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Unified And One

by Baba Alade

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1.
2.
For You 03:19
3.
Bird 03:33
4.
Downtown 03:19
5.
BMW 03:17
6.
7.
8.
I Found Love 03:04
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
Hold On 02:47
14.

about

"Names are things for us to aspire to in our lives and they can actually connote the personage that is wearing the name," says multi-instrumentalist Baba Alade Olamina. He's been given almost as many names in his life as the instruments that he plays. Sherman Alvin Mckinney III was his given name at birth. "I thought that Stuffy Pooky was my name until I was about 5," he recalls, "I had never heard my Christian name until that time. I was called by my nickname - and still to this day I'm called that by some people." The names keep coming, and changing to this day. Celestial Songhouse and Sigidi are others.

"The crown honor is befitting of this one," is a close translation to the proverb of Baba Alade. His crown is a story and he finds many ways to tell it. "Unified and One" has as many names as the Blues. "It could have been called any one of the other songs," he says, because, "it's all the blues." As the lead off track, "Unified and One" is given the responsibility of introducing you to a musician that does so many different things. He's a banjo player that can tell you about the history of the kora and other instruments that have been integral to the voyage and continuum of African peoples. He's a guitar player that sings of loves lost and love at first sight that never passes.

He was first a bass player, and a cornet player, "and there was always a banjo around in the house," he adds. When he first started playing jazz in his home town of Watts-California Baba Alade played with the Jazz Prophets with Ndugu Leon Chancellor and others and later the Jazz Symphonics with Larry Nash and then with a quartet that featured Herbert Baker and his long time friend Azar Lawrence. He played upright as a young teen and recorded and traveled with the Craig Hundley trio for the World Pacific label. He rose to prominence on the bass playing and recording with avante garde, fusionist saxophone player Charles Lloyd. Baba Alade also plays saxophone.

"Some people in the community that know what I do, don't even know about the folk side or the blues side that's represented on "Unified and One." He recalls walking into some communities where he's only known as a trumpet player, one of the other instruments that he plays. "I have always understood that in pop culture the blues means something. When people see something they expect you to do a certain something." The point of this record wasn't ever intended to "correct the misconceptions" that people have, "that's not my point," he says, "but that's gonna come up."

Much like the great music of one of his great teachers and friends, Taj Mahal, Baba Alade presents the blues in many forms and doesn't stray from evolving it. Baba Alade went pretty far out at times within the "jazz" world expressing the blues. I love the avant garde and where we were going with Horace Tapscott and Charles Lloyd but still I always loved beautiful lyrics and lyric.

I always had a harmonica with me, and I would always write songs." No matter where Baba Alade found himself, at the University of Ife in Nigeria, in New York with Babatunde Olatunji or here in Los Angeles riding one of his motorcycles or in one of his favorite station-wagons, the voices of Nat King Cole, Robert Johnson, Antonio Carlos Jobim and many others are always with him. "You are what you've listened to." And, he's so much more. He's played in highlife Afro-beat groups with his friend Najite and with the hip-hop, new age Forest for the Trees with his friend Carl Stevenson.

"For the last 15 years or more I haven't had the economic powers to enlist a band," he half laments, "so it forced me to work solo and support myself with a different kind of music. I used the folk medium as a vehicle to stay in the ball park, in performing." Baba Alade has performed the music of Unified and One at places like the Watts Towers and the World Stage and more recently at El Rey Theatre, Fais Do Do, the Mint and Temple Bar.

Baba Alade has presented himself at times as a one man band, setting up keyboards and drum machines and playing and singing over pre-set rhythms. "Some of the songs were written as far back as 1970. Some of the songs are very new to recording time. In other words, every time we do something in terms of the body of songs that we put on the album, and how I approached the music - it shows another side of where I reach musically in my endeavors. It's all just music. Endless permutations." He's right, wouldn't you say? "I Believe In Love" is really where I'm at. It's an older song but that's exactly about who I am."

