Jazz Articles

Otha Turner & the Afrossippi Allstars: From Senegal to Senatobia

by Derek Taylor
April 1, 2000

Otha(r) Turner, a life-long resident of the rugged, brambly hill country surrounding Senatobia, Mississippi, is ninety-odd years young. In his near century of wizened existence he’s served as a living, breathing vessel for fife and drum musical traditions - traditions rooted in the 19th century America, which stretch back countless generations and have antecedents in the earliest of organized human sounds. Cane fife, snare drum, bass drum and throat - these are the channels by which the cultural communion is ...