern Ethiopia and came back to my home at the time in Berlin and got very intensely into this recording of his “Hailu Mergia and His Classic Instrument”, where he plays the accordion and keyboards in a very compelling and beautiful way.

Hailu and Brian… and Hailu on “Shilela”

And what about the new one, “Wede Harer Guzo” from 1978?
Hailu and I have a wonderful working relationship and we are now great friends and trust each other completely. Putting together this release was relatively straightforward since he knows what to expect already.

On your website, you insist about the fact you share all benefits 50/50 with the artists. Could you tell us more about this topic?
I spend a significant amount of time and money on reissuing these records and if they make money the artists get 50% of it, which they receive every 6 months. There are people who say this isn’t enough but they typically don’t know much about the music industry or music distribution in African countries, let alone the “western” world.

During the eighties and nineties, a lot of african music productions were only available on cassettes, especially for the local market. Do you believe those productions were pretty different than african CDs for the European market? And what differences did you notice? Sound? Repertory?
The main thing I am into with ATFA is countering the idea that African music is “world music”, in the sense that it is made for hippies and pseudo-intellectuals in the West. The purpose of the project is show what music is popular in these various countries and regions. The production approaches differ when the recordings are made locally as opposed to studios in Europe or North America. That said, I am not against reissuing recordings made outside Africa. Many recordings made in Africa don’t get concerned with song length or elaborate album art. They often just contain the music and the track list and maybe the personnel. Definitely only certain types of African pop that was deemed marketable was produced in Western studios for “world music” labels. I am more into music made for people who live in these places and presenting it without changing the track sequence, album art of production/sound beyond restoring it, if necessary.

Another huge cassette market is Pakistan/India… Could you imagine creating a kind of subdivision dedicated to this geographical area, highly populated in terms of sounds, in all styles ?
Nope, never!

Dur Dur Band
Tajir Waa Ilaah

Have you received many negative answers on some of the artists, unreleased tapes, you were trying to reissue?
Most of the artists I manage to track down and contact end up doing a project with ATFA. There have been a few who for some reason don’t work out. I don’t really know why, to be honest. Sometimes after a few years of calling every couple months I give up and move on. I get strung along sometimes and never get sent masters or recordings I am hoping to release, even after sending a draft contract so they can see what the deal is. 9 times out of 10 the project happens though.

There are more and more reissues of old LPs, and more and more record labels (major or indie) now release their new artists on LP, or EP. Do you think that the LP reissue market could ever reach saturation point?
Yes, because many labels keep putting out the same types of stuff which is causing fatigue among some music fans. There are tons of people out there who think African music pretty much means West African guys with wah-wah guitar and funky beats. I am constantly trying to cut through idea and make available music that is distinctive and not defined by a Western analog.

What are your next releases?
I don’t have any releases until January because I have been busy working on visas for artists on the label to tour Europe and elsewhere. It’s a bit too soon to discuss the January release, I’m afraid but I will definitely keep you posted.

Ok, but what is the awesome tape you dream of reissuing?
That’s a fun question. I dream of reissuing more tapes from Somalia in general, but I can’t name a specific one because I don’t know much about them, I have so much more to learn!

The Awesome Tapes From Africa website

Donald Fagen
The Nightfly

Steely Dan
Home At Last

« Both the Steely Dan and Donald Fagen records were played endlessly at home and I never tired of there emaculate song form production. Lyricism and unique style of storytelling. Two great records that just make me feel really happy and uplifted. »
 

Jimi Hendrix
3rd Stone From The Sun

« The Jimi Hendrix Experience was my first intro into the pychedelic sound of Hendrix and the 60’s acid inspired stuff. I spent many a lazy stoned afternoon lying on my bed listening to this record over and over. The blues and guitar music were big in our house. »
 

Bob Marley and The Wailers
Rebel Music

« It is again just a perfect record – the blend of Chris Blackwell’s pop rock sensibility and Bob and his band’s deep deep groove feel and spirit are just unbeatable. A timeless LP. »
 

John Martyn
Small Hours

« Lastly John Martyn for that 1 song alone a material haunting soulful masterpiece – so spontanous and free – that guy had a big big heart. It brings shivers and a tear. »
 

What did Miles Davis, Salvador Dali, Jackie Kennedy, Leonard Bernstein, Andy Warhol, Timothy Leary and Brigitte Bardot have in common? Mati Klarwein, the painter who realized the mythical LP sleeves for ‘Bitches Brew’ and ‘Live Evil’ (Miles), ‘Abraxas’ (Santana) and so many others like Jimi Hendrix, Earth Wind and Fire, the Lats Poets, Jackie McLean, George Duke, Hermeto Pascoal, Eric Dolphy, Jon Hassell, Muddy Waters and Jerry Garcia… His colorful paintings have been used for numerous LPs, across all types of musical genres. They are a testimony of his totally special link to music, as underlined it the splendid book published in 2012 by Antoine de Beaupre : Mati and The music, a sort of “catalogue raisonné” about an unreasonable artist!

