GUY WARREN OF GHANA The founder of Afro-Jazz

Jake Reed

BLACK NATIONALISM

�  Marcus Garvey spearheaded the Back-to-Africa movement.

�  He believed that fortifying education, health, science, infrastructure, etc. in Africa would strengthen the Black world beginning at its base.

�  Universal Negro Improvement Association formed the Provisional Government of the African Republic with its own Declaration of Rights.

�  Garvey believed that, rather than blaming their suppression on fate, Negroes could rise up and become the “great and mighty people” that they once were by being proud of their heritage and uniting.

BLACK ART

�  Cultural nationalists believed there was a “special consciousness” in their art.

�  They saw increasing visibility of Black culture as more power for the race. It had beauty and challenged the “superior” Euro-American art.

�  Jeff Donaldson, founding member of AFRI-COBRA, criticized the fact that Negroes on TV were depicted doing “white things.” (1969)

�  He noted that African/Afro-American art was excluded in both high school and college curriculums, and that his ancestors’ art was called “tribal” and “primitive.”

�  He also spoke against “art for art’s sake.”

GUY WARREN

�  Also known as Kofi Ghanaba.

�  Warren first fell in love with American music when he was given clarinetist Artie Shaw’s “Non-Stop Flight” album by a British army captain.

�  At a young age, he was inspired by drummer Harry Dodoo and other ragtime musicians that played in Accra’s Gold Coast Bar. He became the bar’s house drummer as a young teenager.

�  He learned music theory at Achimota College in Accra, where he wrote his own variety shows. He moved shortly to New York, where he worked with trombonist Miff Mole.

GUY WARREN

�  In Accra in 1947, he formed the Tempos, a highlife band with trumpeter E.T. Mensah and Joe Kelly.

�  In London in 1950, he joined Kenny Graham’s Afro-Cubists as a bongo player.

�  He hosted a show on BBC Radio’s “Calling West Africa” covering the London jazz scene.

�  His journalism work led him to befriend Kwame Nkrumah, who would become the first president of independent Ghana several years later.

�  After joining another band in Liberia in 1951, he became the nation’s first DJ.

GUY WARREN IN THE UNITED STATES

�  Warren returned to Chicago in 1954, and introduced the talking drums in a performance with sax player Lester Young on Studs Terkel’s radio show.

�  In Chicago in 1955, he met pianist Gene Esposito, and would record his first album, “Africa Speaks, America Listens” with Esposito and drummer Red Saunders.

�  He was invited to play in an all-star concert by bebop saxophonist Charlie Parker, but unfortunately Parker died before the occasion.

�  He played with jazz greats but realized that he could never play jazz as well as them because he had a different culture. “They have a different culture, and they can never play like you,” he told himself.

JAZZ

�  The blending of African sounds with European traditions to create a unique style.

�  Jazz’s roots in African music tradition can be seen in: �  Polyrhythm

�  Call and response

�  Lots of expression

�  A lessened boundary between musician and audience

AFRO-JAZZ

�  Warren combined African rhythms with Western harmonies to create a unique sound.

�  He wanted to bring jazz back to its African roots, to play African music with a jazz influence, rather than jazz music with an African influence.

�  Robin D.G. Kelley explained that Warren wanted to play the jazz drum kit, but “bring to it a kind of African rhythmic conception.” He wanted to add talking drums to the mix and ultimately create the first African-jazz fusion album.

�  American jazz drummer Max Roach said that Warren was ahead of his time with the genre, and that he was ignored at first. It took 17 years for imitators to attempt to recreate Warren’s sound.

MAX ROACH

�  He was an American drummer whom Warren befriended and admired for playing drums closely to the original style of their African origin.

�  Roach called Warren a “genius” and compared his work for the Black race to the Black Nationalism movement that Marcus Garvey had begun several decades earlier.

�  According to Roach, Warren was considered a hero of the Back-to-the-Africa movement in the U.S.

�  “In order for Afro-American music to be stronger, it must cross-fertilise with its African origins,” Warren told him.

“AFRICA SPEAKS”

�  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmJfp1ypWMg&t=2m13s

�  The first half is based on West African drum tradition, with the vocal chant melody leaning slightly toward jazz.

�  The second half features a simple piano melody and talking drum.

�  This piece is taken from his first album, “Africa Speaks, America Listens.”

“THE TALKING DRUMS LOOK AHEAD”

�  https://soundcloud.com/jake-reed/the-talking-drum-looks-ahead

�  This piece is a great example of Warren’s overall goal of bringing African influences back into the forefront of jazz.

�  He said himself that he uses the talking drum to play “a melodic line just like any other melody instrument … It is playing jazz.”

�  He also believed that the talking drum could fit “comfortably into the idiom” of jazz if played well.

�  This is from the album “Themes for African Drums” and was dedicated to jazz pianist Thelonious Monk.

“THAT HAPPY FEELING”

�  https://soundcloud.com/africanext/happy-feeling-bomdigi-the

�  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVBM5Msq8yw

�  Originally found on “Africa Speaks, America Listens.”

�  It was rerecorded with orchestral instrumentation by Bert Kaempfert, and became an international hit and a Top 40 success in the U.S.

�  The original version features saxophone and bass over traditional African percussion.

�  Melodic composition lent itself easy to an orchestral version.

POST-SUCCESS

�  In 1960, he premiered a drum suite called “Voices of Africa” at the Ghana jazz festival.

�  Became a teacher in Ghana in the early 1970s.

�  In Ghana in 1974, years after his peak of success, Warren told Max Roach, “I only do the things which would stimulate my growth as a person and as a musician.”

�  At this time, he was living in Ghana but wasn’t accepted and often looked down upon for his music. “I mix with the people without letting the people mix with me,” he told Roach.

POST-SUCCESS

�  Despite Roach’s accounts, acceptance and acclaim for Warren seemed to grow following his 1974 visit.

�  Warren released “The Divine Drummer” in 1978.

�  He played at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1986 and his last performance was in Accra in 2008.

�  He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the W.E.B. DuBois Centre in Accra in 2005.

�  He died on December 22, 2008, at 85.

OVERVIEW

�  Guy Warren has a reputation as the artist responsible for bringing an African presence back to jazz music.

�  By doing this, he brought the consciousness of Africa back into popular Black music, giving visibility to the African continent as a source of great music and great national identity.

�  Some believe that his genre-fusing compositions paved the way for more popular world music artists such as Fela Kuti.

�  Some listeners feel that his albums still sound as fresh and revolutionary now as they did when they were released, and some even think that the full power of his work still has yet to be understood.