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Ahmed Abdullah
is a trumpeter, composer, arranger
and bandleader who has led his own
ensembles since 1972. His latest
band, Diaspora is a musical
ensemble that synthesizes the
folkloric elements in the musics
of Africa, South America, the
Caribbean and North America. A
significant part of Ahmed
Abdullah's concept is to present
these musics that are drawn
together by the 'cry of the
spirit' in a seamless round of
poetry, proverbs and song.
Musicians who are highly skilled
in the art of spontaneous
improvisation are called upon to
render this unique concept
successful. On June 18,1997 Ahmed
Abdullah's Diaspora recorded a CD
to
the memory of Charles Moffett
entitled "Dedication".
The CD features Carlos
Ward, Masujaa, Alex Blake, Cody
Moffett and Ahmed Abdullah. It
will be released
on CIMP label in January of 1998.
Mr. Abdullah has developed this
concept through years of leading
his own
ensembles and through time spent
working in units led by other
people. He worked
with the Sun Ra Arkestra for 18
years under Sun Ra's leadership
and continues to
work with the Arkestra from time
to time under Marshall Allen's
leadership.
Ahmed is listed as being on over
25 recordings with the Arkestra
and had the
great good fortune of traveling to
four continents performing with
that
legendary ensemble. Some of the
more amazing gigs with the
Arkestra include the
Jazz Festival, the Antibes Jazz
Festival, the Lugano Jazz Festival
, the Soviet
Georgia Jazz Festival, the Live
Under The Sky Festival in Japan ,
a Festival
held in Istanbul Turkey, a
Canadian tour and performances on
the continent of
Africa at the Festival of Arts and
Culture ( FESTAC) in Lagos,
Nigeria. One
would have to include playing
domestically at venues such as
Carnegie Hall, the
Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival
and the Strand Theater in Key West
Florida to
name just a few.
In 1979 Ahmed worked with the
Great Drummer Ed Blackwell
recording Mr.
Blackwell's first date as a
leader. 1991 found Mr. Abdullah
working again with
the Ed Blackwell Project at places
such as the Village Vanguard, the
New Orleans
Blues and Heritage Festival The
Montreal Jazz Festival and The
North Sea Jazz
Festival.
As a sideman Mr. Abdullah has also
recorded with brilliant alto
saxophonist
Arthur Blythe as well as the
amazing Billy Bang . Ahmed is on
Mr. Blythe's
first recording as a leader The
Grip and Metamorphosis. He is on
Billy Bangs'
The Fire Within recording as well
. For about 10 years Ahmed was
privileged to
work with the great choreographer
and Dancer Ms. Dianne Mcintrye as
musical
director (1973-1983) . He has also
worked briefly with Sam Rivers,
Hamiett
Bluiett and Rashid Ali as a
sideman.
Ahmed Abdullah was born in Harlem
, New York on May 10, 1947 and
raised there
until he was 16 at which time his
parents moved to the Lower East
Side of
Manhattan. The Lower East Side in
the 1960's was a time of
incredible richness
for a young person interested in
the creative arts. Everywhere one
turned there
were influences. Ahmed attended
Brooklyn Tech HS following on to
Queens and
Kingsboro College to pursue his
musical studies. Privately he
studied composing
and arranging with Cal Massey and
general trumpet technique with
Carmine Caruso,
Chris Capers and James Stubbs .
His first professional experience
was with a
band called The Master
Brotherhood. He left that group in
the early 70's and
began touring with Cliff Driver
and the Ram Rods , a rhythm and
blues bands
who backed singers such as Solomon
Burke, Little Johnny Taylor and
Wilson
Pickett. Mr. Abdullah also worked
with singer Joe Simon and with R
& B
saxophonist Lonnie Youngblood
during this period.
The Melodic Art-Tet featured
Charles Brackeen, Ahmed Abdullah,
Ronnie Boykins
and Roger Blank. This was a
collective group which was to play
a major role in
Mr. Abdullah's life. This group
became the means of introduction
of Ahmed to
the Great Sun Ra . Collective
ensembles have been very
significant in Ahmed's
life in 1986 he co-founded a
significant band called simply The
Group. The
band featured Marion Brown, Billy
Bang, Andrew Cyrille Ahmed
Abdullah and
Sirone. Though The Group did at
least one European tour and quite
a few gigs
along the Eastern seaboard it was
not recorded.
