AAJ: How did it all start? What got you interested in drums?

NA: It all started when I was three or four years old. I used to march in parades with my Grandfather who was a Shriner. I would feel the vibration of the drums hitting up in my chest. Even now when I bring my head down to my snare drum while playing, I can feel that same vibration, but that's what got me started.

AAJ: Do you play any other instruments?

NA: I'm studying piano. I'm not really what you might call a piano player, but I play well enough to compose my own music.

AAJ: What's the creative process you go through when composing a song? Does it begin on the piano?

NA: Yeah. Very rarely do I start with drums first. I used to, before I started using compositional tools like the piano and harmonic instruments, but now, when I get an idea I go straight to the keyboard to work it out. Sometimes it comes as a bass line or sometimes it may come as a melody and sometimes it comes as a chord progression, and I just put melody and bass line with it. There are times when I wake up with music in my head. I have to immediately go to the piano and figure out what it is so I won't forget it, no matter what time it is.

AAJ: When did you first know you wanted to play jazz?

NA: I was in high school when I realized that playing music was what I wanted to do. I was working with a tenor saxophonist named Elvin Shepherd (Shep). He worked with Bill Doggett in the 50's. I worked with him in a club in Buffalo called the Revelot Lounge. The club would bring in groups like the Manhattans and the O'Jays, singing groups like that and I would back them up. But the band I played with at that time was also playing blues. It was an organ group so we would play Jimmy Smith and Jack McDuff songs. I was into Trane and all that. But when I went to hear Miles Davis for the first time and I saw Tony Williams, and Tony was a year and a half older than me, then I said well now I know I have to get serious. At that time my hair was fried, dyed and laid to the side. The very next day I cut my hair and said I want to be serious about playing this music. I was about seventeen.

AAJ: Do you remember your first professional job as a musician?

NA: It was for a high school sorority dance. I was 15 years old and the gig was played on a loaned drum set. I kept the drums for a few days after, and set them up in the living room. Once, my mother was in the kitchen and heard me playing. That was the first time she heard me play on a real drum set. She said, "you know, I didn't know you could play that well." The next year I got a drum set of my own.

AAJ: Was jazz heard in the home when you were growing up?

NA: Yeah, mostly the music my mother brought into the house was of vocalists; Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, people like that. But I would bring in music like Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk because my cousin Frankie Dunlop, a drummer, played with Thelonious at the time. I think at 13 or 14 I joined the Columbia Record club. I was under age but they would send me records and I would raise money to pay for the albums by going to the supermarket and bringing groceries home for people in my wagon. That's how my record collection started.

AAJ: You played with Ella Fitzgerald. What was that experience like?

NA: It went by so fast. It was for one night and that's all I really needed. I was sitting at home practicing on my pad and I got a call from a local disc jockey who knew me and said Ella Fitzgerald is in need of a drummer right away. Can you be down here in half an hour? That was 7 o'clock and I was down there at 7:30, showered and shaved! That's the first time I met Keter Betts. I was 28. Tommy Flannagan was on piano and Keter Betts was on bass. It was just a remarkable evening. It was very easy to play with Ella. Initially I was afraid because at that time I wasn't reading music very well. I thought I wasn't going to be able to play. They brought me this book and it was thick. I was looking through the book saying, "Oh man!" Finally, Tommy Flannagan came over because he saw I was nervous. He said don't even worry about looking at the book because here's what she's gonna do. He said the first song we're going to do is this, and he sung the intro for me. He said we'll do that twice and we're into the song. He sounded it out for me. The rest of her show were songs that she had been doing for many years and my mother had those songs in her collection. I knew all that material from the recordings, so I didn't even have to worry about reading music. It was very easy for me to play.

AAJ: How did you arrive at the name SUPERNOVA for the band?

NA: The reason I named the band SUPERNOVA is, first of all, I was impressed by Wayne Shorter's album that he put out in the early '70s called Super Nova. I'm knocked out by Wayne's music. Second, when I started studying the phenomenon of what a super nova is, it became evident that the music itself can take on various forms. And since a super nova is a star that contracts and expands, then SUPERNOVA can be anything from a trio to a large ensemble. So I have the artistic license to explore all those areas. I'm going to paint on this canvas that has been presented to me and put what I want, where I want, and go from there.

AAJ: Your first CD as a leader is called Mirage. How do you describe this project?

NA: When you put out your first product you want it to be perfect. When I first started looking at all the music I had recorded over a 9 or 10 year period with my producer Jim Smith, I wasn't satisfied with any of the things we had done so I didn't want to release any of it. But in my meditation, it came to me to put aside those feelings and pick out the nicest tracks that had the highest quality and put them in a collection and that it would probably be successful. So Jim and I went back and revisited everything we recorded and found the best performances. That's what we put on the CD. So this CD represents about a nine-year recording history. A fact that also points to the CD being dated is tenor saxophonist Carter Jefferson played on two songs and that took place in '93 just before he died. When you mix music over and over, and hear it over and over, my experience has been to get tired of the music. I can still listen to this CD. I enjoy the music and I think it was the best I could do at this particular time. I'm also finding out when you put something out that's perfect, you don't have anywhere else to go. I want to let my audience know and hear the progression I'm making, so on my subsequent CDs you will hear my growth.

AAJ: You co-produced two CDs Free Sprits and Breath of Life with your former band BIRTHRIGHT. How does Mirage compare to those CDs?

