The best keyboardist Nigeria has ever produced is? Let me paraphrase it to be... one of the very best keyboardist Nigeria has ever produced.. is late now (2003)... he is none other than the Aba Ezechine who lived in University of Nigeria, Nsukka (otherwise called U.N.N). I cannot begin to enumerate here all what he did on the piano, organ or keyboard... but the best I can tell you is that you can classify him as a PRODIGY and a GENIUS!
To give you an approximate idea how good this guy was... the first time I saw Aba play the piano ever was in 1990 when he was a 15 yrs old and till I last saw him in 1994, I never could follow his fingers with my eyes while he played... his fingers were always moving at a very blinding speed that you could liken it to a human being of this era trying to comprehend a Fourth World War while Third World War has not yet been fought! This guy, even at the age of 15 in 1990 was already a jazz machine strumming on the Korg M1 sequencer keyboard. I am a stone cold keyboardist and always find a fault with the best of Nigerian keyboardist, but Aba own case was different... he was the first, and maybe the last, pianist that made me shed 'a gallon of tears' (made me cry) while listening to his playing. I was sure I was standing in the presence of God that day and could not hold my emotions for the beauty of such kind of cadence and melodies being played!
When I became a very good keyboardist in 1994, (I worked hard due to trying to copy Aba; although I am sure that no man can copy this guy verbatim) I decided to give Aba three major tests: 1. whether my eyes can now follow his fingers while he is playing; 2. To understand more about his sense of hearing and tonality; and 3. How good was his left hand?
To put my doubt to rest once and for all for ever, Aba took me to the music department of UNN where there were grand pianos (insisting that the keyboard is a toy made of rubber and plastic, that any great keyboardist who failed to play very well on the grand piano cannot be labeled a 'pianist')... there and then, Aba played on the grand piano what I titled in my mind 'A NEVER ENDING JAZZ'. He just bang and bang on the piano for about 30 minutes non-stop with the most dazzling rhythm, syncopation, finger scaling works, and improvisations that I ever heard. And woefully for me, my eyes could not follow Aba's fingers and neither could I remember the tune afterward because of the complexities. After that day, I hated myself and became discouraged and disillusioned that I wouldn't touch the keyboard for almost a month.
Do you know why? Originally, I wasn't a keyboardist at all. But seeing a 15yr old dazzling on the piano, I decided to learn the keyboard and my pride was that I was an intelligent guy (I got A1 in Maths to say the least). So I became as good as I am today under 3 months (all i could play today and tomorrow was imbedded in that 3months of hard work)... after which I couldn't improve much further. Maybe I peaked too early! So at my peak stage of 1994, I estimated that for me to play the NEVER ENDING JAZZ that Aba had just played, it would take me 8hrs of rehearsal daily for 5years to meet up to that speed, accuracy, beauty, and precision. And after the 5yrs, Aba would have improved too, so I'd still never catch up with him. So that made me discouraged and disillusioned and I decided never to compete or discourage any keyboards that is coming up, because it will haunt me for the rest of my life that there is somebody that I can never meet up with!
At my request on the issue of the kind of chords Aba was holding, he slowed down and showed me for the first time in slow motion some of the chords he was holding with his right-hands only and that made me scared to the very last... Aba had large fingers and he was able to hold up to 7 to 8 notes chord often. When I asked him in amazement how he was able to hold up to 7 notes with only his right-hand, Aba simply increased the notes of the chord he was holding to about 9 to 10 and played them in progression. He showed me slowly that he could hold two notes with only one of his fingers if need be and that can amount to 8-10 notes with his five fingers. After that I dare not ask this guy anything again, because I realized full well that this guy was not ordinary and he was way ahead of his generations and it was only a matter of time the whole world would hear of him...
