Sadik Hakim: "Forgotten Duluthian"

A fine profile of Sadik Hakim, one of the unsung heroes of the musical revolution we call “bebop”—and subject of one of our earliest posts—appears in the first issue of Zenith City, an online newsletter devoted to all things Duluth. David Ouse, author of Forgotten Duluthians and a research librarian for “the air-conditioned city’s” public library system, deserves the gratitude of jazz lovers for helping solidify Hakim's place in the history of the music in the popular mind. For as of 2012, that place largely depends on the ability of information-hungry jazz fans to notice, recall, and connect the scattered references to him in the biographies and memoirs of others. 

Mr. Ouse enriches his few paragraphs with just enough genealogical and sociological detail to help us envision Hakim's journey from a Black working-class musical household in Duluth just after World War I, to 52nd Street in New York in its glory days in the mid-'40s, his conversion to Islam, his participation in the recording of the bop classic "Ko-Ko," to the concert halls of Japan "before enthusiastic crowds" in 1979-1980.  (It brought me great satisfaction to learn the last-cited fact.)

Sadik Hakim (1919-1983)

If there is to be a sequel to Mr. Ouse’s book, I hope Sadik Hakim finds a place in it.  In that spirit of recovery, we are pleased to refer again to Tom Surowicz’s 1990 “Forgotten Man,” a substantial appreciation of Hakim for the Twin Cities Reader, available via this blog. (Last year Dave Lull provided me with that article, scanned with the resources of the very library Mr. Ouse serves, and tipped me off to the latter’s recent item only today. Thanks again, Dave!)

Sadik Hakim Duluth Clippings and Wes Montgomery Birthday Release

I am surprised, and a bit ashamed, to note that it has taken me a full year to post some rare clippings of Sadik Hakim (see other posts by clicking on his name in the right column) that a correspondent supplied me.  Dave Lull, who works in Minnesota, went out of his way to photocopy these valuable portals into the past from a library, preserved on microfilm, scan them to .pdf's, and send them to me. Unfortunately, making them available to others got kicked down my list of priorities—a rather poor way to show my appreciation to Dave for his research. Thanks again, Dave! 


On a new page of "The Jazz Annex"—here's the link—are hyperlinked titles of two articles about Hakim.  The first, "Duluth Native Hakim to Give Concert Here," is a News Tribune piece, dated May 16, 1976 (the jazz great, who died in 1983, was still with us then). Underneath that scan is an imperfect copy of the second article, one of the fullest accounts extant of Hakim's career, written with enthusiasm by jazz journalist Tom Surowicz for the Twin Cities Reader, a weekly paper. (If you don't scroll past Tom's piece, you'll miss a great photo of Hakim at the piano, arms outstretched as though he were excitedly amplifying a point of conversation. I copied it onto that Annex page).  


Dave later provided me with a better scan of "Forgotten Man: Duluth Pianist Sadik Hakim, Unsung Hero of Minnesota Jazz," now accessible through this link and the second link on the Annex page. (Be assured that the text is all there; in order to follow it, however, you must "page down" from the bottom of the first column on the first page to the top of the first column on the second, and then back to the top of the second column of the first page.  I'm sure you'll find doing more intuitive than it sounds.)


Separately: long-buried tracks of live and studio dates of Wes Montgomery's from late '50s Indianapolis were released on CD today, the 89th anniversary of his birth.  Echoes of Indiana Avenue is available in .mp3 files, but the CD comes with a booklet packed with historical and pictorial goodies, so that's what I'm getting.

The Grand Opening of "The Jazz Annex"

I have decided to open a "jazz portal" within my philosophical website.  If this is my Hard Bop House, then consider that portal its annex.  I don't want to be restricted to ten "stand-alone" pages on this blog, and since I have a capacious site, I don't have to.


The first offering, following up our recent tribute to Sadik Hakim, is the text of his long-out-of-print memoir, "Reflections of an Era: My Experiences with Bird and Prez."  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did formatting it.

Sadik Hakim, 1919-1983: A Vignette from My Diary

It may be, as the Buddhist proverb has it, that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.  When Sadik Hakim briefly appeared in my life, however, I wasn't ready, and wouldn't be for more than a third of a century, that is, until it was too late.  So, maybe he wasn't supposed to be "the teacher," right?  He was certainly, however, "present at the creation" of arguably the world's greatest music, and if I had known then what I learned later, I could have benefited from our chance encounter even more than I did.

He was born 91 years ago today in Duluth, christened Argonne Thornton.  On November 26, 1945, this denizen of 52nd Street in its glorious Bebop period had alternated with Dizzy Gillespie on piano on Charlie Parker's immortal "Ko-Ko" date. According to his Wikipedia entry, "Hakim is credited with co-writing Thelonious Monk's standard 'Eronel' and is rumored to have written a few famous bop tunes credited to other composers. He adopted his Muslim name in 1947." 

 

The most common, and most apt, adjective associated with Sadik Hakim is "unsung."  Although the average jazz fan cannot recognize his name, I have run into it repeatedly, and unexpectedly, in many of the jazz biographies I've read in the last few years.   For example, I'll pick up From Swing to Bop (p. 305), only to read Shelly Manne's memory of a night at the Onyx on 52nd Street in the early '40s when big Ben Webster knocked over nearly every table to dissuade some rowdy solider on leave from further pestering his pianist.  Or just today, when I consulted Feather and Gitler's The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz for information on a former music teacher of mine, saxist Paul Jeffrey (with whom I took a single, but valuable, lesson in 1974), I learned that Professor Jeffrey had played with Hakim in 1961.

Some of Sadik Hakim's memories of befriending as well as working with Bird are recorded in Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker, edited by Robert Reisner.  It was because I had read this book sometime before November 19, 1976, that I was able to appreciate to some extent the good fortune of his gregariously striking up a conversation with me, a total stranger, that night at Bradley's (70 University Place, 1969-1996).

I was there to see legendary bop-era guitarist Jimmy Raney, who did not disappoint. (He played Bird's "Billie's Bounce" at my request, and his son, Doug, sat in for one or two numbers.) During the second set I was, according to my diary, "joined at my table by Sadik (I think that's it) who knew all the greats.  It was great talking to him.  After the second set I walked him over to Sweet Basil's [88 Seventh Avenue South] where George Coleman was blowing an alto [sax] apart.  On the way, I recall [to him] somebody from a book on Charlie Parker who had a Moslem name and who knew Bird well.  It turns out it was he!!  He doesn't drink or smoke; he lives his religion.  I was very impressed with him.  He's going on tour now with somebody." 

In 1978, he recorded Sonny Stitt Meets Sadik Hakim. Listen to clips from Witches, Goblins, etc. on Amazon for instant evidence that he was "the real thing."

He accomplished much more than I can summarize usefully in a post, but a quick search will bring you to the most salient facts.  He passed away in June of 1983, about a year after playing "Round Midnight" at the funeral of Thelonious Monk.

In 1976 I could not have imagined paying tribute to him this way.  Thank you, Sadik, for going out of your way to touch my life, however fleetingly, not in cyberspace, but at Bradley's.  I wish I had gone out of my way to keep in touch, but my self-esteem, or lack thereof, wasn't up to the task.  I had foolishly undervalued the evidence of your accessibility and ruled myself out.

Perhaps I'm learning from you after all.  Happy Birthday, Teacher.  Requiescas in pace.