NA:Mirage has some of the same personnel on it. Joe Ford was also a member of that band. We had 3 co-leaders, Paul Gresham, Joe Ford, and myself. Gerry Eastman was on the second album we did and played bass. So there is a similarity, but the way the music is presented on Mirage is the way I wanted to present it. Everyone sort of takes their cues from me. And now I'm writing music where as back then I wasn't writing that much. Early on when I was composing I would have to take it to someone and have them play it on piano and then write it out for me. My friends got tired of doing that and said man, you got to write out our parts, so even now I study piano just so I can do that. I always want a spiritual underlying tone to be evident in my music and in my performances, and I think that's there on Mirage.

AAJ: One of the tracks on Mirage is called "Black Gold". What's the story behind that tune?

NA: "Black Gold" came about as a result of me once running out of gas two blocks from home. When I ran out of gas I was on a hill so the little gas I had went to the back of the tank . I had to walk two blocks to the nearest gas station and they wanted a $45.00 deposit for a gas can, which I didn't have. So I had to walk back two blocks to the car and two more blocks to get home for my gas can, and walk four blocks back to the gas station. The whole time I was doing this walking, this melody was in my head and I kept hearing it over and over. Finally I committed it to paper and it turns out a lot of programmers play that selection.

AAJ: You call your music Multi-D. What do you mean by that?

NA: Yes, multi-dimensional and multi-directional. We exist in many dimensions at the same time. I like to think the music deals in dimensional form. Multi-D also deals with the idea of going in more than one direction at a time. With direction, we're dealing with the kind of music that we play. People like to describe what we play as jazz but jazz doesn't really tell me what the music is, doesn't really tell anyone. I took the initiative to name my music. Ornette Coleman calls his music harmolodic. Steve Coleman calls his music M-base and Sun Ra calls his inter-galactic. So if you describe your music you can give people an idea of what your intention is and they can enjoy the music a little more. I think that after it becomes common people will associate our music with the term Multi-D.

AAJ: Who were a couple musicians that made the biggest impact on your music?

NA: There's two ways to answer that - - musically and spiritually. I think the greatest impact musically would be John Coltrane. He impressed upon me the idea of music and spirituality all in one package. The other person that influenced me was Malcolm X. He influenced me with integrity. Every time Malcolm made a change he identified the change, identified where he was wrong in the path, and corrected himself and proceeded from that correction, which tells me my music has to have integrity. It also tells me I have to be true to what I feel and hear.

AAJ: Who have you studied with?

NA: I've studied with Billy Hart, Joe Chambers, Freddie Waites. I've also had some good mentors. I mentioned Billy Hart, my cousin Frankie Dunlop, Grady Tate and Roy Haynes. I would say those four drummers were the most important in terms of helping me get to where I am now. I've also studied with Calvin Jones who heads up the jazz department at the University of the District of Columbia. He's helped me to understand a lot about formal ways of moving chord progressions around, presentation, color and all that.

AAJ: How often do you practice?

NA: Everyday. There's an old saying that goes, when I don't practice one day I know it, when I miss two days my wife knows it, and when I miss 3 days the world knows it!

AAJ: Do you make your son Kush practice and do you think he wants to make music a profession?

NA: He doesn't practice as often as I try to make him practice. On drums I don't teach him anything unless he asks . I don't want to push him. In terms of piano, I'm paying for his lessons so I tell him you're gonna practice. At this age he'll sit down and play piano but he'll play what he wants to play, which is fine. But as you hear he'll go play the drums or the piano at anytime. He says he wants to make music a career. People have asked him are you going to be a musician when you grow up? At eight years old he will tell them, no, I'm already a musician!

AAJ: You've been busy teaching and mentoring and have been involved with the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.

NA: Right now I'm so engrossed in the promotion of the CD that I've had to cut back on private teaching. The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz in D.C. has provided me with many avenues and opportunities, especially teaching. I started working with the Institute in '95 or '96. Lately my association with them has been even more gratifying. They know me as a band leader so they have had me do several presentations at the Vice President's residence and bring bands together for some of the artists that come here for the annual Monk International jazz competitions. After I get things going, I'm going to get back into teaching.

AAJ: I understand you've performed in Morocco. What was that like and how was the music received?

NA: They love the music over there. You know it's funny, anywhere in the world you go, even to places that don't hear jazz too often, they love the music. What was interesting in Morocco was that the people recognized my name as being Arabic and that I was Muslim. They flocked to me for autographs and I would write my name in Arabic and that just impressed them, as well as, the other people on the tour.

AAJ: You recently played with Pharoah Sanders at Blues Alley in Washington, D.C. In what style was the music and how did that gig turn out?

NA: That was the first time I played with Pharoah. The gig went very well. I feel very comfortable playing with someone like Pharoah where a lot of energy is needed from the drums. I couldn't put the music in any category except to say it's Pharoah's music so it's highly meditative. Some of the selections we played were Coltrane compositions and we played them in a meditative form. There were points where it got free with very high energy and intensity. While on the band stand with Pharoah I realized that that was the closest I've come to playing with John Coltrane, since Pharoah shared the stage with Coltrane. Pharoah has a lot of Coltrane's energy and insightfulness in the way he approaches his music.

AAJ: What's next for Nasar Abadey?

NA: What I'm doing now is promoting the CD. I'm beating the bushes to drum up work, pardon the pun. I'm getting a lot of positive responses from other quarters around the country and now I'm pushing out to Europe. I've sent the CD over to Europe and Japan and I'm concentrating on booking the band for next year. I intend to come out with another CD next year, which will include the regulars Joe Ford, Gerry Eastman, and James King and with the latest additions to the band, vocalist Karen Francis and pianist Allyn Johnson. I've got songs I've written lyrics to. More gigs for the band, with more of an international focus and presence is what I'm looking to do. The journey is more fun than the arrival.

Contact Nasar Abadey at http://www.nasarabadey.com or Amosaya Records at http://www.amosaya.com.