Traditions: Ohio Heritage Fellows; 202; Baba Jubal Harris interview, part 3 of 7

Q:

BABA: At The University of Cincinnati I was uh, majoring in—I was a physical education major. I was in education, so I had e—um, physical education, recreation, and health. Um, those were my main major subjects. And then, on the side, I would do art. Uh, I took courses in DNA... uh, not DNA. I took courses in um, the college of Design Art and Architecture. So, um, now, mind you, this is... this is in the sixty-six to seventy-one period of time at—at the UC. And so, my... my generation was um, you know, we instituted the black studies department and we instituted the um... um, United Black Association. And we brought about um, a tremendous amount of change at the university in a very short period of time uh, through sometimes, radical activism. And also, at the same time we uh, we were—in—in the midst of the Vietnam era, and so we formed alliances with those uh, young white students who wanted to pro—who protested the war. So, there was an alliance that a—a shared alliance for a specific agenda, which was to bring about a more equitable um, treatment of blacks and other um, uh, non-white races on the campus and to make advancements in um, in the—in those areas that needed to... to have advancements in. So, uh, that—during that period of time is when I uh, that student activism is um, is when I began to um, connect with other peers who... who were feeling the same energy, and they were also musicians. And so um, we formed a cul—a cultural collective at the time. And we studied drumming... African art, African music, African culture uh, and we were looking for, specifically for... for teachers—people who could um, give us the true insight into our ancestral African connection um, and how to access it. And, of course, uh, th—we—we were in contact with many scholars at the time, one being Doctor Ben Joconan and Asa Hilliard, and um, we studied their works um, Tecumseh Exgram was the first teacher uh, African-American teacher who taught um, African history at the University of Cincinnati. And so, now we’re getting access to information that we never... we never knew existed, we never saw before. Uh... and again, I’m curious about this information. But it was... and that was good. The information was good, but I wanted the experience of what the information was talking about. You know, it’s like, you can have a cookbook, and you can read it, but until you actually have the meal, you—you know, you’re not gonna be satisfied. So, I wanted to... I wanted to have the... the... the meal. I wanted to have that experience. And the—and as I looked around uh, in Cincinnati, uh, the—I couldn’t find anybody. Not—I won’t say I couldn’t find anybody. I could find people, however, not in the area of drumming and music. Uh, not even in the jazz community, because I—I looked in the jazz community, but they—they didn’t have the expertise, they didn’t have the ex—th—the actual, you might say, authentic experience. So, that’s what I needed to find. And, I had to leave Cincinnati uh, in order to get to that point... to get to that understanding and that knowledge. Um, and, it just so happened that uh, in 1970, I was... I was going through the uh, cafeteria one day and um, I... I saw a young man. You know, we both... same age and uh, um, I was—think I was selling tickets to a dance. Uh, and I asked him if he wanted to buy a ticket, da-da da-da-da. And we got in a conversation. His name was Brett Brown. And, Brett was at the University of Cincinnati on a uh, football scholarship. Come to find out he’s from Harlem. And um, so we started talking and I uh, you know, I tell him, you know, what I’m—I—you know, I’m—I’m studying drumming and I’m trying to learn how to play African drums and he said, really? He said I’ve—I play African drums. Like wow... wow, cool, man. Well you know, like let’s hook up. Let’s teach—show me something. Uh, so he said yea, I play agogo. I said, really, agogo. Yea that’s the bell. I play bell for the orchestra. And um, i—in Harlem. I play with uh, Babatunde Olatunji. I had never heard of Babatunde Olatunji. Not really... this is 1970. I hadn’t, you know, really heard of him. Um, so we became friends. And he invited me to come to New York uh, and stay with him for Spring break. So, me and two other students, we—we went to uh, Harlem, stayed at his house. And then, he took me—he was my like tour guide. Like he—he was my—the person that opened the door, you know, show me the way. And um, we uh, we went to uh, this is funny, we went to a... a Beffer Stivensin one night. Then, he was—he said uh, we’re gonna go hear some... some jazz and then there’s gonna be some, you know, hopeful—there’ll be some drummers there too. So, we started packing up, getting ready to go ‘cause we had to leave Harlem to get to Bef Sti. So, he gets his back pack, he starts putting stuff in it. Then he puts a couple metal pipes in there and uh, he said, you know how to handle yourself, right? I said, yea. He said, ok, well, I got the metal pipes just in case. So um, I said, cool. So, we get on the train. We—we go from um, from Harlem to Bef Sti and we get as far as we can go on the train. We get off the train, then we gotta get a taxi. So we—we flagged down a taxi and it just so happened, just as—it was uh, a... a Jamaican brother, he was driving taxi. We get in the taxi, and we go... we—we—we’re going, now we’re going deeper into Bef Sti and we get to this... we get to this one spot in the d—in the... the um, the taxi driver says, ok, that’s as far as I’m gonna go. I’m like, what do you mean? We-we need to go. Brett is like, we need to—he said, no man, I’m not driving my taxi in that neighborhood down there. This as far as I’m going. So, I’m thinking, oh now I understand why we got these metal pipes in the backpack. So, we get out, and this is—we-wer—we’re walking down in the area of Bef Sti, where you know, it’s very... it’s like dark. Brett knows where he’s going. So I’m following him. Finally, we get to this like, little, hole in the wall club. And, open the door, go in. Man, it’s like, Pharaoh Saunders is in there, you know, it’s... there’s people who—who I’ve only become acquainted with through their albums, you know, they’re... they’re jamming in there. That—and—and that uh, was like when, that was one of the first experiences I had. I—I was introduced to Sun Rah through... through Brett. And um, Sun Rah, when I met Sun Rah, it was in front of a club called The East. Now, we’re back in Brooklyn. And Sun Rah is standing playing a—this is 1970, he’s playing a little box. It looks like a cell phone, right? I—It’s got a little keyboard on it and it’s got electronic lights and it’s making all these electronic sounds and he’s—and the lights are flashing as he’s playing ‘em and he—he has a cosmic name for what this is. You know, it’s something he invented. And, now I’m making these connections between uh, flash forward and Afro- Cuban music that—and the music that um, the jazz music that I’ve been listening to since I was—since I got my first haircut. And it’s all like coming into focus now. Uh, the— the time distanced—s—th—space and time is compressed into uh, there’s no more um, separation. It’s like everything is present and connected. And then, we go to um, a little rock bay studio who they—um—they are—they’re drums from Africa. The fam—family of Ghanaian drums, families of Mandinka drums, families of drums from Congo. And there’s—they’re dancing—there are dancers who know that—the—the—the traditional dances for these particular families of drums...