Dwight: Like a parent who knows what's best for his rebellious teenager, Ramsay Lewis knew what was best for me. Welcome to episode number six of Tracking Earth, Wind and Fire: the ultimate deep dive into the music, musicians, and enduring legacy of one of the greatest bands to ever hit the stage and studio. Thanks for joining. I'm your host, Doc Brooks, and I hope to earn your subscription and support for my podcast. Please subscribe and follow each episode's playlist on Spotify. You'll hear all the great music we talk about on these episodes. And feel free to send me your comments, suggestions, reviews at tracking T-R-A-C-K-I-N-G, EWF at gmail.com. Let's get started. This episode's entitled Kalimba Stories because once Maurice White had adjusted to touring with Ramsey Lewis, He could begin to think about his own musical concept and what would come next. However, before he would commit his ideas on paper or share them with others, he began with himself. He was eating right, seeking people who, like him, were searching for enlightenment, and he was finding places that uplifted him and his people. And he was looking for something new. These are some of the stories that surround Maurice White at this time. In fact, there are some very interesting stories surrounding White's discovery of the African thumb piano. after recording Wade in the Water with Ramsay Lewis in 1966, the trio went on to record three additional albums, the movie album, Going Latin, and Hang on Sloopy. In fact, it wasn't unusual for jazz artists like the Ramsey Lewis trio To record three or four albums a year. Between what must have seemed like endless touring and constant recording, Maurice White found time to engage in the black arts and Afrocentric movements that were developing across the country. Now, these undertakings filled part of the void left by the absence of radical grassroots organizations that lobbied for political. And social change in the mid to late 1960s. Yes, things had gotten that bad in Black America, and some would say they would get worse next year. Maurice White was a frequent visitor to Chicago's Affro Arts Theater, which was established in 1967 by Phil Cohran a trumpeter with Sun Ra's Arkestra Phil Cohran stayed in Chicago when Sun Ra departed for New York City in 1961. Cohran's band, the Artistic Heritage Ensemble, ⁓ operated out of the Affro Arts Theater. In fact, the band was established before the theater and was the major reason why Cohran decided to rent a theater to house his programs. So the Southside Theater ⁓ operated outside commercial restraints. They offered plays, lectures, live musical performances, and they were deeply steeped in the African ⁓ and African American traditions. The theater became a focal point for a growing black consciousness among African Americans in Chicago. More than this, the Affro Arts Theater symbolized the national aspirations of African Americans. Who sought to revitalize and elevate their social and cultural status. Under Phil Cohran's direction, I've heard some people pronounce his name Corrin, but we'll go with Cohran. Under his direction, the theater hosted speeches, conferences, classes in foreign languages, music, health, and history. His band, the Artistic Heritage Ensemble, included a handful of Maurice White's former musical partners, Charles Handy, Don Myrick, and Lewis Satterfield. Unfortunately, the Affro Arts Theater fell on hard times. internal dissension, financial problems, and political harassment brought the theater to an end by 1970. Founder Phil Cohran actually left the theater before its ultimate demise. Phil Cohran is known as an innovative, if not eccentric, musician who personified an Afrocentric approach. To uplifting black American life and intellect while resisting countervailing political and market forces. The Artistic Heritage Ensemble, or AHE, which released several recordings under Cohran's Zulu label. Cohran recruited A.H.E. musicians such as Satterfield and Myrick from the Chess Records House Band. Maurice White doesn't indicate how he discovered the Affro Arts Theater. It would make sense if he visited the theater to see his former and future colleagues Satterfield and Don Myrick perform. But he does mention meeting singers, songwriter, playwright, poet, actor, and civil rights activist Oscar Brown Jr. and poet Gwendolyn Brooks at the theater. In fact, Maurice White in his Memoir prioritizes the theater's cultural programs ⁓ over the music, with one notable exception, Phil Cohran. When White visited the theater, he says that he instantly fell in love with the instrument Cohran called a Frankiphone which Cohran named after his mother. Cohran is believed to be the first to amplify the African thumb piano as a member of Sun Ra's Arkestra in the late nineteen fifties, White developed an affinity for the dual primitive and futuristic melodic tones of the Mbira or its more popular name, Kalimba. Mbira are a family of musical instruments traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. All consist of a wooden board often fitted with a resonator with attached staggered metal tines played by holding the instrument in the hands and plucking the tines with the thumbs and right and left forefingers. Musicologists classify it as a lamellaphone. And part of the plucked idiophone line of musical instruments. Now, there are many kinds of Mbira in eastern and southern Africa, and they existed long before the 1950s when they became popularized by a gentleman named Hugh Tracy, a British ethnomusicologist, and he designed what has been known as the Hugh Tracy version of the Kalimba. Now, there are all sorts of plucked. Idiophones and lamellophones throughout Africa for thousands of years. These metal-tinned instruments traveled all across the continent, becoming very popular among the Shona of Zimbabwe, which the word Mbira comes from, and other indigenous groups in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Kalimba-like instruments came to exist from the northern reaches of North Africa to the southern extent of the Kalahari Desert. And from east to west, so they saturated the continent for thousands of years. White found the African origins of the Kalimba appealing. He