Both sides of the big beat

Both sides of the big beat

by Dimitris Markantonakis

The beat is the most important element of the West African musical tradition; the Gods spoke through the drums, which made them the most prominent of all instruments. The tribe encircled them, as they danced to their rhythm (Stearns 1970: 3). Drumming, as we know it, is essentially an African concept; Gene Krupa, his fan Keith Moon, and all subsequent drummers, pounded on European instruments, using West African ideas. These have travelled throughout the globe ever since (ibid: 14-15).

Hard bop is a jazz style which emphasizes simpler melodic lines, strongly rooted in gospel and spiritual music. Art Blakey was one of its drumming pioneers; leader of the Jazz Messengers, a legendary ensemble that included the who’s who of jazz. Respectively, fellow drummer Tony Allen was a forefather of Afrobeat; a West African fusion of regional traditional music, with soul, jazz, and funk. Allen always looked upon Blakey as his idol.

Tony Allen’s A Tribute to Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers was released in 2017 with little fanfare. Everything, from the cover design to the label, and the title, suggests that this EP considers itself a tribute album; it vastly underestimates itself, for it is more than that.

In concert, Allen addressed the audience as a modest fan, rather than an established master; he is thankful and very happy of the opportunity to pay tribute to his musical idol, whose repertoire is difficult, even for legends. “Allen is an Afrobeat guy. Tonight I will show my jazz side (...), the way we can fuse things together, which has been my way of life” (Allen 2016). This album reveals both sides of Tony Allen; Afrobeat, and jazz. These are not at all mutually exclusive.

Moanin’ is fragmented and intersected with Miles Davis’ So What, which further alludes to the uncanny connection between both pieces; Miles lifted his idea from Bobby Timmons perhaps? As a joke, try to whistle the melody of Moanin’ above Why Don’t You Do Right, a Timmons’ favourite, and then So What above both. In Allen’s version, the 4/4 swing is played in double time, while the melody is fragmented and halted; this achieves an 8/4 feeling, that moves back and forth the music line.

This beat is the greatest addition to Blakey’s music. Traditional African music is polyrhythmic, meaning multiple rhythms are played seperately at the same time, combining 3/4, 6/8 and 4/4 time signatures; that would be a simultaneous performance of a waltz, a blues, and a swing; the singing, clapping, and heavy stomping of both audience and musicians, further complexify (Stearns 1970: 4). Afrobeat incorporated this traditional element. Therefore, instead of Blakey’s straightforward 4/4 heavy swing, Allen applies African polyrhythmy to the hard bop idiom, leading to impressive results, and an altogether fresher take to the Messenger’s book.

Which takes us to Politely. Therein, Bill Hardman’s simple yet elegant blues theme is elevated; deconstructed and broken down into several pieces. The straightforward 4/4 swing is fragmented into a complex 6/8 blues, which creates a sense of movement through the chord changes. Compare it with Blakey’s own live performance from the Club St Germain. The extended solos from Bobby Timmons and Jymie Merritt, combined with the marvelous interplay between musicians and audience, add nice touches. Allen instead utilizes a constantly alternating tempo; below a steady bassline, and minimalistic piano arpeggios. The two latter create the impression of heavy rain and thunder, while the tom and cymbal hits sound as if shuffling earth, and piercing lighting strokes. Rather than the tranquil, swaggering politeness Hardman originally intended, Allen’s arrangement creates an even darker sense of urgency, almost apocalyptic. My personal highlight of the album.

Dizzy Gillespie’s main melody of Night in Tunisia is broken into repeatable parts, and performed as a series of disjointed riffs. This creates a strong rhythmic feeling, which places the beat into the foreground. I can imagine someone dancing to the tune, on a sidewalk, after hours. This gives the impression that every single instrument is soloing; not merely the leads, but the entire rhythm section as well, especially the drums. Multiple melodic layers are created, above and below the main theme. For instance, the bass maintains a steady riffing beat, with the piano chromatically improvising around it; the soprano solos through the changes, while the drums shuffle, reshuffle and improvise constantly below; never to merely confine themselves in plain timekeeping, nor to play twice the same line.

According to Leonard Feather’s liner notes (1958), the name of Benny Golson’s Drum Thunder Suite derives from its dramatic use of mallets, which suggest thunder. There is more to it than that. Chango was the Yoruban God of Thunder, known as Shango in Trinidad; he was worshiped by his own secret cult of musicians, to whom they dedicated their rhythms. In Trinidad, Haiti, and Cuba, Shango was mostly favored by drummers (Stearns 1970: 28-29). The composition of the Drum Thunder Suite, resembles the development of one of these cults, through the ages. It is divided in three movements; Drum Thunder, Cry a Blue Tear, and Harlem’s Disciples. Drum Thunder represents the early secret meetings, as they took place amongst the African slaves of the Caribbean; the drumming is heavy, raw and emphasized. Cry a Blue Tear moves us to the early jazz orchestras of the United States. The paradiddles resemble the early rudimentary technique, as the full drum set had yet to fledge; the strong Latin element, nuances the earlier calypso influences of the idiom. We are essentially in the South, as the African chants are juxtaposed with work songs, Cajun, and Caribbean music. Finally, Harlem’s Disciples is upbeat and mellow; the melody is funky reflecting the state of jazz in 1958; the drumming is still heavy, yet more nuanced. We now listen to modern jazz, from its Messengers. From the secret slave meetings to the late-hour club sessions, music and culture persist.

In his own take, Allen twisted the above concept inside out, to Africanize Blakey’s tribute to Africa. The drumming is even heavier; the wind instruments are loud and dissonant, resembling both animal cries and Balkan fanfares. The strong bass beat is modern. The movements are not separated, as in the original arrangement, but juxtaposed, to demonstrate the circularity of musical culture; steady flow and a strong continuity. This contrasts the fragmented melodies of all previous pieces.

Paired with a Parisian ensemble, a little larger than Blakey’s usual formations, yet more familiar with his own, Allen takes the sense of Africanism, omnipresent in all of Blakey’s work, to Africanize it even further. This album is a tribute from one master to another, of a kind that deserves its own tribute altogether. Viewing it as a mere tribute, would diminish its status; it is something new, altogether larger, and unalike all that preceded. In the same manner the impressionist painters payed tribute to their old idols, while innovating, Allen breaths fresh air to jazz; one in which tradition and modernism are fused and blurred, conforming to neither. According to a Greek song, all that is old needs to be burned, for the prettiest bud to blossom; the fusion would be that burning. Such is perhaps the route onwards.

References

Allen, Tony. (2016) Tribute to Art Blakey. Live concert recorded on the 16th of February 2016 from the Maison des Arts de Creteil, for the Festival Sons d’hiver. Retrieved in 2020 from YouTube.

Feather, Leonard. (1958) Liner Notes in the LP Art Blakey And The Jazz Messangers. BLP-4003. Blue Note.

Stearns, Marshall W. (1970) The Story of Jazz. Oxford University Press, 1970.