As for Aba's sense of tonality??!! A professor of music was playing a classical piece on the grand piano in his parlor, and my good friend (the professor's son) and Aba were outside the house listening to him. My good friend asked Aba to ascertain which key his father was playing that piece of music, without thinking Aba (who was also a stammerer) replied: "On key E...and if you doubt me, go and check him out". And to my good friend's surprise, when he went in, behold his father was playing on key E as Aba said. When I heard this story, I decided not to test Aba again on the issue of hearing and tonality because he had demonstrated over and over again on stage, unconsciously, how good he was on this... when someone is singing before he climbs the keyboard, he just go straight to the correct key without striking a single note to search for the key, and he never loses a beat or timing when a singer changes key suddenly in the middle of song to a strange key... he just go with you automatically and smoothly as though it was planned. But I still asked Aba casually how good he was on this hearing and tonality of a thing... and he told me that he knows by heart all the sound of the twelve keys and the sound of any chord you can play on any key!!! That means that if you are playing a minor sixth chord on key B and you are holding the first inversion of that chord on the fourth octave of a keyboard, and you blindfolded Aba, he would go straight to the fourth octave and hold that same chord and its inversion on key B without hesitation after you uncover his eyes. We keyboardist always dare not play a song in the presence of Aba, because he would hear it only once and play it verbatim and far more better. At the age of 15, Aba met a guy who was rehearsing a difficult piece of classical song in the music department in U.N.N (Aba was still in secondary school then), this guy claimed he had worked on it for about 21 days. Aba just told him casually that he wasn't playing it correctly and took over and played it marvelously and many times better that the original composer himself could have done, and walked away! There was also this jazz piece I spent many weeks working on and perfecting on key E flat... I played it before Aba only once and very fast. Aba told me to repeat it again, and I refused to do that...nevertheless Aba went ahead and played it accurately up to the 60% of it and stopped abruptly. What amazes me most was that he played it verbatim up to 60% and stopped abruptly, but on a different key! I played it on Key E flat, and he replayed it on Key F!
About Aba left hand??! My good friend had been boasting that since he was left handed (his father and Aba's father were music professors in UNN and contemporaries) he was better than Aba on his left finger. I thought otherwise... I warned him that it was of no use trying to match up with a prodigy... but my good friend would not listen to me and went ahead thrilling me with his left-hand. Me knowing full well that Aba is never shy of a fight, I went and informed Aba about it, so we now came to my good friend's house.
At the sight of Aba, my good friend heart failed him and he refused to challenge Aba ('cos Aba was hot tempered too)! But when Aba saw he wasn't ready to play, Aba nevertheless went into his parlor and mounted the grand piano there and began to play only with his left hand... to say the least, it was like a nightmare watching this guy on the piano... he did the very impossible... strumming, thumping, scaling, improvising, and at the same time holding chords with his left hand... all at blinding speed.... never slowing down but getting better and faster with each seconds. It seems as if a millisecond is enough time for a grand master pianist like Aba to play many many things.
The last and final test I gave Aba was on one of Ron Kenoly's song. Me and my good friend has worked for months on some of his songs, so that we believe that not even Aba can do better than us. But in the presence of Aba, all our courage has evaporated. My good friend who is also from a music family like Aba, wouldn't dare him. As for me, I had nothing to lose... they all know that I was learning from them (learning from my good friend as Aba couldn't teach you anything... he stammers a lot and he is not too friendly to people trying to learn from or copy him)... so I decided to play the Ron Kenoly's song in Aba's presence on a keyboard nearby, for it would have been a bad idea playing on a grand piano in the presence of Aba as I never could have mastered that device like him or my good friend... so I settled for the keyboard.
Aba took over and played the song himself... we were dumbfounded! It was nothing like we ever dream of or imagined... it was like there were 7musicians accompanying him to play. It was like, we were hearing so many instruments at once.. maybe a guitar, a piano, a drum, and trumpet and so. When Aba left the keyboard and went away. Me and my good friend rushed to look at the voice effect Aba selected and used in the keyboard... behold it was the jazz organ! We checked it over and over again (for we have noted that after Aba selected the voice, he did not change it till he left)... so it beat our imagination that only a jazz organ (no splitting or dual voice was used) could produce such array of sound under Aba's finger.