purchased one and practiced on it regularly. During rehearsals with the Ramsey Lewis trio, White experimented with the different textures. It brought to rhythms. His attraction to the Kalimba embraced the African musical tenet that approached the singing or playing of any instrument in a percussive manner. Ramsay Lewis encouraged White to incorporate the Kalimba into the trio's show. Maurice White was reluctant, but after continuous encouragement by Ramsey Lewis, he conceded and was so impressed by the audience's responses to his performance. That he kept playing it. In fact, his first recording with the Kalimba came on a tune entitled Uhuru on the trio's 1969 album, Another Voyage. White's incorporation of the Kalimba with Earth Wind & Fire has rightfully earned him the notoriety of Kalimba's prominence in black popular music. And although White never played with Cohran. He seems to have been influenced by the avant-garde musician in more ways than he actually publicly acknowledges. Beyond Cohran's introduction of the Kalimba to White, there are other aspects of Cohran's musical and personal philosophies that are remarkably similar to parts of what became Maurice White's concept for Earth, Wind, and Fire. White emulated Cohran's demand for disciplined musicians who could express His own ideas and what he felt were the original purposes of music. Cohran, like White, insisted that his musicians be multifaceted performers while advocating a healthy lifestyle and spiritual development. Cohran was a vegetarian who shared his interests in world religions, spirituality, Egyptology, and astrology with visitors to the Affro Arts Theater. And as we'll see in future episodes, White would adopt similar approaches to leading members of Earth, Wind and Fire. However, there's one peculiar footnote to Cohran's legacy. He claims to have taught music to the White brothers in their youth. In one interview, he asserts that Verdine White played with the AHE and Maurice White tried but didn't make it because, in Cohran's words, quoting now. He couldn't keep the rhythm. We had a rhythmic system that demanded perfect rhythm. End quote. Well, obviously Maurice White was in Memphis and couldn't be a part of the AHE. And then when he went to Chicago, it's just kind of hard to believe. And I found no evidence that either of the White brothers were associated with the AHE. And I can't imagine why Maurice would try out for the AHE in 67. During his time with the Ramsey Lewis trio. And as for Verdine White, although his teacher, Lewis Satterfield, did play with the AHE, there's no evidence or indication that Verdine did. In fact, full disclosure, prior to my interview with Verdine White, back in 2021, I sent a list of questions to him that included whether or not he played for the AHE. Now he didn't respond to that particular question in my email. So I chose not to ask during our two-hour Zoom interview. And according to his biography, which is published on the History Makers website, Verdine White began his career as a bassist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. We do know that Maurice White got lessons for his younger brother with members of the Symphony Orchestra. And I should note that History Makers website is the same website that I used to ⁓ research not only ⁓ Phil Cohran, but also Ramsey Lewis. I don't want to disparage the History Makers platform because it does some outstanding work as a nonprofit research and educational institution committed to preserving and making widely accessible the untold personal stories ⁓ of both well-known and unsung African Americans. It's been around since 2000 And as I said, I've used its archives to research Ramsey Lewis. They basically have an interviewer sit down with ⁓ a history maker and they just talk. So, to conclude, regardless of the veracity of Phil Cohran's claims about Maurice White and Verdine, there's no dispute that Maurice White espoused the edifying purposes of music like Cohran. And for that. Cohran should be saluted as he was after his death in 2017. I'd love to get your thoughts on this. It's a really interesting aspect of Maurice White's story. So let's return to 1967. Maurice White's desire for something independent from the Ramsey Lewis trio led to the creation of Hummit Productions. And this occurred because Ramsey Lewis was ill and away from the trio for a couple of months. So White rented some office space on Michigan Avenue. The office space had studios and a rehearsal room. And he put together a team called Five Men. And they had a goal of doing some songwriting for artists, music recording, and even doing some commercials. However, the venture failed to generate enough business. To survive. White also used the downtime to play with Operation Breadbasket's orchestra and choir. Operation Breadbasket was the forerunner to the late Reverend Jesse Jackson's Operation Push, and the opportunity result from White's relationship with a Memphis friend, Ben Branch, who led the orchestra. Always learning White credits Branch for teaching him some things about leadership. So before the year 1967 came to an end, White was able to do some other things. he made the down payment for a home for his family, moving out of the Henry Horner projects because things had deteriorated so bad. He saw it as a thank you for the bicycle dad sent him nearly 20 years prior. White did something that he had never done before. Following the guidelines from Napoleon Hill's Law of Success, he committed to paper his chief aim in life: his commitment to himself and the universe. White compared this process for men to giving birth. Thank you for tuning in to episode number six of tracking Earth, Wind and Fire, Kalimba Stories. Be sure to check out the playlist for this week's episode, and you'll find some recordings by Phil Cohran and the African Heritage Ensemble. More from the incredible catalog of Ramsey Lewis, including Uhuru which features Maurice White on the Kalimba. And as always, there'll be a few musical surprises. Our next episode will talk about Maurice White's. final year or so in Chicago. So you know what that means, Maurice White's concept and the salty peppers. Until then, keep your head to the sky.