Fela's Musicians - Interview with Rilwan "Showboy" Fagbemi, Part 3

Showboy: Yes. You know, the music, the awareness, the message, the information is clear, because Fela's music brought enlightenment to a lot of Nigerians, it made them know their right and wrong. He was like, you know, the mouthpiece of the people, talking for the people, so it was like the shadow of the government seeing all the bad things they are doing and telling them, man this is not right.
Ron: Look outside today.

Showboy, direct link to Fela Kuti

Showboy: Check it out. Most of what, most of things that Fela wrote about is what is happening tomorrow...You see, so, Nigeria was so lucky to have someone like him who was like the spiritual father of Nigerians, the spiritual father of Nigerians trying to tell them, make them understand the right and the wrong within the society. 

Ron: In the West, some of us knew already, but small. 

Showboy: Yes, yes, small amount of people, not everyone, not even 30% 

Ron: Not even 3% 

Showboy: That's what I mean. So you know, now, this system has been there for long, and it has never changed. 

Ron: The brainpower it takes to improvise, you could be a brain surgeon. The number of hours of practicing, rehearsing... 

Showboy: Rehearsing, studying your instrument, getting to know your instrument like me, my baritone, how did I get to my standard, get to where I was going on my saxophone, I was doing 8 hours practice every day. Look, if you see me on the road, I'm playing. If you see me in the car, I'm playing. If you see me on stage, I'm playing. 

Ron: That's John Coltrane 

Showboy: That's what I was doing. I was playing everywhere. 

Ron: They say he'd fall asleep... 

Showboy: With his saxophone. I remember. At (name unclear) when they're on session, they would be crying Coltrane! Coltrane! Coltrane! Before you know it, the inspiration starts coming. Music is about sound, it is about the mind, it comes from here (points to his head). Improvisation is the state of your mind. Because if you want to, like me, if I want to play my solo, my mood tells my solo. 

Ron: You got to be on stage with Fela every day, it is like training as an athlete, you are always up here (hand over head) 

Showboy: Always there because I have to play solos for the dancers, I have to play solos for Fela to dance, and you know moving with the rhythm, now trying to infuse your own mood, your own mind. It wasn't easy. Let me tell you something, sometimes when you come out there to play that solo, the way you start your solo and you see Fela sit like this (sits back in chair), you are not doing good. But when you come in and you start your solo and you see Fela do like this (sits up at attention), you are on the path. 

Ron: The Nigerian crowd doesn't seem to respond. Like if you play at the Apollo, people jump and scream, here every one is like (sits still) 

Showboy: It's their mood, and the way they express themselves, it is entirely different. 

Ron: When I saw you play Saturday, I thought, I could come here every day, but the crowd was like (sits still). They don't know what they have!

Rain Sultanov, An Under-Recognized Master

In 2007 I spent some months on a work assignment in Azerbaijan. Needing my jazz fix, I checked out the local music scene and found that the main man on tenor in Baku is named Rain Sultanov. I looked him up. The first time we met he was playing soprano with piano accompaniment in the lobby of the Baku Hyatt, a high class lounge gig. 

Rain came by my hotel room one afternoon; I had picked up a DVD of Trane from the Jazz Casual series (1964) and was watching it on my laptop. Rain got his horn out of its case and just started playing along with Trane. My jaw dropped. He is a stunningly good player. 

I tried to talk him into regular lessons but he declined and gave me a few tips here and there instead, the kind of tips you can practice for years (you sound pretty good but try this with your phrasing...). For about a month he loaned me his Mark VI tenor to play on. We stayed in contact on and off for the time I was in Baku and then I was gone. 

I understand that in his high school days, Rain was the best clarinet player in the entire former Soviet Union. He spent some time playing in Germany, has recorded albums of both straight ahead Trane-influenced jazz and original jazz-Azeri fusion, but otherwise he is virtually unknown outside his homeland. I was pleasantly surprised to find him on the bill at the Penang Island Jazz Festival in 2010.

