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    Abdul Wadud, Cellist Who Crossed Musical Boundaries, Dies at 75

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    He performed with classical ensembles, but he was best known for his work with cutting-edge composers and improvisers like Anthony Davis and Julius Hemphill.Abdul Wadud, a distinctive cellist who crossed genres and was a key collaborator with the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis, died on Aug. 10 in Cleveland. He was 75.His son, the R&B singer Raheem DeVaughn, said the death, in a hospital, was caused by complications of multiple recent illnesses.Mr. Wadud converted to Islam while in college but continued to use his given name, Ronald DeVaughn, when playing with classical ensembles, as he did with the New Jersey Symphony in the 1970s.He also performed in Broadway pit bands and with Stevie Wonder. But he is best known for his work with Mr. Davis, the saxophonist and composer Julius Hemphill, and others who were central to the development of American composition and improvisation in the late 20th century.Skilled at eliciting variations of instrumental color with a bow, Mr. Wadud pioneered a pizzicato language on the cello that was sometimes subtle, sometimes booming.For many of his contemporaries, the first taste of his instrumental prowess came via his appearance on Mr. Hemphill’s 1972 album, “Dogon A.D.” (Like many important recordings featuring Mr. Wadud, it is currently out of print.)Over the title track’s unusual loping groove, Mr. Wadud supported Mr. Hemphill’s saxophone lines with crying, bluesy bowed phrases as well as some select, forcefully plucked notes. Baikida Carroll, the trumpeter on that session — and, like Mr. Hemphill, a member of the St. Louis-based Black Artists Group — remembered Mr. Wadud’s insightful questioning during rehearsals about that composition’s 11/16 meter.“He asked Julius about the relation of the drum part and the cello part, how they hook up,” Mr. Carroll recalled in an interview, adding that he “pointedly observed” Mr. Wadud’s working methods “because I was, like, This is the cat!”The composer, trombonist and scholar George Lewis said in an interview that he regarded Mr. Wadud’s playing on “Dogon A.D.” as a landmark of 20th-century music. He tied that performance to Mr. Wadud’s later solo recording, “By Myself,” which is also out of print.“There’s the electricity — he’s amplified — there’s the funk, there’s the off-meter; a lot of the stuff that turns up being crystallized in ‘By Myself’ is sort of foreshadowed in ‘Dogon A.D,’” Mr. Lewis said. “It’s like James Brown — but I bet even James Brown couldn’t have done it if it had been in 11/16.” (A 1977 live performance of the piece is included on a boxed set of Mr. Hemphill’s work, released in 2021 by New World Records.)Mr. Wadud did not record much of his own music, aside from his 1977 solo LP, but his solo work had an impact. Writing in The New York Times about the Abdul original “Camille,” from “By Myself,” the cellist Tomeka Reid praised him for using “the whole range of the cello” and moving “between lyrical, free playing and groove with ease, something I strive to do in my own work.” In a recent interview, Ms. Reid added, “What Pablo Casals did for the Bach suites, I feel like Abdul Wadud did for the new generation of cello in jazz.”Around the time of “By Myself,” Mr. Lewis chose Mr. Wadud for an ensemble that performed the Lewis composition “Monads,” his attempt to “come to terms” with the graphic scores of the composer Morton Feldman.“Abdul knew all about that kind of thing; he knew more about it than I did,” Mr. Lewis said. “That combination, of having the strong kind of Black bass and having all these other possibilities — equally strong — made him someone you could work with who was super versatile and could do anything.”Similarly, the clarinetist J.D. Parran noted that “you could run into Abdul Wadud anywhere.” He remembered with particular pleasure seeing “this gigantic smile” on Mr. Wadud’s face during their tour with Stevie Wonder, in support of the album “Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants.” (Mr. Parran added that Mr. Wadud was the contractor for the ambitious, larger than usual outfit Mr. Wonder used on that tour.)Mr. DeVaughn, Mr. Wadud’s son, recalled his father offering his ear when Mr. DeVaughn was recording his album “The Love Reunion.” “He went with me to a couple studio sessions,” the son said. “And he would make some cool suggestions.”Mr. Wadud in concert at Washington Square Church in Manhattan in 1990.Jack Vartoogian/FrontRowPhotos/Getty ImagesRonald Earsall DeVaughn was born on April 30, 1947, in Cleveland, the youngest of 12 children of Alberta Miller and Edward DeVaughn. He studied at Youngstown State University and Oberlin College in Ohio and, though accepted to Yale for graduate work in performance, chose to attend Stony Brook University, on Long Island, for his master’s degree, so that he could study cello with Bernard Greenhouse of the Beaux Arts Trio.In 2014, in one of his last interviews, Mr. Wadud said of Mr. Greenhouse: “He had the ensemble background. At that time, I was thinking if I wanted to do something in classical, it would be in an ensemble, an arranged quartet, piano trio, or something of that nature.”Mr. Wadud clinched some of these chamber music ambitions in the 1980s as part of a stellar trio with Mr. Davis and the flutist and composer James Newton.