AUDIO ARCHIVE

• Idris Art Bennet - cowbell, horn
• Bembe Shaki - flute
• Daniel ben Zebulon - percussion
• Ali Abuwi - drums/congas
• Juma Sultan - conga/bass

Says Juma: “The Aboriginal Music Society started at (Woodstock's Group) 212. When I was not playing under the banner of Sonny Simmons band, the Aboriginal Music Society was my group, my own entity that rather than say Juma’s band, it was my band. Plus, aside from that, we had the artist’s interests in mind in documenting and recording and that was one of the basic premises, it was also a production company.”

“So the Aboriginal Music Society actually started out as just drums and human voice and also taking whatever, like the slaves did on the plantations, taking pots and pans to tin cans, and creating other types of instruments, to bamboo flutes, and just making sounds out of things that were not costly and being able to create music with these instruments that were made.”

“And then it sort of culminated into, well, we’re trying to capture and document some of this…. So we figured we should start a production company, because we were always going out looking for places to play, so in order to draw other musicians in and we would operate as a production company.”

Daniel ben Zebulon played percussion with a variety of major rock artists, including Manu Dibango, Richie Havens, Stevie Wonder, Isaac Hayes, Dionne Warwick, and LaBelle. This performance was part of the New York Musicians Jazz Festival.