Tony Allen will be playing drums at Another Honest Jon’s Chop Up at Cork Jazz Festival on Fri 28th October and Nov 1st for ourselves at Vicar St.

Fela Kuti once said  that ‘without Tony Allen there would be no Afrobeat‘ and Brian Eno has claimed that ‘he is perhaps the greatest drummer to have ever lived’.

For some not familiar with his name or instantly acquainted with his music then these are serious claims to make about an artist, especially when it comes to drumming. What about Buddy Miles, John Bonham or Max Roach you may ask or the likes of  James Gadson? Drumming has many heroes as with any instrument, but you have to take the influence the drummer has had on his peers and fans and how long they have performed along with their catalogue and when you look at things from this perspective Tony Allen is the main man when it comes to drums, an innovator in its purest form.

Tony Allen can quite easily take this accolade given to him by the likes of Eno, Fela & Ginger Baker. His career has lasted more than 50 years, he still records, and plays frequently. His legacy is remarkable and there is a reason why the likes of Albarn & Co. use him as the go to guy for their musical projects.

Guy Warren, the Ghanian drummer is the musician cited to have influenced Tony in his formative years along with American musicians of note like Max Roach & Art Blakey. Tony got his first break when he was hired by ‘Sir’ Victor Olaiya to play claves with his highlife band, “The Cool Cats”. Tony was able to fill the drum-set chair when the former Cool Cats drummer left the band. Allen later played with Agu Norris and the Heatwaves, the Nigerian Messengers and the Melody Makers.

By the early 1960s Allen had established himself as one of the best musicians in the live circuit of Nigeria and this led to him joining forces with the political activist and musician/arranger Fela Anikulapo Kuti and his band  Koola Lobitos mixing jazz and highlife sounds and the bop drumming he had studied and researched from reading American jazz magazines and from the traditional poly rhythmic nuances he had learned from growing up in Nigeria.

Fela’s Africa ’70 band developed a new militant African sound- mixing the heavy groove and universal appeal of soul with jazz, highlife, and the polyrhythmic template of Yoruba conventions. Allen developed a novel style to compliment Fela’s new African groove that blended these disparate genres. Allen recorded over 30 Lps with  Fela and used to write with Fela, one of the only musicians that wrote his own parts to Fela’s music. Allen has always stated that a good drummer has four limbs acting independely while playing.

Allen recorded  three solo recordings in the 1970s: Jealousy (’75), Progress (‘77) & No Accommodation For Lagos (’79) – (these have been faithfully reissued this year by Dutch Label Kindred Spirits). In 1979, Allen chose to leave Africa ’70, taking many of its members with him:

‘What makes me decide it’s time to go? It’s … everything…and (his) carelessness….like he doesn’t care, like he doesn’t know …he doesn’t feel he’s done anything (wrong). And with all the parasites around too…. there were 71 people on tour by now and only 30 working in the band….you got to ask why. Those guys were sapping Fela of his Force, of his Music.’ So Tony moved on, once again in search of his own sound.

He moved to London in 1984  and eventually relocated to Paris where he has resided to this day. From the late 1980s  he developed a hybrid sound, deconstructing & fusing Afrobeat with electronica, dub, R&B, and rap.  Allen refers to this synthesis as afrofunk and then five years ago in  2006 he releasesd Lagos No Shaking (Lagos is OK), which heralded Allen’s return to his roots of Afrobeat after forays into avant-garde electronica hybrids. Lagos No Shaking was released on June 13, 2006 and featured many guest collaborators including the awesome remix by Hypnotic Brass Ensemble on Sankofa.