"Ritual" – For the purpose of improving his art, Blakey, in 1947, worked his way over to Nigeria on a ship, and, while there, visited, Ghana. He stayed for a little over a year. Later, in the New York Jazz scene, Blakey became influential in raising awareness of African-based percussion. Among other things, he composed "Ritual" out of inspiration from his experiences in Africa.[1] Jazz critic Norman Weinstein opined that "Ritual" was one of several projects where Blakey showed an interest in African diasporic musical connections, expressed in "quasi-Afro-Cuban and Afro-Caribbean terms."[2]
"Daahoud," sometimes spelled "Dawud," means "David" in Arabic. Brown named the composition after Talib Dawud, a trumpet-playing acquaintance – with Dizzy and Lee Morgan – in Philadelphia from the early 1950s.
Brown, on June 26, 1954, married LaRue Anderson (maiden; 1933–2005).[i] He called her "Joy Spring," and, in her honor, composed a piece in her name in 1954. They had been introduced by Max Roach.
^Brown and Anderson had three marriage celebrations, partly because their families were on opposite coasts and partly because of their differing religions – Brown was Methodist and Anderson was Catholic. They were first married on June 26, 1954, in Los Angeles (on Anderson's 21st birthday), then again in a religious ceremony on July 17, 1954, in Los Angeles, then, Anderson's parish priest followed them to Boston, and, on August 1, 1954, performed their marriage ceremony at Saint Richards Church in the Roxbury neighborhood. ("Clifford Brown in Los Angeles," by Eddie Spencer Meadows, PhD; born 1939; Black Music Research Journal, published by the Center for Black Music Research, Columbia College Chicago and University of Illinois Press, Vol. 31, No. 1, Spring 2011, pps. 45–63; JSTORwww.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/blacmusiresej.31.1.0045; OCLC729620529, 6733333114, 778359559; ISSN0276-3605)
References
^"Jazz Records," by Edwin R. McDonald (né Edwin Ruthven McDonald; 1906–1991), St. Joseph News-Press Gazette, October 27, 1957, p. 8C (accessible viaNewspapers.com, subscription required)