Mati Klarwein was born on April 9th, 1932, in Hamburg. He was from a family of artists : his father was an architect of the Bauhaus and his mother, an opera singer. But when the Nazis took power, the family had flee to Israel. During the post-war years, the young man settled in Paris, where he crossed path with Fernand Léger, Salvador Dali and Ernst Fuchs. They would become three pillars for his future works. At that time, he even tried jazz with Boris Vian, a writer and trumpet player, before crossing the Atlantic. In New York, Mati Klarwein added Abdul to his name, in support of the Palestinians. In the Mecca of jazz, he became known for being at the heart of the “flowery revolution”. He became an icon of the hippy generation by illustrating some of the most famous records of their most emblematic period. “I take nothing when I paint. When I am on drugs, I become really hot and I prefer to leave for nightclubs. On the other hand, I find most of my ideas when I am broken up well! Speaking about drugs can be as interesting as speaking about sex. Everything depends on who is expressing themselves. William Burroughs or Nancy Reagan.” Explicit lyrics.

The fact remains that the eminently sensory paintings of Mati Klarwein, between hallucinated surrealism and psychedelic naturalism, make spring kaleidoscopic colors, mythological characters and incredible landscapes, a vision of the world fed by the nature which he appreciated through his numerous trips the world over. During one of his journeys, he discovered Deia, a village nested in the nature of the Balearic Islands where, after several stays, he chose to settle down while the world was turning itself to other trends : yuppie, the Wall Street trader. That is where he decided to live, out of this world, without ever stopping painting, accompanied by his ghetto blaster, organizing hallucinated parties, where percussions became an invitation to shaman trances. He died there on March 7th, 2002.

A song for your trip…

« For me, to produce, it is to conceive an idea, and to be able to lead it to its term. What supposes that you have to make everything, or almost. » Alan Douglas had the feeling of the street. « It is from there that all the good ideas come. » If he wasn’t under the spotlight, this native of Boston was nevertheless one of the key figures of his time. The era of the end of the golden age of jazz and the irresistible ascension of the pop culture. Alan Douglas was best known for his lengthy association with Jimi Hendrix. Certainly, the guitarist was his friend, and the one who marked him for all his life, but Alan Douglas’s career cannot be resumed to these two years of complicity! Producer of numerous records which will become classics, he also published number of collections of protest singers, worked for Hollywood or avant-garde movies. That’s why we pay him tribute with a selection of 10 LP’s, which tell each a part of the incredible destiny of this hit man, died June 7th, 2014 at 81 years. 10 LP’s, but only one, singular, original vision of the music.
 
 
 
 

Alan Douglas enters the legend by creating a summit meeting. “Money Jungle” put together in 1962 an exceptional trio. «I had got on with Duke in Paris. We spoke about the fact to see us again, later. One day, I was in my office, in New York, when one employee warned me that mister Ellington was there. And directly, he told me: “Well, let us speak about the record that you would like to produce with me, for the pleasure…” I answered him that as regards for the big band, there were enough existing records. On the other hand, I liked very much the way he plays the piano, and I wanted to hear him in small band. I proposed him Charles Mingus and Max Roach, by arguing of the fact that they were in a way these heirs, carriers of the same values. My idea seduced him…»
 

«The jazz, it is the soundtrack of my life. I know that it is a commonplace : but it’s true, the jazz isn’t a reducible music in a definitive definition, in a small box. It is an attitude, an emotion, a way of feeling, living, the world. » In 1962, Alan Douglas is so going to produce 18 LP’s, among which some will become very popular. « That represents well all the aesthetics of the jazz at that time. Even if I was not able to have Ornette and Miles. The bop which arrived at its term, the free exploded the forms, the rock was at the top, the fusion was not any more going to delay. This sixties were rich, trust in me!»
 

