Drummer Kwaku Daddy Brings the African Back Into Jazz

Ghanaian takes
an American form
back to its roots

By Daedalus Howell
SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

Musicologists trace the roots of jazz to a co-mingling of traditional West African and African American folk music forms at the beginning of this century.  Now, at the century's end, Petaluma master drummer, folklorist and educator Kwaku Daddy,  "THE ARTS", intend to take the form back to its roots, with a fusion of traditional African music and American jazz he simply calls "African jazz."

On Wednesday evening, Daddy brings a newly formed jazz act to Sausalito-based Gatsby's Bar and Restaurant. The gig marks a return of sorts for Daddy, who began his musical career as a jazz percussionist before he started to steep himself in traditional African music for the past two decades.

The spry 53-year-old is a veteran of conceit halls, recording studios and classrooms (he teaches at City College of San Francisco as well as privately and for corporate affairs), since emigrating to the United States from the West African nation of Ghana in 1968.

In his salad days, he played with such luminaries as trumpet great Dizzy Gillespie at the 1975 Monterey Jazz Festival. (The jam appears as the track "Tribute to Ralph Gleason" a former Chronicle writer -on the recently released CD "The Monterey Jazz Festival - 40 Leg-endary Years").

Daddy has also released several of his own solo albums on the San Francisco-based African Heritage Records, including last year's Positive, a compendium of musical fables, which followed an award and grant from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in recognition of his work as a composer.

His latest album, "Hedzoleh" (from the Ga people of Ghana, meaning "inner peace and freedom"), also garnered recognition from ASCAP, and in addition, he has received the Sonoma County Arts Council traditional Folk Artist Award.

Accolades aside, Daddy's mind, for now at least, is on jazz.

"I haven't put a band like this together for nearly 12 years," he says of his new jazz act, which includes a pianist, trumpet player, saxophonist, guitarist, string bassist and a trio of percussionist-dancers. "It's a sort of rebirth," he says.

Daddy's rekindled interest in jazz is, in part, an effort to preserve the heritage of jazz, prompted by what he found among his students at CCSF.

"I think the youngsters of today need to know more about American music. When we speak about jazz, we're really speaking about American music. When you mention jazz, many young people think it's something that's just played in Europe or Brazil or someplace," Daddy says.

"Jazz is right here; it's an American thing. The form is obviously influenced by African music, but jazz as we know it has an American foundation. I think that needs to be brought to forefront of kids' awareness."

He has made it his mission to acquaint his students with the likes of Gillespie, Charlie Mingus and John Coltrane.

"These guys are part of their American heritage. This awareness needs to be instituted more strongly in America," says Daddy, who will perform a raft of original compositions "giving voice to African rhythms through the American jazz idiom" at his performance at Gatsby's.

"The melodic ranges and rhythmic phrases of the music presented elements that my musicians really had to work at. It's not like playing standard jazz," Daddy says. "Some of the pieces are inspired by African folklore and told through the music in story format with a beginning, middle and end."

Traditional African music and American jazz both employ a "call-and-response" formula, he notes.

"When you're playing jazz," he says, "your band mates have to understand what you're doing at all times. You have to know how to play. I look at jazz as a 'speaking music.' The musicians are speaking through their instruments, and you have know what they are saying, so you can respond to it. It's a conversation.

"Jazz has much in common with traditional African drumming, which also speaks. The drummers are talking back and forth. Certain rhythms indicate certain things. Such is the nature of jazz."
 

Daedalus Howell is a free-lance writer. Send comments to: nbayfriday@sfgate.com