African-American Organ Music II by George Matthew, Jr.

African-American Organ Music II

By George Matthew Jr.

In 1905 Fela Sowande was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, near Lagos, the son of Emmanuel Sowande, an Anglican priest and pioneer of Nigerian church music. As a child, he sang in the choir of the Anglican Cathedral: trained early by his father and composer/organist/choral director Ekundayo Phillips, whose profound knowledge of both Nigerian and European music anticipated his later career, Sowande went to London in 1934 to study European popular and classical music. He earned the Fellowship Degree from the Royal College of Organists.

He was also a bandleader playing jazz and popular music: in 1936 he was solo pianist in a performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. He also played in a piano duo with Fats Waller, was theater organist for the BBC, was choirmaster at Kings’ Way Hall, studied organ performance with George Oldroyd and worked with the Ministry of Information during WWII. From 1945 he was organist at the West London Alliance of the Methodist Church.

In 1947 he directed the New York Philharmonic in a program of his own works. He held professorships at Howard University, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Ibadan (Nigeria) and in his last years, Kent State, where he taught in the Department of Pan-American Studies and created a curriculum of Black Studies. He lived in Ravenna, Ohio with his wife Eleanor McKinney. She was one of the founders of Pacifica Radio. He did scholarly research for the BBC Africa Service and the Nigerian Broadcasting Company. He composed extensively for orchestra, organ and chorus, employing European and Nigerian idioms: he also wrote four books on Nigerian music, society and history. He held the Chieftaincy title of Bariyo of Lagos. He died in Ravenna in 1987.  There is currently a move to establish a center to research and promote his works.