The Penang festival is a mix of mostly pop and fusion groups with an occasional hard-core jazz act thrown in, and Rain’s quartet was that year’s hard core act. His main stage set, I fear, was way over the head of the crowd which was expecting the Swingle Singers. I had the opportunity to jam with him after hours at the midnight jam on the last day of the festival, and he blew me off the stage on Impressions. I am pretty much fearless when it comes to jamming but this is one case where I was embarrassingly outclassed. I thank Rain for letting me sit in with him although he knows that. The video above is Rain and his quartet doing Giant Steps later that night, December 6, 2010. Elchin Shirinov is smokin' on keys and Rain's brother Ramin is on drums.

Jackie receiving instruction from Rain Sultanov. "No...no...no..."

Rain came by the house the next day and gave Jackie a sax lesson which she will not forget for a long time. It was a real treat for a young 14-year-old player to get a one-on-one with a world class performer. I hope Rain is keeping his gigs and recording projects up and finding wider recognition outside of Baku. He is a skilled and dedicated player and deserves it. Here is the link to his official web site.

Who's on My Turntable (or CD Player or iPod)

Surprise, all horn players.

Basic everyday vocabulary: 
Coleman Hawkins
Lester Young
Charlie Parker
Dexter Gordon
John Coltrane
Sonny Rollins (*)
Ornette Coleman (*)

And onward, I'm sure I'm inadvertently leaving some out:
Billy Harper (*)
Booker Ervin
Budd Johnson
Charles Brackeen (*)
Chris Potter (*)
Dewey Redman
Eddie Harris
Edward Wilkerson (*)
Ellery Eskelin (*)
Eric Dolphy
Frank Lowe
Fred Anderson
Gene Ammons
Jemeel Moondoc (*)
Joe Harriott
Joe Henderson
John Gilmore
John Tchicai (*)
Julius Hemphill
Kalaparusha (*)
Ken Vandermark (*)
Lucky Thompson
Odean Pope (*)
Paul Gonsalves
Paul Jeffrey (*)
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Rob Brown (*)
Sam Rivers
Sean Bergin (*)
Tina Brooks
Tony Malaby (*)
Von Freeman (*)

(*) These guys are still around; seek them out and support their performances.

My Musical Biography, Part 2

Fast forward to college. Growing up in Terre Haute I didn’t hear any jazz (though I later discovered that Duke played one of his last road gigs at Mr. Boos on Third Street). 16 years old at Harvard where my classmates included Yo Yo Ma, who was already a recording artist, and Jerry Harris, who went on to play bass with Sonny Rollins. I liked music so I went down to WHRB in the ancient Memorial Hall basement and joined up. I didn’t know enough about music to get any on-air work at first so I began by running the boards in the control room. I was good at it and found a lot of work there, and eventually got on the air.

My exposure to jazz began at the deep end, with Coltrane and Dolphy, and I pretty much immediately lost interest in rock and such (although I have retained some fondness for hillbilly music). The radio station had a huge record library and WHRB had the custom of suspending regular programming during reading and exam periods in favor of “orgies” dedicated to individual artists or styles. I did a 24-hour Monk orgy at one point and we put Monk on the cover of the program guide that month. Once while I was spinning a Bird disc late at night Roy Haynes actually called me on the phone to tell me he was the drummer on that record! What really ruined me was taking A.B. Spellman’s Black Music course, which started with Jelly Roll and ended with The Art Ensemble, with Pops, Duke, the Count, Bean, Pres, Bird, Miles, Trane, Mingus, Ornette, Dolphy, and Cecil Taylor in between. Ornette and Albert Ayler are the mainstream of the tradition. I used to set up the sound system for class; once I sat some equipment down on A.B.’s peanut butter crackers and his famous retort was “Get off my cracker, cracker”. ROFL.

After a year or so of listening to records, hanging out with hard core fanatics, and hearing live music at Boston’s Jazz Workshop, I was compelled to play again. I got a Bundy alto in Terre Haute over the summer. By the time I was a junior and living in Dunster House we would jam on weekends in the basement piano rooms. There was a cat named Phil Gardner who could already play like Bird and I was a talentless near beginner in comparison. Senior year I took an independent music course and studied saxophone with Hankus Netsky from New England Conservatory on a study-exchange program. Hankus is now famous for leading the Klezmer Conservatory Band and at one point was head of jazz studies at NEC. In my first lesson he made me transcribe Miles’ solo from So What. Jeez.