Fela's Musicians - Interview with Rilwan "Showboy" Fagbemi, Part 5

Showboy: When we were recording in New York, we went to the studio, the (name unclear) Sound Studio, we laid everything that was to be laid, as in part of everyone. When we finished Fela asked to stay in the studio to do the mixing, to do the solo work, and the voices, and so on. So we were asked to be taken to our hotel. So they took us to Harlem, I was living at 27 Adam Clayton Powell Avenue in Harlem, so, I was in my room when I had a call that, "Showboy, you are needed at the studio, Fela said they should bring you". I said, what is happening? Did I play my part wrong or what? It was very, very cold, almost minus degree, you know what I mean, when you are hearing (whistles) in your ears in the night. So I was picked up in Harlem back to Manhattan, so when I got to the studio Fela said "Showboy, where is your saxophone?". I said "I brought it." He said "Go get it, I want to try you on a solo work." We were doing Pansa Pansa {click to listen} so, Fela, you know, and the horn lines, we have ten horns, we have four trumpets, that's two trumpet, two fluegel, two alto, two tenor, two baritone.

Showboy with Femi's band on June 7
The first time ever, 15 years after Fela's death

I went to the rest room, I put my fingers in the hot water to get myself warm, I asked for a cappuccino with brandy to get myself warm; I had two shots of cappuccino with brandy, then I mount my saxophone. I went to a room, did some major practice, then Fela said "OK let's start, let's hear what you have." I took the headpiece, I put it on my head. I sat down. I now listened, I listened to what we had already laid. Ahhh. I started meditating, thinking about what to add, what am I gonna do, where am I gonna start from? You see, so I listened for about two minutes, three minutes, I took the mike, I said "Fela, we should take it back, I've listened, let me try something." They started again. When I came in, Fela said, "Stop. Showboy, you are there. This is what I am expecting. Can I record you?" I said no, I want to try something else. The engineer took it back again. I started again, the music started, I listened. When I came in the second time, Fela said "Showboy, don't waste my time, you've got what I want, let's record." That was on the first album we did three full solos - me on baritone, I started it, Fela on piano, then YS on tenor saxophone. Man, by the time we laid everything, tell you what, I never believed I played it. 

Ron: You know, on all the albums Fela released in the West at the time, there were no names of musicians. But it was not just Fela who was great, the band was great. 

Showboy: We were behind him. You are right, you are right. 

Ron: Were you around when Lester Bowie played trumpet? 

Showboy: Yeah. Lester Bowie, I know him. Roy Ayers, I know him. He is a good trumpet player. He could play everything. He was BAD in No Agreement. 

Ron: So how long did he spend with Fela?

Showboy:  He was Fela's friend.

Just like, there was this year we were on tour in New York, we did not come with our pianist, we had to borrow Roy Ayers' pianist to feature with us in New York. He had never played that music, he had never played that steady rhythm, playing maybe two, three notes, same thing in the next 45 minutes, in the next 30 minutes. 

Ron: Because in America there is so much emphasis on harmony, on moving chords. 

Showboy: But you know, some of Fela's tracks, they go for 29 minutes, one track. Some go as much as 35 minutes. 

Ron: But here's what happened in my country - like James Brown said about the mid-60s, you don't need to do all that chords and stuff, it is all about the rhythm, every instrument is rhythm. Then Miles came and said forget about what key you are in, because you are in every key. So it became like, universal. 

Showboy: That's it. You know, it started like a revolution, you know. It is like what you are hearing today, they are completely different. 

Ron: But they never got beyond it. 

Showboy: They can't.

Motivated to Play...by the Music

My personal preferences in music have been formed around the tradition of creative improvised music that is never played the same way twice. I love a good rhythm and a great horn solo and the spontaneous interplay of multiple improvisers. 

Most of my great experiences playing music came after the age of 50. Past the age when Pres and Jug had already left us. An age when cave men would have been long dead, and past a man’s life expectancy in many of the world’s poorest countries today. I never seriously considered playing music professionally full-time since most all the world’s improvising musicians are near destitute – see the heart wrenching video about Kalaparusha 'That's not a horn, it's a starvation box' that appeared on the Guardian web site in 2010 to prove it. Lester Bowie once said that at the height of The Art Ensemble’s worldwide fame, he earned less than his mailman. The great Sam Rivers – whose playing was too advanced for Miles in the 60’s – admitted that he only had two years of steady work in his whole life, and that was when he played in Dizzy’s band in the 80’s (Dizzy, as essential as he is, had more or less stopped innovating by the late 1940’s whereas Sam never stopped). 

As much as I love music, I never had the stomach to teach 8-year-olds forced to take lessons by their dragon mothers who dream of their child on stage at Carnegie Hall, like some of my bandstand compatriots must do to earn a living. Live gigs are few these days when anyone can twiddle up instant entertainment on their hand phone, and good gigs where the creative improvising musician can have full artistic control are even fewer. But those are the gigs we focus on and yes they do exist. I am playing for the creative outlet the music provides, the feeling of flow that can only be achieved through fully-engaged high-performance endeavours (such as race car driving or equestrian sports), to be in the rare mental space created by guys like Sonny, Pres, Mex, Rahsaan, Booker Ervin, Fred Anderson and others sung and unsung, to be behind a bent piece of brass that is one of the most genius inventions of mankind, to be where nobody can get between me and what comes out the other end of the tube, and to preserve and proliferate the tradition of creative improvisation with utter truth and honesty. Maybe even contribute something however small. Oh yes, and for the joy of music. Music needs to be fun; it is not meant to be a painful, complicated, academic experience.