Let me stop here. The only keyboardist I have heard online that sounds and play as fast as Aba, is the all time greatest jazz pianist ever... the man that was reputed to revolutionized jazz with speed and improvisation, the all time great..ART TATUM himself. He lived from around 1920's to 1954 and he was somewhat blind! He stormed the whole world at the age of 24 in 1933 at a competition for pianist (on stride piano) in USA. He presented two songs 'Tea for Two' and 'Tiger Rag' that made him won the competition by storm!
You can google and watch it being played on You-tube... it will give you an approximate idea how fast Aba was and his method of playing. There is no song, whether the hardest classical piece, that takes Aba hearing it once or twice not to play it many many times better than the original composers!
Watch one very good keyboardist play the Art Tatum 'Tiger Rag' on You-tube here (of course more slower and less precise than the master himself)..
this good keyboardist of a guy said it took him 4yrs of practicing Art Tatum 'Tiger Rag' on-and-off to master it... yet he didn't play as good and as fast as Art Tatum himself! That was how Aba was to me and all the very good keyboardists in Nigeria in his time... it would take you about 4 to 5 yrs as I rightly surmised in my time, to work on only one piece of Aba's music 'A NEVER ENDING JAZZ'! So hear the master himself, Art
As an after thought, I decided to add this story: someone told me around 1994 that there was someone who could play the piano as good as Aba or even better. I was wondering how good that person could be, but the guy insisted that I should ask Aba himself! And who was the surprise Nigerian that can play as good as Aba or even better? It is none other than a guy simply identified as 'Kola'.
So my second greatest Keyboardist and perhaps the very best KEYBOARDIST Nigeria has produced, since Aba is late now, is Kola (even though I have never met or seen Kola myself). I learn he owned and managed a studio in Lagos (called 'CLINT STUDIO'? I am not too sure of the name) for a long while before he left Nigeria for U.K.
I heard enough about him in 1994 while at UNN to determine that he was of the talent and skills of Aba or even better. So as that guy, who told me that Kola was even better, insisted I confronted Aba himself to verify and ascertain whether this fact was true. Aba has never admitted or acknowledged that he has met or know any person that can play the piano like him. But on that fateful day, When I spoke about Kola to Aba, he just kept quiet for a while... that was when I suspected that there could be more to this Kola story.
Aba said "When Kola was schooling in UNN in the 1980's I was barely a six or a seven year old boy, and I was too small to know what he was doing or be of a challenge to him. It was after Kola graduated and left UNN that I matured and became good as I am today!"
So I asked him further: "Have you met with Kola recently? Does it mean you can play better than him now? Or are you acknowledging that Kola is better than you or is very good for that matter?"
Aba replied, and I observed that he chose his words very carefully, unlike him: "Yes I have met with him recently. I went to Lagos to his studio, but he was so busy that we saw only briefly. There was no time for him to listen to me play. Well I have not played against him since I matured on the piano so I cannot tell! But if you are to ask me of my own personal opinion, I will say that I am playing better now."
So from Aba's reply, and from that guy's testimony, I ascertain that Aba may have actually been inspired by Kola to become the genius he was then. Actually no prodigy is an island of his own. But there is news circulating about Aba's late father being the best piano player Nigeria has ever seen in his time... apart from the fact that he was the first music professor to bag a master and a phd degree in music in Nigeria, and the starting founders of the music department of UNN and their H.O.D of the music department of UNN till he passed away in 1984.
It must be that Kola, also, was another music genius who, according to Aba, wasn't his contemporary... 'cos Kola was way ahead of Aba in terms of age. There was a story circulating in UNN in my time about one of Kola's exploit as a musician... that apart from playing the piano so well, that he was very good on the flute too! On one fateful day, two menacing dogs decided to attack him while he was returning from lectures; he bent down and blew the flute for them to hear and those dogs, maybe due to the beauty of the sound emanating from the flute, became whimpering and tamed animals, howling and wagging their tails to the sound of the flute!
No comments:
Post a Comment