From Duke Ellington to ‘Abami Eda’, and to ‘Portable’ – talented musicians and their wiles

For a Jazz lover, one precious recollection you cherish is a snippet of an interview between Michael Parkinson and Duke Ellington.

Ellington was one of the most revered composers and pianists in Jazz.

“The rumour is that when he eventually turned himself in, he was welcomed with a welter of slaps by men of the law.”

Parkinson, for his part, was one of the most famous television personalities of his time, and his weekly interview programme ‘Parkinson’ was a must-watch feature for discerning viewers in the United Kingdom. When Parkinson was recently asked to recall his most memorable guests, he recounted the interview with Duke Ellington. In a short clip he played on air, the banter was lively and frantic. Parkinson asked Ellington where he got the inspiration for the lyrics of his famous song ‘Sophisticated Lady.’ Was it true that the song was about one of the many titled ladies he had secret affairs with during his musical travels in Europe?

‘Just a rumour’ replied Ellington, in his jocular voice.

There were also widespread reports of dalliances in his dressing rooms and at various venues on different continents, continued Parkinson.

‘More rumours’, replied the Duke, laughing.

But the ‘rumours’ were firmly established facts.

Parkinson tried to sum up his encounter with Ellington, after playing the clip.

‘One of the most impressive men I ever met’ he said. ‘But he had the morality of an alley-cat’.

The stories of the ‘exceptionality’ claimed by talented musicians in their personal lives are legion. Sometimes it is almost as though they make their own laws and pay little heed to social norms and legality.

Take Fela Anikulapo Kuti, aka ‘Abami Eda.’ Picture the day after Christmas at Maiyegun Beach, in Lagos, in 1989. It is afternoon, on the second and final day of Lekki Sunsplash. Fela is the closing act and will soon be going on stage. The ultimate professional, he arrived early in the morning that day and had already set up his instruments on the stage, and turned them to perfection. Now he is relaxing in his special tent by the beach, in his well-photographed underpants. Some of his ‘Queens’ are deployed in different parts of the tent, painting their faces and going through the ritual preparations for their impending performance. Between his fingers is a jumbo stick of weed. Sitting beside him is a youthful Dapo Adelegan, the convener of the gargantuan Lekki Sunsplash concert, fresh from completing his NYSC. Fela is advising him in the paternalistic tone of a doting uncle addressing a talented kid.

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‘Are you married?”

Dapo shakes his head.

Fela laughs.

‘Be careful. You know why the Yoruba call it ‘Iyawo’?’ He blows a puff of smoke in the young man’s face, making him giddy. ‘The focus is on the ‘Iya’ – it means ‘suffering.’

Dapo laughs uncertainty, coughing from the uncustomed smoke.

The same ‘Abami Eda’ can be pictured on the stage at Tafawa Balewa Square, at an earlier point in history. The occasion is the official solemnisation of his marriage to 27 wives. The legal luminary Tunji Braithwaite has been invited to preside over the ceremony. A huge crowd of Lagosians are at the venue, to savour Fela’s music, and to watch the ceremony. The ‘Queens’, gaily painted and skimpily dressed as usual, are with him on stage, dancing. Braithwaite arrives in his gleaming new Mercedes Benz saloon. A roar goes up as he goes up on stage and salutes Fela. Then he steps up to the microphone and reads from a prepared speech. He cannot carry out the marriage because the law would not allow it. There is a stunned silence as he salutes Fela again and heads down the stage. As his Mercedes drives out a horde of area boys cling to it, damaging the rear bumper.

Musicians and Creatives define and enrich society, and they often live quirky lives at the edge of it. But Society is poorer without them.

How much licence should a good society give to eccentric musicians?

Michael Jackson and his bizarre love for little children.

The same Michael that stands for ninety seconds, without moving, without speaking, at the Super Bowl half-time show in 1993. Suddenly he erupts in song and dance. Millions of people at the venue and watching live from all over the world get the most memorable spectacle of their lives.

Sometimes creative people behave like overgrown children, and the best societies learn to indulge them, even while not allowing them to ‘get away with murder.’ Elvis Presley once went to Nixon’s White House and demanded to be gifted a Federal Narcotics badge. It would normally be imagined that a dour, grumpy president like Nixon would throw him out of the door. Nixon gave him the badge.

There is a little slip of a guy in Nigeria named ‘Portable.’ This is not to put him in the same bracket with any of the greats mentioned above, but he is one of the most effervescent street performers anyone will ever see. His ‘Zazoo Zeh’ lyrics may suck, but when he launches himself from the stage, trusting the audience to catch him, you can see that inside this frantic search for an identity, inside the reckless promiscuous pugnacious lifestyle there is a rough talent struggling to come out. His scraps with everyone. At the time, he was so regularly beaten up on the street that he had to run to MC Oluomo for shelter. Recently he got into trouble with the law in Abeokuta and was declared ‘Wanted.’ The rumour is that when he eventually turned himself in, he was welcomed with a welter of slaps by men of the law.

The word to Ogun State is – please cut Portable some slack and let him off with a rap on the knuckles and a promise to be of good behaviour. Anyone who has seen the guy on stage will know that this is a rough diamond. The little fellow can dance. That, of course, is no licence to break the law.