Drums of Passion

Once upon a time in a decade far, far away, a big-time record producer named John Hammond heard some African drumming at a concert and -- here's the fairy tale aspect -- without the use of focus groups or checking with the suits, just because he liked the music, he signed the artist to a record contract. The result? Babatunde Olatunji's Drums of Passion, perhaps the first "world music" record released commercially, sold 5 million copies and became one of the most influential recordings of its time. It's been 50 years, but its impact still reverberates today.

When I was growing up in New Jersey, I listened regularly to WINS in New York. It's all-news now, but in those days, it was a key rock and roll station. In the evening, the jock was Murray Kaufman, or "Murray the K", as he liked to call himself.(Later, he dubbed himself "The Fifth Beatle" -- no way). As background music, he sometimes played an African-sounding piece of music that featured a vocalist singing what sounded like "Akiwawa"; this became a catchphrase in my set. When I started listening to Symphony Sid Torin's all-night jazz show on WADO, he played the same piece, identifying the artist as Babatunde Olatunji and the album from which it was taken as Drums of Passion. He also played Odunde (Happy New Year) and Shango, an invocation to the Yoruba god of thunder. I was hooked. I asked my dad to buy me the album and, good dad that he was, he complied, although my parents thought popular music ended when Glenn Miller's plane went down. Looking back, it was a gateway though which I heightened my appreciation of all kinds of music.

I wasn't the only one. Bob Dylan referenced Olatunji on The Freewheling Bob Dylan" and John Coltrane, Freddy Hubbard, and other jazz musicians listened and learned, as did Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead. I believe Baba's music was key to the development not only of Coltrane's music but, through Trane, of the whole corpus of late Sixties and Seventies "spiritual jazz", of which I'll have more to say in future posts. Baba joined Martin Luther King's March on Washington but made his greatest contribution to America and the world by making his music available to listeners everywhere. Drums of Passion is available on CD, so do yourself a favor and pick it up. Odunde!