Islam and Jazz: An African American Odyssey

The mid-twentieth century was not only a time when some of the greatest jazz music was created. It was also a period when many African American musicians converted to Islam. By the 1940s, there was a variety of different versions of the faith from which to choose in America. The Ahmadiyya movement had arrived in the United States around 1920; the Nation of Islam had emerged out of Moorish Science a decade later; and by the 1940s different currents of Sunni Islam had been introduced to port cities like Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. By the 1950s and 60s, those ports became gateways to a wider world—to the Middle East and Africa—as African American Muslims set out on musical, religious, and political pilgrimages among their coreligionists overseas. In this episode, we’ll be following those journeys by the likes of Art Blakey, Ahmed Abdul-Malik, and Yusuf Lateef, as well as Malcolm X and the great John Coltrane.  Nile Green talks to Richard Brent Turner, author of Soundtrack to a Movement: African American Islam, Jazz, and Black Internationalism (New York University Press, 2021).

 

Album Links:

Ahmed Abdul-Malik, East Meets West https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmMR8J7yUEI

Yusuf Lateef, Eastern Sounds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMTHsK3MlzA

John Coltrane, ‘Naima’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPAC6zt_1ZM

John Coltrane, A Love Supreme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll3CMgiUPuU