Encounter with African jazz godfather - Ghanaba

During and after the era of the transatlantic slave-trade, Jazz as a music form with deep African roots morphed into the many styles of African- American, Afro-Cuban, Puerto Rican, Brazilian and Dominican Jazz , generally losing the African-ness in the diverse forms, as time passed, in the diaspora.

Warren Gamaliel Akwei (Guy Warren, later to be known commonly as Ghanaba) in the mid 1900s became that gong-gong (talking drum) that sounded African American Jazz musicians and music lovers back to their roots.

A move that could possibly be the summary of his life’s work. All his lifetime achievements can be summed up by the one Ghanaian symbol and proverb he still stands by “SANKOFA, wonkyir” which translates “ There’s nothing wrong with going back to your roots”.

I met Ghanaba on a Saturday morning. It was a brief encounter. I picked up the son, Glenn Ghanababa Warren from Circle to Medie, the village where his father hides out, so I can photograph the two of them for Glenn’s upcoming album. I was excited. I had heard so much about this 84 year old who lives in isolation and yet touches many hearts with his life’s work.

After some convincing, he gets ready for the quick photo shoot.  The click of the camera and popping of the flash, seemed to awaken the star in him. He tells Glenn to get him his staff. The staff arrives, and I notice the Sankofa bird, grabbing it’s egg backwards as usual, but it doesn’t click.

He lights an incense, which had been Glenn’s gift to him when we arrived and as the sweet fragrance of the incense mixed with the popping flash and clicking sound of the camera, he came alive suddenly, opened up to me and started to share his story with me. It is the story of a Legend. Period.

On the 4th of May, 1923, Ghanaba was born in Accra, of the then Gold Coast, to the Headmaster of Ghana National School, Richard Mabuo Akwei and the beautiful Susuana Awula Abla Moore. His proud parents named him after the American president Warren Gamaliel Harding.

His love for the arts and sports got him leading the school band of Government Elementary Boy’s School, playing lead roles in the pantomime “Zacariah Fee”, produced by Governor Sir Arnold Hudson, and playing drums for the Accra Rhythmic Orchestra led by Yeboah Mensah, whilst a student of Odorgonno Secondary School in 1940.

Ghanaba after his Achimota College years, worked as an Undercover for the Office  of Strategic Services ( a United States Agency dealing with overt and covert operations during the Second World War).

He also worked for the Gold Coast Radio Broadcasting Services as a DJ, a reporter for the Spectator Daily Newspaper, he was editor for the Daily Echo, Gold Coast Independent and Star of West Africa from 1950-1952. He did a series of Jazz programmes for  the British Broadcasting Service.

He is a founding member of the Tempos, where he played drums, Joe Kelly, clarinet and tenor saxophone, E.T Mensah (younger brother of Yeboah Mensah) on trumpet, Pa Hughes, alto saxophone, Baby Nelson and Pete Johnson, guitar, Adolf Doku and Johnny Dodds Schall, piano, James Bossman and Serious Amarfio, bass. The Tempos was considered by many to the epitome of African Jazz ensemble.

He formed his own Afro-Cubist ensemble in Ghana which performed at the 1953 inauguration of President William Tubman of Liberia, where he remained to become Assistant Director and resident DJ at station ELBC, the National Broadcasting Service of Liberia.

In 1955,  he moved to Chicago and joined Gene Esposito band as co-leader, percussionists and arranger.

This ensemble recorded his best known album, Africa Speaks, America Answers in 1956 for Decca Records. He joined ASCAP as a composer in 1957 and that same year, he moved to New York City where he is to form the Zoundz ensemble, and continue developing a musical style combining African musical elements with Jazz which he called African Jazz.

He had contact or performed with such Jazz greats as Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhom, Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday, Max Roach, Buhaina Art Blakey, and Louis Armstrong. He’s recorded for RCA Victor, Regal, Columbia and his own Safari label.

Since the 1950s, he has gradually modified the Jazz drumset, replacing western instruments with traditional African drums.

Ghanaba has written many articles and essays, starred in movies, such as Haile Gerima’s 1993 film Sankofa, and still thrives.

Although he lives in isolation, he cannot be ignored or forgotten in neither Ghana’s musical nor political history. He will be remembered for his friendship and support for Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president, and for being a father figure and mentor for the man he affectionately calls “Jack”, Jerry John Rawlings, Ghana’s immediate past president.

As Ghanababa gave me a tour of his father’s library, the old man appears behind me holding the  photocopy of a handsome 19 year old man’s portrait. He says “Look at Jack”.

For a moment I was confused. Glenn helped me out. “Jerry” he said. The old man wearing his proudest look tells me, “he gave it to me the last time, I visited him. He took this photo at 19, just before he joined the army”.

Today, the New York University intermittently marches their students to sit at his feet and to learn from him. His message of Sankofa continues. It does seem he’s been abandoned and deliberately forgotten for political reasons but someday soon, Ghana will go back, dig through his work and learn from the living legend… if he still lives by then.