Interesting jazz exotica from Ted Heath and the London jazz scene. According to Robin D.G. Kelley, this song was not composed by Kenny Dorham, but instead was one of Guy Warren's compositions stolen by Dorham. It's not really Haitian-sounding at all, but Guy Warren was a Ghanaian drummer who certainly was familiar with 'authentic' ceremonial and religious percussion, chants, and popular music of West Africa. Anywho, it's interesting to hear exotica allusions to Haiti in a jazz idiom, written by a West African.
The second song, "Monkies and Butterflies," another Guy Warren composition, is more interesting. It's a mixture of highlife and jazz sounds, female back-up vocals, and a style eerily similar to early Fela Kuti. As Kelley states in his superb Africa Speaks, America Answers (which happens to be the name of the Guy Warren album recorded with white American musicians in Chicago), Kuti was known for borrowing Guy Warren's records. We can detect Warren's talent for percussion, rooted in his experience of drumming in highlife bands (He was in E.T. Mensah's band in the 1940s!) as well as personal experience in folkloric and 'traditional' genres. Check out this intriguing song that Kelley also highlights for being an eclectic mixture of jazz, highlife, 'traditional' and classical influences.
According to Kelley, Warren's music wasn't 'African enough' for the stereotypes marketing and promotion of the 'African Invasion' in 1950s American music, so he was never commercially successful and found the support he needed. Amazingly, a West African drummer with no formal training, Olatunji, became known in the late 1950s for being 'authentic' and meeting preconceived notions of what US audiences expected from Africa (savagery, percussion, sexuality, 'primitiveness). Thus, even though Warren's eclectic taste included chanting and singing in West African languages, 'traditional' and ceremonial rhythms and melodies, and urban dance styles, his interest in jazz and classical music marked him as not 'African enough.' It's a shame, his music is stimulating and certainly more 'authentic' than Olatunji or most of the 'African' rhythms one could find in 1950s jazz from US musicians.
The second song, "Monkies and Butterflies," another Guy Warren composition, is more interesting. It's a mixture of highlife and jazz sounds, female back-up vocals, and a style eerily similar to early Fela Kuti. As Kelley states in his superb Africa Speaks, America Answers (which happens to be the name of the Guy Warren album recorded with white American musicians in Chicago), Kuti was known for borrowing Guy Warren's records. We can detect Warren's talent for percussion, rooted in his experience of drumming in highlife bands (He was in E.T. Mensah's band in the 1940s!) as well as personal experience in folkloric and 'traditional' genres. Check out this intriguing song that Kelley also highlights for being an eclectic mixture of jazz, highlife, 'traditional' and classical influences.
According to Kelley, Warren's music wasn't 'African enough' for the stereotypes marketing and promotion of the 'African Invasion' in 1950s American music, so he was never commercially successful and found the support he needed. Amazingly, a West African drummer with no formal training, Olatunji, became known in the late 1950s for being 'authentic' and meeting preconceived notions of what US audiences expected from Africa (savagery, percussion, sexuality, 'primitiveness). Thus, even though Warren's eclectic taste included chanting and singing in West African languages, 'traditional' and ceremonial rhythms and melodies, and urban dance styles, his interest in jazz and classical music marked him as not 'African enough.' It's a shame, his music is stimulating and certainly more 'authentic' than Olatunji or most of the 'African' rhythms one could find in 1950s jazz from US musicians.
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