Two Original Tracks from Saxophonist Dotun Bankole

Tenor Saxophonist Dotun “Dotsax” Bankole dropped by my house the other night for a jam. He plays a 156k silver plate Mark VI which is about a year younger than the horn I've been playing lately, a 148k Mark VI that is basically bare brass, having been stripped of its silver plate a long time ago. The horns are brothers from the late 60's, although his has a high F# key and mine doesn't  Dotun really liked the resonance of my horn and we traded instruments for the evening. He is playing on a Jody Jazz metal mouthpiece which was given to him by the manufacturer while on tour in the States a couple of months ago with Femi Kuti.

Dotun was bemoaning the scarcity of jazz in present-day Lagos. There is not a single venue in this city of 17 million that features live jazz every day. I thought maybe it was just me because I have played out less this past year than in any year in recent memory, although I have been working in a city which is lauded in some media circles as one of the really happening places in the third world. Not really happening for jazz since there is practically no place to jam, even for excellent local players, and not much happening even for home-grown styles like afrobeat although the music press refers to afrobeat as being really popular worldwide – I've previously written about that paradox.

In any event, Dotun continues to improvise and create on his saxophone. Recently he has been working on two original tracks in the studio: Irawo Owuro and Aja Nti Ele, where he plays soprano sax rather than his more usual tenor. You can listen to these two works-in-progress here and look for and buy the CD when it is released. Click on the track names to download and listen. Meanwhile, you can catch Dotsax playing tenor behind Femi Kuti at the New Africa Shrine in Ikeja, Lagos, on Thursday and Sunday evenings.

Saxophonist Shola Emmanuel

In the shed with Shola Emmanuel

Nigerian saxophonist, composer, and arranger Shola Emmanuel visited me in Lagos recently. He was introduced four and a half years ago as the best saxophonist in Abuja and his skills have only improved since then. He is playing music nobody else in Nigeria is doing today. Hip hop and so-called contemporary R&B have eradicated local music like afrobeat and juju from the West African airwaves, and jazz, which never had that strong of a local scene, is low-profile. Shola is one of the foremost musicans keeping jazz alive and vibrant in Nigeria today, blending a strong grounding in African rhythms with fluid and creative improvisation.

Shola just self-produced his first CD, Nine Lessons by the Rhythm & Sax Orchestra, nine original compositions and arrangements with Shola up front on alto and tenor saxes (and trumpet on one track) over large group backings. The CD was launched at a concert in Abuja on October 21 which, by all accounts, was a sellout. Shola primarily plays alto although he pointed out to me that he, like many hornmen in Nigeria, started out on trumpet. Here is a Youtube video of Shola playing one of his originals, Into D Woods: 

We jammed for six or seven hours, part of the time joined by friend Tunde who plays alto. I played tenor and Shola split his time between his alto and borrowing my second tenor. He got a powerful sound out of the Kohlert. We mostly played out of my book which meant a heavy dose of Gene Ammons tunes, Jammin' with Gene, Treux Blue, and Happy Blues. Showboy dropped by and gave us all a workout in afrobeat; we played the horn sections of several Fela tunes and jammed through Night In Tunisia. I caught the proceedings on my Zoom recorder and have sampled two tracks for download, duets with Shola on alto and me on tenor: Caravan and Doxy, which we played in tribute to our mutual colleague, the late Dare Peter; click to listen. It is easy to identify each of us and Shola's fluent sound is apparent. 

Shola is a musician who has advanced significantly since I met him and will definitely be going places. His web site www.rhythmandsax.com is currently under construction as of this writing, but check back soon for downloads and gig notices. 

Tribute to the Late Nigerian Saxophonist Dare Peter

Nigerian Saxophonist Dare Peter

Saxophonist Shola Emmanuel came down from Abuja to visit and we jammed for a quick hour before heading off to the New Africa Shrine to hear Femi Kuti. Shola and I hadn't seen each other in four years but it didn't seem to matter, either musically or in friendship. I was taking the opportunity to catch up on hap'nin's of some of our other musician mates in Abuja when I learned some shocking news: in Shola's words, Dare is no more.

Bandleader and saxophonist Dare Peter passed away last month after struggling with a long illness. I don't know Dare's exact age but he couldn't have yet reached 40. He came across as kind of a hard-nosed Rasta type with his dreadlocks and Rastaman hat, but that hard exterior was far from the full reality as Dare proved himself to be a musician of heart and integrity in the time I knew him.

