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Jazz Articles about Babatunde Olatunji

About Babatunde Olatunji

Instrument: Drums

174

Album Review

Babatunde Olatunji: Circle of Drums

Read "Circle of Drums" reviewed by Jeff Dayton-Johnson

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
April 22, 2006

Percussionist Babatunde Olatunji was born in a Yoruba-speaking fishing village in Nigeria in 1927 and succumbed to diabetes in Salinas, California in 2003. Why might Circle of Drums, a previously-unreleased 1993 recording, be of interest? In part because, if the prize for First World Music Record can be definitively awarded (and it probably cannot) a serious contender would be Olatunji's Drums of Passion (Columbia/Legacy, 1959). John Coltrane claimed Olatunji as an influence (and provided financial support for the drummer's cultural ...

378

Album Review

Olatunji: Drums of Passion

Read "Drums of Passion" reviewed by Mike Perciaccante

by Mike Perciaccante
May 10, 2003

Columbia Legacy's reissue of Drums Of Passion offers a chance for new listeners to fully appreciate the groundbreaking 1959 debut CD of the late African drummer Michael Babatunde Olatunji. Hailed as a genius by none other than jazz greats John Coltrane, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie and referenced by Bob Dylan on his Freewheeling album, Olatunji has also toured with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and influenced the rhythmic masters of later generations (Grateful Dead drummer Mickey ...