(Special to Informed Comment) – James Baldwin was one of the first African American writers to visit Israel. In the fall of 1961, he spent two weeks in Israel as a guest of the government. Baldwin was thirty-seven at the time, and already well-established as an essayist and novelist. He had published his first full-length […]
How Turkish Muslims at Atlantic Records Marketed Motown, Jazz, Black Music to America
(Special to Informed Comment) – To those outside of the music business the title, “The House that Ahmet Built” might sound like the name of a Turkish folktale for children. But for those in the know, the ‘house’ was Atlantic Records and ‘Ahmet’ was Ahmet Ertegun, the great record company’s co-founder. In 1947 along with […]
Jazz Legend Talib Dawud: Be-Bop and Islam’s “Elevation of the Mind”
(Informed Comment) – Jazz Trumpeter Talib Dawud, whose given name was Alfonso Nelson Rainey, was one of the early American jazz converts to Ahmadiyya Islam. In the mid-twentieth century over a hundred other jazz musicians would follow in Dawud’s path. The background to these many conversions was articulated forcefully and dramatically by John Coltrane’s first […]
Jazz Great Yusef Lateef’s Journey to Islam
“I want my music to awaken something that’s already in your heart.” (Informed Comment) – Among the hundred-plus African-American jazz musicians who embraced Islam in the mid-Twentieth Century, Yusuf Lateef, whose given name was William Huddleston, emerged as the elder statesman and spokesman of the group. One of the reasons was his remarkable longevity. Another […]
Be-Bop to Bahai: The Spiritual Journey of Dizzy Gillespie
(Informed Comment) – In 1948 rumors spread that jazz trumpet great Dizzy Gillespie was considering converting to Islam. Gillespie told journalists that the important religious issue for him was not the success of another religion but the failure of Christianity. “Don’t say I’m forsaking Christianity, Christianity is forsaking me, or better, people who claim to […]
Islam, the Oud and American Jazz Prodigy Ahmed Abdul-Malik
(Informed Comment) – On John Coltrane’s breakthrough album Live at the Village Vanguard album (1961) there were many musical innovations, and the sound of an instrument new to jazz, the oud. The oud, staple of Middle Eastern music – and ancestor of the lute and guitar – was played by Coltrane’s bassist, Ahmed Abdul-Malik. Just […]
Jazz Great John Coltrane and the Enchantment of Islam
(Informed Comment) – In his childhood and youth in rural North Carolina John Coltrane absorbed the musical traditions of African-American worship. His parents were active in the local African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. John’s paternal grandfather was a minister in that church and John’s mother sang and played piano in the gospel choir. In 1943 […]
How Muslim-Americans Helped Create Modern Jazz
Art Blakey (in 1947) and and Ahmad Jamal (in 1959) traveled to North Africa to study Islam
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