Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz In Revolutionary Times

This Wednesday evening, Chris Heim features one of the artists profiled in Robin D.G. Kelley's book Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz In Revolutionary Times. Heim's review of the book: It is a truism of American jazz that its roots are in African music, yet few jazz artists until more recently explicitly studied and incorporated African music as it is actually played on the continent into their work. That was not the case, however, for four pioneering performers that historian and Thelonious Monk biographer Robin D.G. Kelley profiles in this small, but information-packed and fascinating book. Kelley begins with Ghanaian drummer Guy Warren, an artist clearly and powerfully ahead of his time, while still managing to have an outsized notion of his own importance. The book, in fact, takes its title from a Warren album, an early example of his effort to play jazz with a distinctive African rhythmic sensibility. Guy Warren - "Africa Speaks" from his 1956 album, Africa Speaks