RETURN Of The NATIVE SON(G) – Wole Alade

The death of any Art is assured when its traditional forms are allowed to stagnate,
stuck in a time-groove without experimentation or development. No matter how reassuring and fulfilling in their own right are the pleasures of constant recognition from these forms, even as masterpieces, they run the risk of atrophy. They are reduced to museum pieces, since they breed performance complacency on the one hand, and a laziness in consumer receptivity on the other. Always dependable, yes,  but not vibrant and challenging.

On the other hand, a tendency to willfully jettison the primal value and integrity of such forms, cut oneself off completely in pursuit of novelty for its own sake, is a fictitious undertaking that results very often in whimsicality and sterile mannerisms. The resulting product becomes lost in a form that has no reference points to existing artistic knowledge and, inevitably, alienates potential audiences.

Creative confidence is discernable when the artist strikes the judicious balance. Then, what often appears to be a natural, organic emergence from the traditional form hits eye or ear, elevated to such refined heights as to appear like totally  original products, yet inducts the consumer joyously into familiar aesthetic territory.

The product is devoid of any obvious effort or strain, only creative fluency that sweeps us off our feet even as it provides unsuspected insights into what we have always known, enjoyed, and taken for granted. In the case of music especially, the sounds transport us at once into a familiar past, but plunge us into a heady futurism. This is where we recognize a masterful hand at work, the entrancing blend of intuition and craft.

Yoruba polyphony has earned itself a place in world music repertory, largely
academic, not truly as a distinct genre of contemporary music. All that is about to
change – no, more accurately, has already begun to change – and a home-grown agent of this overdue transformation is a young composer and arranger who has already achieved fame in his exiled home, the United States of America, the  acknowledged breeding ground of the most innovatory jazz – traditional, contemporary, and mixed-form musical modes of the world.

Wole Alade who quit these shores some two decades ago, was already a multi-talented musician – adept with various instruments – even before he left. He arranged and played with his own band in Ibadan and Lagos on the familiar music scenes, but always unobtrusively, exploring and perfecting, blending with bands of the most contrasting styles and – revealingly – with a leaning towards musicians based outside the trendy night-life music of Lagos. It was perhaps an instinctive feeling that what this young talent sought would be found closer to origination, away from the cosmopolitan sounds that already dominated cities like Lagos.

And so – the Ede Town King’s Herald Vocal Quartet, Ibadan Polytechnic (SAIFUA AND MAKATISHU) Ibadan University, and Ife (PAPERBACK), where he also worked with the Maestro of Vocal Ensemble, Meshida. There were stints also with IFA, Ayoro Voices, Afro Linkage Ensemble etc. etc., and jamming sessions with King Sunny Ade, as well as tradition revivalists like Biddy Wright before his death and Baba Agba Jimi Solanke who also sought to revitalize his roots by taking refuge in Ile-Ife for many years before his death. Perhaps Wole Alade’s longest running engagement was as the first, and resident artiste of many years at Segi, the nightclub at Broking House, launched by the late Femi Johnson.

International exposure did not wait until Wole Alade took up residence outside
Nigeria. He collaborated with visiting bands such as the German EMBRYO and the xylophonist Christian Burchard during their Nigerian tour, giving memorable performances at Oduduwa Hall, in then University of Ife. Once outside the country he extended his repertoire into special compositions for dance-drama such as the ‘Festival of Renewal’, enjoyed a collaborative stint with the Ipswich Moving Company School of Dance, Barbara Derecktor and Donahue in his creation of “The Dancing Spirit of R’.

Needless to add, it was the United States that offered the most varied opportunities for stylistic exposure and ensemble collaborations. In between obtaining his Masters degrees in Music at Berkelee, and at Emerson College of Music, he wove in and out of creative encounters with seasoned names that may be unfamiliar to many on these
home shores – Bobby Mcferrin, Marlon Saunders (New York), Jamshied Sharifi, Shawn Lucas,
Michael Babatunde Olatunji, Carlos Santana (Abraxas) and others, gave culture workshops over the US campuses and institutions as well as in Germany and Japan. A frequent commentator not only on Musical Trends and Events, but also on cultural matters, Wole Alade’s articles have been featured in Glendora Review (London) and Black Ivory (New York).

At present he instructs at a number of US colleges, among
them Quincy College, Boston and Phillips Academy in Andover while scoring for
forthcoming music for American performers (Isaiah Washington etc.), not forgetting “Nollywood” projects – fans should look out for the film “Dr. Bello” at present in the works.

A very busy schedule, but the undercurrent of Alade’s multivalent exposure and  experimentation has been an unswerving fidelity to his search for a singular musical mode that would bear the tapestry of a deeply felt Yoruba spirituality experienced through a celebration of its rhythmic traditions of polyphony.

For Wole Alade, who
sometimes signs himself Alu’lugbomieko, it has been an arduous mission, especially in a music environment now several centuries removed from its origins, with its own distinct voices, accretions and tastes. Ultimately rewarding however, he is also the first to admit, is that this path has led to aesthetic fulfillment. His elder namesake, the Nobel Laureate
evidently agrees.

On listening to OLODUMARE, Wole Soyinka sent an email to the young composer which read in part: ‘I have just listened to the communal pulse of Yoruba flesh and spirit in harmonized rhythms’. And he coined a name for it YoRhythmics.

Agberin Ibile
(Agberin Ibile is the pen-name of a Nigerian free-lance writer on cultural matters currently based in Canada.)