People in the neighborhood: Dawan Muhammad

Dawan Muhammad networks an inner city circuit for jazz artists by Faith Fjeld

Jazz musicians deserve wider recognition and greater respect for their contributions to the art form, and so do the “unsung heroes” behind the scene, those who can play, but who dedicate their time instead to recording and promoting the music of others. Such a man is neighbor Dawan Muhammad, who has been nicknamed “Phantom of the Bay Area Jazz Operation.” For thirty years he has not only been creating and performing jazz but quietly, behind the scenes, he has been organizing, documenting, producing and bringing the music back to the communities where jazz once flourished.

Dawan’s current vehicle for carrying this out is LifeForcejazz (LFJ), co-founded in the early nineties by Dawan and the great Billy Higgins, and set up as project of Bilalian Educational Services, a California nonprofit corporation. LFJ has established after school and weekend workshops in Western Addition housing complexes, so that inner city kids age 11 to 17 can learn music fundamentals and develop an appreciation for the cultural history of jazz. “We want to give them alternatives to gang activities, negative rap and destructive graffiti,” he says. “We also need to train them in all aspects of the music business, such as booking, stage managing, graphic design and audio engineering. Our goal is to provide youth and adults with a solid foundation for developing legitimate careers in the music industry.”

LifeForcejazz is only the latest in a long list of community-based jazz projects with which Dawan has been involved over the years keeping jazz alive on the West Coast. These include Music by the Bay, Oakland Community Music Center, San Francisco Bay Area Jazz Foundation, Creative Art Therapy Center, Bayview Opera House and Center for African and African-American Art and Culture located in the Western Addition. In Los Angeles, under the tutelege of drummer Billy Higgins and poet Kamau Da’aood, he helped establish the World Stage.  He also coordinated the Watts Towers Drum Festival and Jazz Concert Series with Harold Acey and John Ottobridge.  In Santa Cruz he helped establish the highly successful Kuumba Jazz Center. Dawan currently serves as a clinician with San Jose Jazz Society and Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble.

GROWING UP WITH THE MUSIC
Dawan’s memories of his youth are connected with music. Although he moved to the Fillmore at a very young age, his approach to music was inspired by the jazz legends from his home state of Texas. Buster “Pops” Smith, Charlie Christian, Red Garland, Leo Parker, Ornette Coleman, King Curtis, Kenny Dorham, David “Fathead’ Newman, Cedar Walton and James Clay are a few of his Dallas/Fort Worth jazz heroes and three of Dawan’s other Texas mentors, John Handy, Cornelius “Red King” Hill and William “Prince” Lawsha, reside in the Bay Area today. Also Charles “Diddy” Moffett, another transplanted fellow Texan was among many others who had a big impact on Dawan’s musical development here in the Bay Area. 

He remembers the Western Addition in the 50’s as being like a little Harlem. “I made money shining shoes and running errands for the hustlers outside the jazz clubs on Fillmore Street. I listened to a lot of music even though I couldn’t hang out in the clubs. Little did we know that places like Bop City, Texas Playhouse and Blue Mirror were just a decade away from the wrecking ball.” Dawan’s family moved south of San Francisco to Daly City and his mother and step dad encouraged him to study the alto saxophone at the local Junior High School. But he says, “after one year I became more interested in sports and put the horn down.” His family ended up moving further south, to the San Jose area, where he graduated from high school and entered the Air Force.

In military service he grew closer to jazz, stationed first in San Antonio, Texas, where he heard good musicians both on and off the base. “Inspired, I started tinkering with the piano and enrolled in the Berklee School of Music Correspondence Course. Not having regular access to a piano, and since my instructor was saxophonist Charlie Mariano, I took up the saxophone again.” As the war in Vietnam escalated, Dawan was sent to the Canal Zone to become a jungle survival trainer. “At first this stifled my music studies,” he remembers, “but I found places to listen to live jazz when I got time off. I discovered that every great American jazz musician had a protégé in Panama! Victor Boa played piano like Oscar Peterson, Gene White played trumpet like Dizzy Gillespie, and Bat Gordon played saxophone like John Coltrane — they even had the same looks and mannerisms. I was not ready to get on the stage with these guys, but they encouraged me to play with them and I learned a lot. Music was the way I retained some sanity during the war.” After temporary duty in Vietnam, Dawan was transferred to McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey in 1967, where he studied in and around New York with many jazz legends, until he was honorably discharged a year later.

CHANGING TIMES
Returning to San Francisco, he found that the jazz scene in the Western Addition had literally been destroyed by “redevelopment,” with a few remaining clubs further up on Fillmore Street. But, most of the action had moved over to Divisadero Street, where the Both/And, Sportsman and Half Note still had a little life. With assistance from the GI Bill, Dawan attended San Jose City and DeAnza Colleges, never majoring in music, but playing in the jazz bands. He later graduated from UC Santa Cruz with degrees in Political Science and Islamic Studies and received honors in music composition as well for his work with the chamber orchestra. While at UC, Dawan and classmate Randy Masters co-founded Evidence Artistic Records, releasing four albums during the early 1970’s.

A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE
Dawan is one of the many jazz musicians who have been deeply influenced by Islamic culture. He talks about the connection of jazz to Nature and the creative spirit: “Human beings have a natural sound just like the ocean and the birds. Music, like the other parts of Creation, should serve as a collective and functional inspiration to human development. Jazz is a universal language based on spontaneous improvisation. To the serious listener it can communicate a revolutionary message, an entertaining idea, or both. When one considers the contributions jazz has made to world culture, one wonder why the music is not respected more in America.”

THE NETWORK
LifeForcejazz offers a variety of music production services to the grassroots community and has grown into a collective of over 100 artists with a catalog of 25 recordings on the LifeForcejazz Label. Dawan says, “Billy Higgins is a strong advocate for promoting jazz through community based organizations. He works hard to establish a network of community groups throughout the country and we are honored to be a part of that work.” LifeForcejazz is currently headquartered at 1202 Lincoln Avenue #107, San Jose, CA. 95125.

For more information about Dawan Muhammad and LifeForcejazz, visit LifeForcejazz.com or call 408 834-4567.

‘New Fillmore Magazine’, June 1998, San Francisco California.