Rex Foundation

Recipient of the Rex Foundation's 2000
JERRY GARCIA AWARD

Established in memory of Grateful Dead guitarist and founding Rex board member Jerry Garcia (1942-1995), this award is designed to honor and support individuals and groups that work to encourage creativity in young people.

It's not an overstatement to suggest that no one is more responsible for introducing Western ears to African music than Nigerian-born master drummer Babatunde Olatunji. Long before phrases like "world music" and "multi-culturalism" became voguish, Olatunji was permeating the popular consciousness. His 1959 album, Drums of Passion, was a surprise smash hit, racking up astonishing sales in the Americas and Europe. In the late 1950s and early 60s, Olatunji and his troupe were seen and heard by millions, in concert, on network television and during an extended engagement at the 1964-65 New York World's Fair. He became a mentor to many jazz performers and composers, including John Coltrane, who sought his help to expand their understanding of the African roots of their music.

Later, Olatunji's influence was felt in the rock era as well - Carlos Santana scored a hit with an adaptation of Olatunji's "Jingo Lo Ba" on the first Santana album in 1969. In the 1980s, Baba and Mickey Hart established a deep musical and personal bond, resulting in numerous Olatunji appearances with the Grateful Dead and, in 1991, the summit meeting of great percussionists known as Planet Drum

Today, over forty years into his remarkable career, Baba Olatunji continues to perform and record. And he has stayed true to his mission: to inspire and educate as well as entertain. It is in recognition of his role as a teacher and inspiration to countless young musicians and music listeners that the Rex Foundation presents to Babatunde Olatunji the Jerry Garcia Award.

"I'm afraid if we're not careful," Olatunji has said, "the real traditional music, the source, will be forgotten The awareness has not reached the grass roots. Children in particular still don't understand what Africa is all about. We need to take the music from the theaters and jazz clubs to the schools." For more than four decades, Baba Olatunji has backed up that conviction with action. In the wake of his first great success in the 1950s, he established a series of free concerts in the public schools of New York City, which soon expanded to neighboring counties and states.

The success of these programs inspired school systems elsewhere to follow New York's example, and Olatunji was soon performing in schools throughout the United States. In the 1960s he fulfilled a longtime dream by opening the Olatunji Center for African Culture in the heart of Harlem. For a quarter-century, the Center offered live musical events (John Coltrane gave his last public performance there, shortly before his death in 1967) and classes in music and dance (for just two dollars apiece), all in the service of promoting awareness of African culture in the nation's best-known African-American community.

Throughout his career, Olatunji has continued to teach students of every age, in schools, universities, and in an ongoing series of special workshops. To this day, he still educates, he still inspires, and he still conveys the awesome power of the drum. As always, Baba himself puts it most eloquently:

"The spirit of the drum is something that you feel but cannot put your hands on It does something to you from the inside out . . . it hits people in so many different ways. But the feeling is one that is satisfying and joyful. It is a feeling that makes you say to yourself, 'I'm glad to be alive today! I'm glad to be part of this world!'"

We at the Rex Foundation are thankful that Baba Olatunji is part of our world.