The Steve Reid
Foundation was established by Gilles Peterson in memory of the drummer Steve
Reid, who died in 2010. The aims of the foundation are to fundraise on behalf
of struggling musicians in need of help and support.
“Steve was
a dude!” said Gilles Peterson back in April when he asked me if I could spread the
word about his marathon run in aid of the Steve Reid Foundation, which I duly did.
I told him that I was really into the idea of the charity, (which currently
donates all funds to the Musicians Benevolent Fund here in the UK) and to let
me know if there was anything I could do to help.
Then I had
the idea of creating some kind of a musical tribute, a version of ‘Lions Of Judah’, whereby
all the proceeds would go to the foundation. I mentioned this to Gilles, who
said: “Sounds great, let’s do something!”
To those
of you who know of me and my Emanative project, it’s obvious that Steve’s music
is definitely on my wavelength – he even played a Gretsch kit just like myself.
And after recently releasing some records with my good friends at Futuristica
Music, as well as rehearsing the full live band and performing the material
live, all whilst working to support our three kids - I’m more than aware of the
hard work connected with all of this - for everyone involved. But I also know that
this is part of the joy of it. And at least we are in a position where we can do
this! So it felt like a nice idea to do something to help with this cause.
This quote
from Steve shines a bit more light on it:
“But with the musicians it’s mainly periods of not working that
causes problems, you know, and a lot of guys don’t have anybody looking out for
them as they get older. And then you get these sad stories at the end, you
know, about what happened. I just don’t want to go out like Elvin Jones and the
other guys. There’s a different way, you know, there’s got to be a different
way to... it shouldn’t be a sad story at the end of every jazz musician’s life,
you know.”
It was around this time that I
came across the details for Ahmed Abdullah, original trumpeter and writer of ‘Lions Of Judah’ who played alongside Steve in
The Legendary Master Brotherhood, as well as being a veteran member of the Sun
Ra Arkestra!
“And then we have Lions Of Judah which was written by Ahmed Abdullah. He’s one of my favourite composers.” – Steve Reid
I sent Ahmed a message asking
his permission to use our version of the track for the purposes of The Steve
Reid Foundation and if he’d be up for playing on it? To my surprise I received
a reply around maybe an hour later, saying that he was in London holidaying
with his family for a few days and that if we could arrange something to fit in
around his family’s plans he’d be interested in playing something on it! We
spoke the next day and arranged a last minute session for the following day at
Wax Recordings, recommended to me only a short while before by Hands On Music.
Ahmed had been visiting London every year since he met his wife at Ronnie
Scott’s whilst performing with The Sun Ra Arkestra some twenty years ago, and
he’d always brought his horn hoping to get a chance to play, but for some
reason or other it had never quite happened... until now.
We spoke about the
synchronicity of the whole thing and how some things are just meant to happen,
and that this was definitely a spiritual thing! Being a Buddhist he saw this as
an opportunity to acknowledge the very best of Steve Reid – genius musician and
amazing spirit.
He also told us of several
other sad stories of jazz musician friends of his whom he’d worked with like Billy Bang
and Marion Brown that had also recently passed.
We later spoke of Steve and of
the collective known back then as The Legendary Master Brotherhood, and how
those records made back then were basically intended to document the music that
they performed live with this collective. The chant of “Red Black And
Green...” that Ahmed sings on our version was what they used to originally
perform live.
He mentioned that the original
inspiration for Lions of Judah was the three leaders known by the name. Most
importantly in this context was Marcus Garvey who created the Red Black and
Green flag for his organization called the Universal Negro Improvement
Association (UNIA) but there was also Jesus Christ and Haile Selassie, all
called by the name Lion of Judah. And he spoke of his belief that three is a
very important number in matters of spiritual significance.
All in all, it really was an
amazing project with some very generous spirits involved. It was a pleasure and
an honour to meet and work with Ahmed Abdullah, to have him bless this project
with his composition and performance and to have him help us travel the
spaceways. (It was also lovely to get to meet his wife Monique Ngozi Nri and their daughter Tara too.) Robert
Strauss at Wax Recordings captured Ahmed’s vibe beautifully; Jessica Lauren
tracked down and had repaired a dusty old Farfisa Organ that had been in
someone’s loft for 20 yrs like sleeping beauty; Ben Hadwen and Max Grunhard
blew the soul outta their horns whilst Nick Haward dropped two b-lines, both
electric and upright. And to top it all off, Guy Davie at Electric Mastering
ran it through their 70’s EMI desk from Lagos, Nigeria that was used to produce
records for Fela Kuti.
Then last but definitely not least came the Re-Edit from
Steve Reid collaborator Kieran Hebden aka Four Tet (bounced to tape by Nathan
Fake to attain a more vintage sound). Throughout all of this, over in Montreal,
Gene Pendon from HVW8 (responsible for the sleeve art for my records) was busy
creating this beautiful homage to Steve for the cover, and Made In Earnest have finished
it all off with their usual design skills. Huge thanks to everyone who has
contributed their art to the foundation’s cause!
Nick/Emanative
“You know, I want to be a force for real good. In
other words, I know that there are bad forces, forces put here that bring
suffering to others and misery to the world, but I want to be the force which
is truly for good.” – John Coltrane
