Fela's Musicians - Interview with Rilwan "Showboy" Fagbemi, Part 2

Rilwan "Showboy" Fagbemi

Showboy: I'll tell you what I was doing. You know when before I became an instrumentalist, Ronnie, I was an acrobat. I was a stage dancer.

So, as I was saying, one day, I asked myself that why don't I play something like a musical instrument? Because I was around when Fela started playing the saxophone; he taught himself a lot of things about the saxophone. Because Fela was a trumpet player, you understand. He picked up the saxophone, I think in '74. You understand? He pick up the saxophone around '73-'74. 

Ron: He studied music, right? 

Showboy: Yes, yes, at the Trinity College of Music in London. He came back, he was writing his music, he had broken it, made it easy for everybody, because one, you need to be able to read, you need to be able to understand the reading, and you have to have this (points to his head), you've got to be fast thinking because when Fela is writing he never waits for no one, the moment he wants this, out of four, two are getting it two are not getting it, he will ask the two who are not getting it to just shut the fuck up and listen to the two who have got it and learn from what they are doing. So by the time he finishes that rehearsal the next time you come...rehearsal is about perfection, about you know trying to complete what you are doing. 

Ron: That is what rehearsal is all about, there is no musician in the word who nails it the first time every time. 

Showboy: No, no, you have to go through it. And you see, I wish you saw one of the rehearsals of Fela himself. You know why? When Fela is on stage rehearsing man that stage is ON FIRE! The concentration of everybody because you know he is like a conductor, like a choirmaster. When we are rehearsing he's facing us, he is backing the audience, and people are free, people are free to come and watch the rehearsals. Then he starts. When he is writing the new music, he starts this way: he invites the rhythm to the house. The guitar with the conga. To keep the guitarist on tempo, the conga is taking the job of the metronome, to maintain the rhythm, to give the guitarist the idea and the speed of the music he is about to write. 

Now, when he starts, he practice with the guitarists, at home. When the guitarists are OK, he now brings them to the Shrine and now calls for general practice. That's when he starts infusing the whole line. 

Ron: (discussing the triumvirate of James Brown, Miles Davis, and Fela) 

Showboy rehearses Egypt 80 at the New Africa Shrine

Showboy: You got it right because I remember when we had this benefit for James Brown release at the Apollo Theater, we did two concerts in one night and the two concerts were sold out. I was on front page of the New York Times on June 24, 1990. They described my saxophone like a bull elephant, the way I sound. Yeah, I was bad, I was a bad, hot baritone saxophonist. 

So, now, after that show, you know in 1986 we had a Humanity Festival in Paris, we played with Miles Davis, he was there live, before his death. The last show was the Apollo Theater concert, it never happened, an African band direct from Africa stormin' New York. 

Ron: So how did you do? 

Showboy: Oh shit, it was BAAAD. I played at the (name unclear) on 53rd, at the Madison Square Garden, I played at the Apollo Theater... 

Ron: This [the New Africa Shrine] is the Carnegie Hall of Africa.

Guitarist Pete Cosey is Gone

Chicago guitarist Pete Cosey passed away earlier this week at age 68. Another original and under-recognized voice stilled.

Pete was a member of the AACM in the 1960's and played with Miles Davis' wild pre-retirement electric funk band in the mid-70's (Agharta, Pangaea, Get Up With It). I was fortunate enough to see him play with Miles a couple of times at the Jazz Workshop in Boston when I was a college student and was blown away. Pete sounded like nobody else, one of those musicians who was able to achieve a truly personal and unique sound. I've remembered and admired his playing ever since; although I am not a big guitar fan, his music was always worth seeking out. Pete apparently never recorded an album under his own name, although he came directly from Muddy Waters, the AACM, and Miles.

I found his obit on the blog Music Hertz, and there is an obit in the Chicago Reader that includes links to two interviews. RIP, Pete Cosey, thanks for the joy in your music.

The Blues Are Universal

In addition to practicing at home and playing gigs with the Chicago Jazz Quartet +1, I've had the chance over the past few weeks to jam the blues with a couple of fine musicians just a few minutes away from home. We're all around the same age so there is an element of comradeship to our music; we don't have anything to prove except that we want to play. 

My good friend Kim Gooi tracked me down late last year after we met on a Penang rooftop jamming with some Sape musicians from Sarawak in mid-2010. He is a respected photojournalist and lived in Thailand for about 30 years before returning to his native Malaysia. Kim plays the harp and came upon the blues while working in Bangkok, which has a large expat community and its share of bars with live bands. Close your eyes and you would have no idea that you are listening to a native Penangite and not someone from the South Side of Chicago. Kim said he listened to the blues for about 10 years before picking up the harp and it just came naturally to him after that. 