Dare Peter and Ron Ashkin in Abuja, 2008

Back in 2008, I walked in to the legendary Elephant Bar in Abuja and heard Dare playing Sonny Rollins' Doxy on alto, supported by a great local rhythm section. He immediately invited me up on stage to join him (here is an audio track of us doing Doxy). That cemented a musical relationship for the rest of the year when I became his second saxophonist, playing tenor, and we played his regular Elephant Bar gig as well as going out to other venues like Silver Spoon and the Arts & Crafts Village. It was at Silver Spoon with Dare's band that I backed up Dede Mabiaku, not knowing at the time that Dede was Fela Kuti's protégé and famous throughout Nigeria. Someone in the audience dashed me a bottle of Champagne that night.

Dare was inclusive and accepting as a bandleader, giving me plenty of chance to stretch out and improvise as the ideas flowed; not competing with me, cutting me off, getting in the way, or making me feel like I was stepping on his toes. There were plenty of times where he gave me the feeling that I was being featured by the band and not just playing a supporting role. He had a repertoire that spanned from jazz to highlife to pop and often a set would progress through all three styles; I'd usually play the jazz opening set and the highlife closer but usually chose to sit out on a lot of the chick singer vocals. Playing with Dare really opened up my desire to perform.

As a musician, Dare had an easy facility on alto sax with a screaming altissimo. His signature tune was Grover Washington's Mr. Magic. Here is a video Dare playing Mr. Magic in 2008:

I've posted this before, but this time it is for posterity (more videos can be found here as well). I understand that Dare married soon after I left Nigeria and leaves behind his wife and young son. Dare Peter, Nigeria's Mr. Magic, rest in peace.

African Sax Players (Mostly Central and West Africa)

There are some great African tenor sax players out there, some well known, others under-recognized. But that is the case with horn players in general. Probably the best-known African horn players are Fela Kuti and Manu Dibango. Fela is gone but Manu is still around. 

Fela had a rough life and in the great American tradition, was recognized by a Broadway musical long after he passed away. Fela’s music speaks for itself and practically established a whole genre, Afro-beat, which is undergoing a revival of sorts in the West (shades of jazz repertory) although it is difficult to find in his native Nigeria any more since hip-hop is just so much better (nudge nudge, wink wink). There are easily more than 50 Fela albums available through various sources. Two of his sons, Femi and Seun, carry on the tradition with bands of their own that play respectable updated Afro-beat, although they can’t shake a stick at Dad even if their audiences are bigger, kind of like Joshua Redman and Dewey Redman. 

I keep coming across posts on sites like Sax On The Web where people dis Fela’s playing, not technical enough I suppose, too much emotion and not enough chord substitutions. I don’t get it. You don’t listen to Fela’s band and expect to hear the Johnny Carson Tonight Show Orchestra. Fela actually was a trained musician who created a unique playing style rooted in rhythm; it wasn’t an analytical style by any means but it sure does connect. I’d rather listen to Fela play tenor than Warne Marsh any day. 

Manu Dibango is best known for Soul Makossa which was a pop radio hit in the US back in my high school days. We didn’t know what the heck it was back then. Jonny, my Nigerian sax playing friend and bandstand mentor, puts Manu #1 on his list. There are plenty of Manu’s recordings available and I particularly like CubAfrica. 

Five other tenor sax greats who are lesser known but definitely worth seeking out if you are interested in hearing original styles not cloned out of the conservatory are Jean Serge Essous, Dexter Johnson, Verckys, Issa Sissoko, and Getatchew Mekurya. The last three are still alive and the last two are still musically active.

Issa Sissoko is the saxophone player in Orchestre Baobab from Senegal. Baobab has undergone a revival on the world music circuit and if you are lucky and live in a major urban area, it is still possible to see them perform without watering down their music in any way, fortunately. Amazing stuff. Getatchew Mekurya is from Ethiopia and likewise has seen his fortunes revive recently. 

Verckys is apparently still around although he hasn't been making music for a while. He was with Franco in TPOK Jazz and then formed Orchestre Vévé. Some of his recordings with Vévé are just wild; check out Vivita.

From the past, virtually anything played by Essous or Johnson is worth hearing. Like Verckys, Essous is from Congo and is primarily associated with the Latin-based rumba and proto-soukous music that came out of Central Africa in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Essous played with Franco’s early OK Jazz and then with Les Bantous de la Capitale and Rock-A-Mambo. Dexter Johnson is mostly known for his work with Senegal’s Super Star de Dakar, the band that spawned Youssou N’Dour. Why the saxophone went out of style in Central and West Africa is baffling; by the 70s saxophones were becoming rare and there are hardly any recordings from the 1980s that feature other than guitars (and then the dreaded synth arrived…). 

Check these guys out; as much as I love Trane and compatriots it does a lot of good to hear great tenor sax players who have developed in another equally valid tradition, whose music deserves to be more widely known and incorporated.