The Divine Drummer

Originally released in 2001. Drummer Guy Warren was one of the first African musicians in the 20th century to make his career in the United States. Born in Ghana in 1923, he was a founder of The Tempos, which became the pre-eminent highlife dance band, but in the early '50s he emigrated to the U.S. He jammed with Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk, played New York gigs with Lester Young and Errol Garner, and was for a while the drummer in Sarah Vaughan's trio. In 1956 he recorded Africa Speaks America Answers, which combined traditional West African percussion with a standard jazz trap set for an album that emphasized the African rhythms and tones inherent in jazz and contemporary "third stream" music. The LP sold a million copies worldwide, and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and Randy Weston both covered Warren compositions from the album. Max Roach cited Guy Warren as an important influence on him. Warren made several more albums for Decca, Columbia, and EMI before returning to Ghana in the late '60s. He made the 1969-70 recordings collected in this CD in Accra and London.