His first recording as a leader
was a track on the Wild flower
Series volume 3
in 1976. The session was produced
by Alan Douglass in association
with Sam
Rivers. The series stands as a
testament to the adventurous music
and its
creators in the Seventies.
Ahmed formed the first group under
his leadership Abdullah in 1972
and
recorded his first album as a
leader Life's Force for About Time
Records in
1979. This was followed by
Abdullah - Live at Ali's Alley for
Cadence Records
in 1980. In 1987, he recorded his
first CDs for Silkheart Records
"Ahmed
Abdullah Quartet " with
Charles Brackeen, Malachi Favors
and Alvin Fielder. In
1987, he also formed the Solomonic
Unit which featured Mr. Charles
Moffett in
fact the group was built around
the special mastery of Mr. Moffett
. The same
year 1987 that the group was
founded as a Quartet it recorded
as a Quintet .
The recording is called Ahmed
Abdullah ,The Solomonic Quintet
featuring Charles
Moffett. There followed
performances in the US and Europe.
In 1989, Mr. Abdullah
and the Solomonic were evaluated
as "highly recommended"
by the National
Endowment for the Arts for the
purposes of touring through the
auspices of the
Arts America program of the US
Information Agency. It was through
working the
Carnegie Hall Shelter Concert
Series that Ahmed decided to
expand the group to a
Sextet . The Solomonic Sextet
Charles Moffett , Carlos Ward ,
Billy Bang,
Masujaa, Fred Hopkins or John Ore
and Ahmed Abdullah .
In October 1991, the Solomonic
Sextet toured Eastern Europe
through the USIA .
The countries visited were
Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Greece and
Turkey.
The engagements included the Sofia
Jazz Days in Sofia Bulgaria in
which the
Solomonic performed at the
National Palace of Culture to
5,000 people; the
Skopje Jazz Festival in which the
group was filmed for national
television ; the
Dmitria Festival, a major
international festival of the arts
in Thessaloniki
Greece (the Solomonic was the only
Jazz group on the festival and Mr.
Abdullah
was honored with a medal from the
Mayor of the city. In Istanbul
Turkey, the
band shared a double bill with the
great Max Roach to inaugurate the
first
festival of modern Jazz in Turkey.
In October of 1992 Mr. Abdullah
took the Solomonic Sextet to
Germany and
performed at the Leverkreusen Jazz
Festival. This was filmed for
television and
shown throughout Germany and
Holland.
January of 1994 found Mr. Abdullah
participating in a Radio Marathon
at WKCR
/Columbia University radio the
subject matter being the music of
the Seventies
called "Loft Music" He
did a 5 hour interview
highlighting his participation in
that era. He also performed with
the Solomonic Sextet for the
occasion .In 1995
through to June of 1996 Ahmed
along with his wife Monique Ngozi
Nri formed
Melchizedek Productions and went
about the task of producing
concerts. The
concerts were held at Context
Studios on the Lower East Side of
Manhattan (Noho)
in New York. These concerts were
designed to give performance venue
to the Sun
Ra Arkestra under Marshall Allen's
leadership and to provide a venue
for the
Solomonic Sextet. With the death
of Mr. Charles Moffett on Feb. 14,
1997 the
name of the Solomonic was changed
to Diaspora.
Ahmed currently works part of the
year as a teaching artist for
Carnegie Hall.
In the past he has worked for
Young Audiences and the Orchestra
of St. Luke as a
lecturer on music. He has also
spent many years doing educational
work with the
dancer/choreographer Mickey
Davidson.
Ahmed Abdullah has traveled the
world and the US and lived his
life in steady
pursuit of his goal to share his
innovative musical ideas. 'This
powerful avante
garde trumpeter deserves greater
recognition ' writes editor Scott
Yanow in the
latest edition of the All Music
Guide to Jazz.
Courtesy
from
Melchizedek
Music
17 North Elliot Place
Brooklyn, N.Y., 11205
(718) 237 -1246
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