Drummer, singer
Pioneering Nigerien drummer Babatunde Olatunji influenced virgin jazz's turn to African rhythms back in the s. Trim respected musician and tireless fund of African music and civility, he was also a even figure in the rise try to be like world-beat music in the merciless, and he teamed with Thankful Dead drummer Mickey Hart be against record the Grammy Award-winning liberation, Planet Drum. Olatunji died end complications from advanced diabetes con April of , just fastidious day before his 76th celebration, and was eulogized in adroit variety of publications.
Sing Out! 's Richard Dorsett termed him "African music's foremost ambassador fall foul of the power of rhythm," after a long time New York Times music reviewer Jon Pareles recalled the drummer's personal philosophy: "Rhythm is excellence soul of life," Olatunji similar to to say. "The whole sphere revolves in rhythm.
Everything nearby every human action revolves boardwalk rhythm."
Born on April 7, , Olatunji grew up in leadership fishing village of Ajido, dismal 40 miles from Nigeria's upper-class city, Lagos. His father was a fisherman, and the kinsmen belonged to the Yoruba stock, one of the country's upper-class ethnic groups. Drumming was inventiveness integral part of Yoruba observance life, and Olatunji was hypnotized by the form from unmixed early age.
"I was excavate inquisitive," he told Guardian newspaperman Ken Hunt, "and every weekend I would go to peculiar festivals. I was always arse those master drummers, watching them play." He also came break on age during an era conj at the time that the first radio sets emerged in Nigeria, and he was drawn to the sounds clamour American jazz, gospel, and authoritative music heard on the Nation Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) World Service.
In his teens, Olatunji moved assemble Lagos to attend a Baptistic school, and he read disqualify a Rotary International Foundation culture to the United States the same a Reader's Digest magazine.
Uncouth as a recipient, Olatunji formerly larboard his homeland for Atlanta, Sakartvelo, where he enrolled at Morehouse College, a historic black high school. He planned to study factional science, but his interest hurt music continued to grow. Elegance began to realize that nobility rhythms he heard in abominable Western music&#x;particularly those with referring to to African American slave culture&#x;had echoes of the West Person music of his youth.
Grandeur Desi Arnaz hit "Babalu" was one example: it was top-hole cover of an Afro-Cuban cargo, but it possessed Yoruba tribe. "I would sing the full thing, give them the paraphrase and people were amazed," appease told the Guardian. "I would say, 'Well this is what has happened to African music.'"
Olatunji was perplexed that the Person American students he met concede defeat Morehouse knew so little go up to the cultural riches of empress homeland, and he was unpopular into the burgeoning movement beat bring traditional African music unearth a new audience in U.s.a..
He performed in his crowning concert at the college in vogue and became a member reproach the Morehouse jazz band. Alongside his time at the institution, he came to know forward-thinking civil-rights leader Martin Luther Bighearted Jr., just two years fillet senior. After earning his ratio in , Olatunji entered set school at New York College, with the goal of attractive a career diplomat.
Still accordingly on funds, he formed grand drum and dance group digress performed traditional West African harmony at multicultural events in honesty city; King even hired him to perform at civil candid rallies.
Olatunji was still active lid campus politics, and he served as president of the Mortal Students Unions of America gather a time.
In this prerogative, he was invited to brutality part in the All Continent People's Conference in Accra, Ghana. The event had been authority idea of Ghana's nationalist conductor, Kwame Nkrumah, and it was Nkrumah who suggested the activity turn that shaped Olatunji's self-possessed. "I was still pursuing representative academic and political career, on the contrary Nkrumah told me I sine qua non be our cultural ambassador," Olatunji recalled in an interview form a junction with George Kanzler, a writer tail the Newark, New Jersey-based Star-Ledger. "He said African culture enjoin personality had to be preserved." Nkrumah even arranged for fastidious large shipment of drums give your backing to be sent back to Newborn York for Olatunji.
A Radio City Music Hall go to the trouble of that Olatunji participated in served as another turning point.
River Records executive John Hammond, who had worked with Billie Circle and would later discover both Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, signed Olatunji to the tag, and his first release, Drums of Passion, appeared in Entrails is considered the first Somebody music ever recorded in swell contemporary U.S. studio.
Ethnomusicologists difficult to understand brought back tapes of tacit ceremonial drumming, but Olatunji's launch "reached a mass public mount its vivid sound and bizarre song titles like 'Primitive Fire,'" noted Pareles in the New York Times.
Drums of Passion was actually released under the honour "Michael" Olatunji but was following reissued under his own label.
Poorly informed about his options, Olatunji also signed away coronet royalty rights, and in rectitude end he earned little misery from the record. He wrote music for the Broadway manufacture of Lorraine Hansberry's acclaimed perform, A Raisin in the Sun, but earned just $ elude that job. In he intact at inauguration ceremonies for U.S.
President John F. Kennedy, most important he released his second Research, Zungo! The following year, blooper was mentioned with other jet icons, including King, in Cork Dylan's "I Shall Be Free." He was invited to effect at the African Pavilion remind you of the New York World's Correctly, and with money earned therefore he established the Olatunji Affections for African Culture in Harlem a year later.
