Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Idris Muhammad, Multi-Genre Drummer


Idris Muhammad, Drummer Whose Beat Still Echoes, Dies at 74

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    Idris Muhammad in 1998, with the Joe Lovano Trio at Iridium, in Manhattan. Mr. Lovano honored him with the tune “Idris.” Jack Vartoogian/FrontRowPhotos

    Idris Muhammad, a drummer whose deep groove propelled both a broad career in jazz and an array of hits spanning rhythm and blues, funk and soul, died on July 29 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was 74.
    His death was confirmed by Dan Williams, a friend affiliated with the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation. The cause was not specified.
    Mr. Muhammad was a proud product of New Orleans, whose strutting parade rhythms always lurked just beneath the surface of his style. A busy sideman as early as his teenage years, he later backed Curtis Mayfield, Sam Cooke, Roberta Flack and the jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, and as a key member of the house band laid the rhythmic foundation for the original Broadway production of “Hair.”
    But the heart of his work was at the intersection of jazz, R&B and funk, especially as they converged in the 1970s. He made a string of albums now prized by connoisseurs of funk, including “Power of Soul” (1974), “House of the Rising Sun” (1976) and “Turn This Mutha Out” (1977) with a supporting cast including players like the trumpeter Randy Brecker and the keyboardist Bob James.
    Mr. Muhammad’s in-the-pocket backbeat also bolstered crossover efforts by the guitarists Grant Green and George Benson and the saxophonists Lou Donaldson and Grover Washington Jr. Within the last 20 years he had worked more in an acoustic mode, most prominently with the pianist Ahmad Jamal. Among the others he worked with were the guitarist John Scofield and the saxophonist Joe Lovano, who once honored him with a tune titled “Idris.”
    He was born Leo Morris on Nov. 13, 1939, in New Orleans. His father played banjo, and four of his siblings were drummers. Naturally drawn to the sound of Mardi Gras parade bands, he found his calling with no formal training. He was 15 when he played on Art Neville and the Hawketts’ enduring 1954 recording of “Mardi Gras Mambo,” and not much older when he appeared on Fats Domino’s hit version of “Blueberry Hill.”
    In 1966 he married Delores Brooks, lead singer for the Crystals, a girl group with a string of pop hits, including “Da Doo Ron Ron.” The couple converted to Islam, changing their names to Idris and Sakinah Muhammad, and lived in London and Vienna before their marriage ended in divorce in 1999. They had two sons and two daughters; he also had a daughter from a previous marriage, to the former Gracie Lee Edwards.
    Information on survivors was not immediately available.
    Mr. Muhammad was widely sampled by hip-hop artists, including Tupac Shakur, the Notorious B.I.G., Eminem, Lupe Fiasco and Drake. The Beastie Boys album “Paul’s Boutique” opens with a lengthy sample of “Loran’s Dance,” from “The Power of Soul.” Asked in an interview how he felt about other people using his music, he told Wax Poetics magazine, “It don’t really belong to me, man,” adding: “The gift the Creator has given me, I can’t be selfish with. If I keep it in my pocket, it’s not going to go anyplace.”

    *****

    Idris Muhammad (Arabic: إدريس محمد‎; born Leo Morris; November 13, 1939 – July 29, 2014) was an American jazzdrummer who has recorded extensively with many musicians, including Ahmad Jamal, Lou Donaldson, and Pharoah Sanders, among many others.[1]

    Biography[edit]

    At 16 years old, one of Muhammad's earliest recorded sessions as a drummer was on Fats Domino's 1956 hit "Blueberry Hill".
    Muhammad was an endorser of Istanbul Agop Cymbals.
    In 2012 Xlibris released the book Inside The Music: The Life of Idris Muhammad, which he wrote with his friend Britt Alexander. He died aged 74 in 2014.[2][3]

    Personal life[edit]

    He changed his name in the 1960s upon his conversion to Islam. In 1966, he married Dolores "LaLa" Brooks (former member of the Crystals; she converted to Islamwith him and went for a time under the name Sakinah Muhammad). They separated in 1999. Together, they have two sons and two daughters, and one daughter from a previous marriage to Gracie Lee Edwards-Morris. Pharoah Sanders's son Idris is named after Idris Muhammad [4]

    Discography[edit]

    As leader[edit]

    As sideman[edit]

    • Dance (Stash, 1983)
    • Get In (1999)
    With John Hicks
    • Soul Manifesto (1991)
    With Keystone Trio
    • Heart Beats (1996)[5]
    • Newklear Music: The Songs of Sonny Rollins(1997)[6]
    With Joe Lovano
    • Below the Bassline (Island, 1998)
    With Roots
    • Jewels of Thought (Impulse!, 1969)
    • Journey to the One (Theresa, 1980)
    • Heart is a Melody (Theresa, 1982)
    • Live (Theresa, 1982)
    • Shukuru (Theresa, 1985)
    • Africa (Timeless, 1987)
    • Macho (Salvation, 1975)
    • Portraits of Duke Ellington (Verve, 1989)
    • Portraits of Thelonious Monk (Verve, 1989)
    • Self Portraits (Verve, 1989)
    • Spirits of Our Ancestors (Verve, 1991)
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