After United Artists, Alan Douglas launched Record FM. « We began with Eric Dolphy. I asked him what he wanted to record? “Just to play, nobody lets me make what I want. With musicians who I love.” Dolphy never complained. But, for sure, he knew exactly what he wanted to hear. Some words, but it was very clear. Finally, some notes more than few words, because he always had a walk with his flute, and took out it to show you what he wanted as a music. And all the musicians wanted to show themselves deserving him. So, my job was rather simple: sit down and listen these magnificent sessions. Doubtless among the best which I keep in memory. We stayed in studio one week, from 3 pm untill 3 am. As a result: two LP which I consider as his best. » Recorded with Gotha of the new thing, “Conversations” and “Iron Man” are considered as monuments of new jazz.
 

« Richie Havens was one of the personalities of the clubs in New York Village in the beginning of the 60’s. We could hear him with the guitar almost everywhere. But there was an ironical problem : nobody could understand that a Black sings folk song, and not the real blues. » Alan Douglas gets the songwritter well before the glory of Woodstock. « The true personality of Richie Havens is there. Not try to have hits. Just inhale the mood of time, the asphalt of New York. I baptized the sessions “Electric Havens”, not for the electric dimension of the music, but in reference to the electricity which he created on his audience, in the power which he irradiated. It was enormous. »
 

« A good friend gave me 25 000 dollars to create my own record label. He just asked me to call it: Alan Douglas Records. A little bit too much! Thus I suggested him just Douglas. » The Bostonian is going to produce LP always on the same principle : new meetings which he suggests. Like on this record, of post-bop, quite modal, which associates under the name of the american drummer the keyboard player Chick Corea and the saxophonist John Gilmore!
 

It is at the corner of the 137th street and Lennox Avenue that Alan Douglas discovered Last Poets. Two records testify of it. The first was a masterpiece, « an happening of three hours in studio, as what I had heard in the street ». This episode will be burnt in the mythology of the rap which was not born yet. « Jalal had understood the history of the spoken poetry. Of course, you can go back to the african griots. That it is the essence of this art. But the shape took roots in certain prisons of the South of the United States. It is what we call the jail toast. The source of the rap. And that doesn’t learn as the guitar or the piano. No lesson. It is a natural capacity to know how to use the rhymes. In prisons, those who used this technique told their stories. Crimes, murders, dope, prostitutes… » The street, again and again.
 

With John McLaughlin, Alan Douglas is going to produce two LP, two great pieces to put in his credit. “Devotion”, a record influenced by the presence of Buddy Miles, « not the best drummer of the world, but the guy who was able to give a color r&b », and “My Goals Beyond”, with a cross-country team (Badal Roy, Airto Moreira, Dave Liebman) which translates the conversion of the British in the indian philosophy. A classic, still one, like for this incredible vision of the standard “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”.
 

The painter Mati Klarwein is going to illustrate several LP produced by Alan Douglas among which a collection of texts of the hero of the black power, Malcom X, entitled “By Any Means Necessary”, one 7 inch posthumous of Jimi Hendrix and The Last Poets’s LP, but also this album of Jerry Garcia, ex Grateful Dead. « Mati was a part of the band! » In this crew, there were two women, Stella, the wife of Alan Douglas, and Colette, whose shop of clothes, in the district of Soho, in New York, was then the place to be. There was also Jimi Hendrix, and Miles Davis, who tried to work with the guitarist. Unfortunately, for questions of dollars, and also ego trip, this session will never take place!
 

Alan Douglas signs in 1973 the fantastic “Hustlers Convention”, where Jalal of Last Poets appears under the name of Lightnin’ Rod. This LP looks like a sort of Babel of the great black music. A manifesto with Kool And The Gang and latin brothers of Barrio, with also two saxophonists well known: Julius Hemphill, icon of the new thing, and King Curtis, star of the good old time rhythm’n’blues. An album unsuccessfully, except for the esthetes. With Jalal, Alan Douglas will also record an historic take with Hendrix, called “Doriella Dufontaine”. « Everything left an improvisation between Jalal and Buddy Miles, on drums. And Jimi got up and said: let me play that. We reloaded everything: Jalal took a microphone, Jimi opposite in another room, and Buddy ready to go far away… Non-stop thirteen minutes. An improv. Magnificent ! Done… In the box ! »
 

Alan Douglas is going to sign between 14 and on May 23rd 1976 an epic series. “Wildflowers” in the RivBea studio, the loft held by the saxophonist Sam Rivers. A long chorus which takes the shape of several LP of anthology. All the jazz (or almost) was there. Henry Threadgill, Randy Weston, Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton … Imagine the atmosphere, hot. Quite libertarian. Fire free. « For the rather dark period for the jazz, out of order of any idea, it was a bright period. »
 
 
 

Listen Alan Douglas talking to Smokey about Duke Ellington, Last Poets, Jimi Hendrix and co :