“A lot of people have spoken about his pizzicato playing, but I was also excited by his arco tone,” Mr. Davis said in an interview, referring to Mr. Wadud’s use of the bow. “He had a unique sound, a beautiful sound. I think James and I were both so excited; it opened up so many avenues in terms of our composition, to create pieces for him.”When the trio performed with the New York Philharmonic, as soloists in an orchestral performance of Mr. Davis’s “Still Waters,” there came a distinct moment of respect for Mr. Wadud’s musicianship, Mr. Newton recalled.“The principal cellist in the orchestra at that time said, ‘Mr. Wadud, what is the fingering that you’re using for this phrase?’” Mr. Newton recalled saying to himself, knowing the Philharmonic’s reputation for icy welcomes, “We got ’em.’”At the same time, Mr. Davis had unwittingly spoiled Mr. Wadud’s strategic use of his dual musical identities, in which he went by his original name, Ronald DeVaughn, for classical gigs while saving the name Abdul Wadud for improvisational work. “He was laughing,” Mr. Davis remembered, “Because, he said, now I had busted him: People in the classical world knew he was Abdul Wadud.”In addition to his son, Mr. Wadud is survived by a daughter, Aisha DeVaughn; a brother, Marvin DeVaughn; a sister, Floretta Perry; and five grandchildren. He was married and divorced twice.Shortly after recording the album “Oakland Duets” with Mr. Hemphill in 1992, Mr. Wadud retired from playing. Mr. Newton said of that decision: “I think when people believe that you’ve changed an instrument, as he did, the level of what they’re looking to hear every night is not always easy.” Citing Mr. Wadud’s ability to operate in so many worlds, he said, “You add all of that together, and the pressures are not minimal.”Ms. Reid said she had tried to coax Mr. Wadud back into playing. He was the guest of honor at the 2016 edition of her Chicago Jazz String Summit. And she repeatedly told him how influential he was.But a revival did not occur. “He was just so humble,” Ms. Reid said. “And I think he was happy that I even reached out to him.” She added that many record companies have since approached her, wondering if Mr. Wadud would be interested in reissuing “By Myself.”Mr. DeVaughn, Mr. Wadud’s son, said that just such a release remains in the cards. “I plan to definitely keep the torch burning,” he said, “and having that stuff put on vinyl.” More

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      ‘Mastery and Transgression’ in Music That Bridges Genres

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s Notebook‘Mastery and Transgression’ in Music That Bridges GenresA new box set showcases Julius Hemphill’s work as a composer, saxophonist and flutist on the boundary between jazz and classical styles.“The Boyé Multi-National Crusade for Harmony,” issued by New World Records and named after one of Julius Hemphill’s touring projects, shows how thoroughly he adapted and reinvigorated his early influences.Credit…George Rose/Getty ImagesFeb. 5, 2021Julius Hemphill was a vigorous force in American music from his first public performances and recordings in the late 1960s until his death, at 57, in 1995. Whether playing saxophone or flute — or even, as on his overdubbed solo “Blue Boyé,” both at once — he blended folk traditions with a joyous avant-garde edge.Growing up in Fort Worth, he heard R&B-infused jazz and country twang. The booklet included with a new seven-disc set of Hemphill’s compositions, many previously unreleased and drawn from his archive at New York University, quotes from an interview about those early years: “It was musically rich,” he said. “I could hear Hank Williams coming out of the jukebox at Bunker’s, the white bar. And Louis Jordan, Son House and Earl Bostic from the box at Ethel’s, the Black bar across the street.”[embedded content]Hemphill may have started with those related, if segregated, reference points. But the widely varied recordings on the new set — “The Boyé Multi-National Crusade for Harmony,” issued by New World Records and named after one of Hemphill’s touring projects — show how thoroughly he adapted and reinvigorated those early sources.The first two discs contain some formative late-’70s small-group recordings, as well as an astonishing duo set (date and location unknown) by Hemphill and the cellist Abdul Wadud, one of his crucial collaborators. On the track “Rhapsody,” you can hear Hemphill’s alertness on soprano saxophone, as Wadud switches between thick, strummed playing and lyrical bowing. Hemphill’s melodic sensibility, supple even when spare, is present throughout, even