"There were faces carved in ebony etched inside my mind, voices sing a melody of another kind. Pyramids and kingdoms and ancient times, and candle burns with incense on an alter in my shrine, candle burns with incense on the alter in my mind. I believe in a sun that is forever orevever shining, I believe in a sky that is blue. I believe in the flame that forever is burning, I believe in a love that is true." - BABA ALADE

credits

released January 1, 2002

1.Unified And One 3:16
Drum programming – Harlan Steinberger and Baba Alade
Congas – David Gaeta
Electric bass, acoustic guitar, six string banjo, penny whistle - Baba Alade
Supporting vocals, poem, spoken word – Sonja Marie
Vocals - Baba Alade

2. For You 3:18
Acoustic guitar, vocals - Baba Alade

3. Gazing At You 4:42
Drum programming Harlan Steinberger and Baba Alade
Congas – David Gaeta
Acoustic bass – Kaveh Rastegar
Keys, acoustic guitar, muted trumpet, vocals - Baba Alade

4. Bird 3:32
Acoustic guitar, vocals - Baba Alade

5. Downtown 3:18
Drum programming – Harlan Steinberger and Baba Alade
Congas – David Gaeta
Electric bass, acoustic guitar, six string banjo, piano, organ, harmonica, vocals - Baba Alade

6. BMW 3:16
Acoustic guitar, electric bass, slide guitar, vocals - Baba Alade

7. Mary Had A Baby 2:28
Drum programming – Harlan Steinberger and Baba Alade
Congas – David Gaeta
Indian prayer bells, acoustic guitar, vocals - Baba Alade

8. Cold As Ice 4:02
Drum programming – Harlan Steinberger and Baba Alade
Congas – David Gaeta
Tambourine, cabasa – Harlan Steinberger
Electric bass, acoustic guitar, six string banjo, wood block, vocals - Baba Alade

9. Condoleezza 3:51
Drum programming – Harlan Steinberger and Baba Alade
Acoustic bass – Kaveh Rastegar
Acoustic guitar, five string banjo, six string banjo, muted trumpet, vocals - Baba Alade

10. One World 6:26
Djembe, shaker, bell, acoustic guitar, five string banjo, vocals - Baba Alade

11. Tortoise And The Hair 1:57
Clay drum – Harlan Steinberger and Baba Alade
Electric bass – Lonnie Marshall
Sitar – Gabby Lang
Acoustic guitar, five string banjo, six string banjo, vocals - Baba Alade

12. I Found Love 3:03
Acoustic guitar, vocals - Baba Alade

13. I Believe In Love 2:10
Congas – David Gaeta
Six string banjo, vocals - Baba Alade

14. Love Casualty 3:29
Drum programming – Harlan Steinberger and Baba Alade
Djembe, electric bass, acoustic guitar, five string banjo, six string banjo, harmonica, vocals - Baba Alade

15. Must Have Been Dreaming 2:26
Acoustic guitar, vocals - Baba Alade

16. Once You’ve Broke Your Heart 3:08
Drum programming – Harlan Steinberger and Baba Alade
Hi hat – Harlan Steinberger
Congas – David Gaeta
Electric bass, acoustic guitar, five string banjo, six string banjo, triangle, vocals - Baba Alade

17. Woman And Man 4:26
Acoustic guitar, harmonica, vocals - Baba Alade

18. Trial By Fire 4:33
Acoustic guitar, vocals - Baba Alade

19. Hold On 2:43
Acoustic guitar, vocals - Baba Alade

20. Unified And One – Outro 0:40

All songs written by Celestial Songhouse

All songs published by Hen House Studios LLC. (BMI)

Produced by Harlan Steinberger and Baba Alade

Engineered by Harlan Steinberger

Mixed by Harlan Steinberger and Baba Alade except track #18 mixed by Jim Mona

Mastered by Doug Schwartz at Mulholland Music except track #18 mastered by Brian Gardener at Bernie Grundman’s Mastering

Recorded and Mixed at Hen House Studios

Production Manager – Wardell Eisner

Graphic Design – Jen Baers

Photography – Randi Steinberger

For more information about Hen House Studios, to view documentary music videos and to listen to radio interviews, please visit our web site at www.henhousestudios.com

© Hen House Studios 2002

Aboru, Boye, Bosise

Dedicated to Olodo Osun at Oshogbo, Nigeria

And to the dedicated men, women, and children throughout the Diaspora and West Africa that have maintained the customs and traditions of our ancestors.

Lese Olodumare, ki gbogbo awon okisa, ati gbogbo ara ile ku toju ati pamo awa o.

When all is said and done, it is what we do with others, and to others, and for others, that speaks loudness (and in volumes) of who we are and what we are all about as individuals and as people.

Special thanks to: Harlan, Randi, Carlos, Wardell, Jen, Sonja, Kaveh, David, Lonnie, Gabby and Ms. Abbyejo Atkinson (comfort always)

-Baba Alade

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Baba Alade Los Angeles, California

Baba Alade, grew up in Watts, and approaches his folk/ blues from his urban roots, armed with Banjo in hand. Baba is a poetic wordsmith who sings of love, lost and found through sweet melodies that resonate. He has performed with everyone from Taj Mahal, Babatunde Olatunji to the great jazz legend, Charles Lloyd. ... more

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