Two weeks ago, guitarist Joe Goh came to visit from Kuala Lumpur. Joe is originally from Malacca. The first time I met him we were jamming the blues before I could even get my gear fully unpacked. After playing for so many years he just has the sound in his blood. We don't need to talk much, just set up and play. Again, close your eyes and you are on the South Side. We've played everything from T-Bone Walker to Miles Davis over the last couple of weeks as well as hundreds of choruses of blues in every key, tempo, rhythm, and style we can think of, spinning off marathon choruses that have me imagining Paul Gonsalves on stage at Newport 1956 in my own minor-league way. Every chorus different, trying never to repeat, trading leads, playing backings for each other, varying the harmonies - just close your eyes and blow. Amazingly, Joe told me he has never played with a sax before! 

Joe was first exposed to the blues through the British Invasion bands in the 60's; then listening to US Armed Forces Radio broadcast from Vietnam he got to hear James Brown, Ray Charles and such. By the 70's he went to Europe for work and played rock and roll, then returned to Penang where he ran a guest house. One of his guests taught him some guitar and exposed him to jazz. A second stint playing music overseas followed. Along the way he heard T-Bone and B.B. King in person. It wasn't until the 90's that Miles and Trane connected for him, and now he is playing their music too. Joe told me that he has given up on being a full time musician in K.L. because there just aren't enough opportunities for him to play honest music, the music he wants to play. That's the subject of a whole separate blog post, forthcoming. 

Hope to get in at least one more jam before Joe heads back to K.L.

My Musical Biography, Part 3

The 1970’s were the height of the New York loft scene; a live show costs just a couple of bucks in those days and most places did not clear the floor between sets. I used to take the train frequently to NYC, where my Lab School best friend Gilbert lived. Gilbert loved music and had the world’s largest record collection but he never had any musical talent himself (his amazing talents lie elsewhere - he is now a world-renowned artist, see http://www.gilberthsiao.blogspot.com/). I guess we have that in common, no innate musical talent. I used to go hear live music all the time – Studio Rivbea and the Tin Palace come to mind. Once I walked across lower Manhattan blowing my alto in the street the whole way; when we walked in front of Ali’s Alley, Rashied Ali himself came out to see what the commotion was – can you imagine doing that in post-Giuliani NYC? Probably get locked up.

Some of the greats I’ve had the fortune to see and hear live: Miles Davis (his pre-retirement electric band with Sonny Fortune and Pete Cosey), Charles Mingus (with George Adams and Danny Rich-man; Mingus cussed me out with some racial epithets when I naively tried to say hello between sets in Montreal), Dexter Gordon (once with Woody Shaw on trumpet; Dexter was a real gentleman), Dizzy Gillespie (who was interested in my wife and not the least bit in me), Sam Rivers (at Rivbea), Sonny Rollins (in Philly where I sat so close I could’ve shined his shoes), Leroy Jenkins (at the recording session for his JCOA album), Clark Terry (I interviewed him for WHRB), Archie Shepp (I interviewed him for WHRB and got to hang out with him and Dave Burrell in their hotel; he certainly never showed any hostility towards white people to me), James Moody (in Terre Haute!), McCoy Tyner (maybe his best band with Junie Booth and Azar Lawrence), Kalaparusha (I had, and still have, a real taste for the AACM), Muhal Richard Abrams, Ornette Coleman with Prime Time, towering Randy Weston, Max Roach (with the fabulous Billy Harper on tenor), Dewey Redman (whose music puts his much more highly touted son to shame), Julius Hemphill (Tim Berne was his manager at the time and sent me some unreleased cassettes of Julius), David Murray (the saxophone prodigy of the day, not much older than me), Jimmy McGriff, Lou Donaldson, Ray Charles, Pepper Adams (in Munich’s famed Domocile), Chicago’s great Fred Anderson, Joe Henderson (whose introverted style I never really understood until I saw him in person), Jackie McLean (one of his last concerts), Cecil Taylor (who plays the piano like he has three hands), Paul Quinichette at the West End, Art Blakey (not one of his best bands unfortunately) and Sun Ra and James Brown multiple times…JB twice with Wilson Pickett on the bill. My favorite is Vonski Von Freeman who instructed me that “Music is not mathematics.”

Someone I didn’t see…Rahsaan…one of the dumbest things I ever did in my life. Big Dave called me to come down to Bloomington and see Rahsaan at the Bluebird and I was too lazy to make the hour drive by myself. Rahsaan died that night after the concert. Big Dave is gone now too.