when his sound production turns piping or frenzied.Before Hemphill’s emergence as a bandleader, he came into contact with other inquisitive, improvising players like the trumpeter Lester Bowie. Hemphill began experimenting with theatrical works, too. He started his own label, and in St. Louis helped launch the Black Artists Group (known as BAG) alongside poets, dancers and other saxophonist-composers, like Oliver Lake. After a 1971 BAG performance was interrupted by a bomb threat, it was a Hemphill score that was heard after the all-clear had been given. (That episode is recounted in Benjamin Looker’s book “Point From Which Creation Begins,” a crucial history of BAG and resource about Hemphill’s work.)Hemphill later joined forces again with Lake in the World Saxophone Quartet, which played open-minded, poly-genre spaces like the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Devoted to jazz but not exclusively defined by it, Hemphill wrote solo and chamber works for the virtuoso pianist Ursula Oppens, his partner toward the end of his life. (Search out the Tzadik release “One Atmosphere” to hear the vivacious piano quintet that gives that album its title.)The New World box set also contains a disc of Hemphill chamber music. In addition to a work written for Oppens, it includes the premiere release of a 2007 Daedalus Quartet performance of “Mingus Gold,” a 1988 composition in which Hemphill arranged tunes by Charles Mingus.These are not straight transcriptions, as the take on “Better Get Hit in Your Soul” proves. During its opening, the cello part occasionally comes close to Mingus’s own bass motifs, though it also diverts from the source material, with the other strings pausing to meditate before the quartet digs into Mingus’s theme with gusto.Hemphill’s experimental yet songful approach connected him to adventurous pop artists; he joined Lake on tour with Björk in support of her album “Debut” in 1993-94. And like Lake, Hemphill was apt to say that his varied pursuits were not evidence of a scattershot sensibility, but rather of a complex, integrated purpose. The liner notes for the new box set include one of his better known statements: “Well, you often hear people nowadays talking about the tradition, tradition, tradition. But they have tunnel vision in this tradition. Because tradition in African-American music is wide as all outdoors.”Since his death, Hemphill’s influence has continued to make that vista ever wider. His most famous composition, “Dogon A.D.,” with its addictive, loping 11/16 percussion groove, was memorably covered by the pianist Vijay Iyer on his breakout 2009 trio album, “Historicity.” Player-composers like Tim Berne and Marty Ehrlich, who wrote the liner notes for the new release, also swear by Hemphill.The World Saxophone Quartet in 1978.Credit…Deborah Feingold/Getty ImagesSo why aren’t his contributions better known? One reason is that his most celebrated album, also called “Dogon A.D.” (1972), has spent long stretches out of print. (It was available on CD for a brief period, in the 2010s, but now that version and the original LP command high prices on the secondhand market.) Another reason likely has to do with the policing of the border between jazz and classical traditions (a subset of the larger issues of racial exclusion in classical music). Most classical programmers are likely unaware of the breadth of Hemphill’s legacy. His music has occasionally been played on predominately classical series like the Composer Portraits at the Miller Theater at Columbia University, but he is usually perceived as a jazz artist, full stop.But while his music can swing hard, he also explored airier, less propulsive realms. One lengthy track on New World’s disc of chamber music, “Unknown Title No. 1,” documents a 1981 performance by a wind and brass quintet Hemphill conducted.The unhurried, pungent material heard at the outset is far away from “Dogon A.D.,” “Rhapsody” or the glosses on Mingus. After detours into riotous improvisation, the performance eventually hurtles into a bumptious, tuba-driven conclusion. But its route there is distinctive in the available Hemphill catalog.Back when Vijay Iyer’s cover of “Dogon A.D.” was earning him plaudits, he described in a profile how seeing Hemphill in concert in 1991 had been a transformative experience. Hemphill’s 1988 album “Big Band” “dazzles me as much today as it did then,” Iyer said in an email, also noting Hemphill and BAG’s important contributions during the “period of Black artists’ self-determination initiatives,” which also included the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in Chicago.Hemphill, devoted to jazz but not exclusively defined by it, in 1990.Credit…Michael WildermanRelating the experience of watching a 1992 duo performance by Hemphill and Wadud, later released as the album “Oakland Duets,” Iyer wrote, “I was astonished by the sense of simultaneous mastery and transgression. I think that describes his music in a nutshell.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More