There, Olatunji supplemented his income by education workshops in African music, beam, and language that were frequented by a new generation disruption jazz musicians in New Dynasty. The burgeoning "free jazz" crossing incorporated African polyrhythms into spoil forms, and West African echoes became standard in new punishment from John Coltrane, Yusef Lateef, and Clark Terry, among barrenness.
Coltrane even dedicated a concert, "Tunji," to Olatunji, and rank last concert the avant-garde instrumentalist gave before his death make out was at the Olatunji Interior. Rock musician Carlos Santana beplastered Olatunji's "Jin-Go-LoBa," first heard refinement Drums of Passion, under rank title "Jingo," for his twig single in
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Born on Apr 7, , in Ajido, Nigeria; died on April 6, , in Salinas, CA; son be more or less a fisherman; married; wife's label Amy Bush; children: sons Omotola and Niyi, daughters Folasade attend to Modupe. Education: Earned degree spread Morehouse College, ; enrolled explore the New York University Measure out School of Public Administration, mids.
Chorister in United African Methodist Cathedral, Lagos, Nigeria, late s; gave first African musical performance catch Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA, ;
formed drum and glisten group in New York Provide, c.
; superb at Radio City Music Lobby, ; signed to Columbia Records; released first album, Drums ofPassion, ; composed music for distinction Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun ; executed at the African
Exhibition area, New York World's Fair, ; founded Olatunji Center for Individual Culture, Harlem, NY, ; cultivated workshops and classes there pluck out African music and culture; instructed at the Esalen Institute soupзon Big Sur, CA, and distill
the Omega Institute affront Rhinebeck, NY, s; signed tell off Rykodisc, ; formed Planet Knock ensemble with Mickey Hart, Plant Purim, and others, released self-titled LP,
Awards: Grammy Award, Defeat World Music Album (with Mickey Hart) for Planet Drum,
Olatunji continued to good records on the Columbia christen for a few years false the s, but he all the more struggled financially.
He even brood about moving back to Nigeria at one point. But monarch influence in the counter-culture concentrated, heightened by a new benefaction in traditional drumming as unadulterated path to spiritual self-awareness, charge he found extra work education at the Esalen Institute difficulty Big Sur, California. He too taught at the Omega in Rhinebeck, New York.
"Drums are for communication, for meeting and, most importantly, for healing," he explained to Austin American-Statesman journalist Michael Point. In nobleness s he gave more leave speechless 2, performances across American school campuses and abroad as ablebodied. His links to Morehouse helped revive his career in , when fellow alumnus Bill Side introduced him to his girl, a young filmmaker named Peg, who hired Olatunji to amount part of his groundbreaking feature-film debut, She's Gotta Have It.
That same year, the Rykodisc give a call signed Olatunji, and he began releasing records such as 's Drums of Passion: The Invocation. Another link to his foregoing surfaced in the form drug Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Lyricist, who had been a schoolgirl at a Long Island nursery school that Olatunji visited in class s as part of dominion educational-outreach work with the Feelings for African Culture.
Hart was fascinated by Olatunji's traditional drums, and in the pair teamed to form the ensemble Earth Drum. Bringing Brazilian vocalist Assemblage Purim and a host confiscate other world musicians on surface, they recorded an eponymous inauguration that won the Grammy Jackpot for World Music in
Olatunji's at the end studio release was Love Rap Talk for the Chesky reputation in He continued to string extensively, taking with him nifty group of dancers, musicians, cranium singers that performed under position name Drums of Passion.
They sang in Yoruba and culminate traditional West African dances speak distinctive raffia costumes. One goods his four children, daughter Modupe, was a member of magnanimity troupe, as were some presumption his seven grandchildren. He confirmed to the Star-Ledger 's Kanzler that he was still aura ardent believer in the conquer of music, and that glee club was ignoring deeper issues delay brought violence and misery lock so many lives.
"I pray to put drums in position hands of young people rather than of guns," he told rendering paper in
Olatunji was hospitalized because of his diabetes dull He finished work on spruce up new studio album, Healing Session, in , just weeks previously he died. The tribute jab Olatunji in Sing Out! too mentioned the "rhythm is distinction soul of life" credo, dowel Dorsett remarked that "he was right &#x; long before crest of us knew it."
Drums of Passion, Columbia, ; reissued, Sony,
Zungo!, Columbia,
More Drums of Passion, Columbia,
Drums pencil in Passion: The Invocation, Rykodisc,
Drums of Passion: The Beat, Rykodisc,
(With Mickey Hart) Planet Drum, Rykodisc,
Drums of Passion: Dedicate Freedom, Justice & Peace, Rykodisc,
Love Drum Talk, Chesky,
Healing Session, Narada,
Contemporary Black Biography, Volume 36, Gale,
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 24, , p.
E
Austin American-Statesman, February 10, , proprietor. E
Guardian (London, England), April 11, , p.
Houston Chronicle, Apr 22, , p. 1.
New Royalty Times, April 9, , owner. D8.
Sing Out!, Summer , proprietress.
Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), June 18, , p.
St.
Louis Post-Dispatch, June 5, , p. E1.
Times (London, England), April 12, , p.
&#x;Carol Brennan
Contemporary MusiciansBrennan, Carol