Remi D
Jazz Philosopher
No slave family, dubbed by features
Remi D, Dr T, Pablo Maroon, the T’cha.
Upfully treatya, downpressor beatya, meetcha, greetcha like Buck and the Preacher.
Who is Remi D?
Jazz philosopher, Jazz novelist, Jazz musician, Jazz storyteller, Jazz educator: Dr Remi David is the Maroon visionary founding artist behind Abracadia.
London Jamaican Judah Maroon.
Raised in care. Multiple survivor of some heavyweight imponderables.
Child carer for speedball addict single adopted parent from age 8.
Jazz insider nightlife child, dodging danger, running wild.
Expelled from school aged 15 for breaking the cane.
With no qualifications, Remi passed the higher rigours of London streetlife with flying colours.
After seven years as international underworld apprentice, Remi decided to change track: He trixed his way back into education, securing a full scholarship and graduating top of his year in philosophy at one of England’s leading universities.
His subsequent scholarship Masters and Doctoral theses were both awarded distinctions. They were altogether the easiest things he’d ever had to do.
The Artist Is …
The artist is a mirror reflecting the minds of those interacting with the art, including the perspectives and predispositions that their perceptions are based on.
And the artist is a transgressor because they break down the barriers between self and other, giving a sneak-peek of that higher unified reality.
Repeatedly blasted with trauma and loss, Remi has survived by his strong sense of purpose and mission based on authenticity and social justice. His music and writings aim to help humanity’s healing from the traumas of colonial legacy: the genocides which stain all our stories to this day.
The works of Remi D signify another step towards the realisation of our human potential to transform our world with wisdom in positive and constructive ways, through cultural action for Ubuntu, the real Maroon code.
Literary influences
Literary influences? Names? Titles?
There’s too many to say, but the tip of the iceberg in alphabetic order is:
H. C. Anderson, James Baldwin, Amelia Bassano (aka Shakespeare), William Blake, Johan Borgen, Raymond Chandler, Phil K. Dick, Charles Dickens, John Donne, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Umberto Eco, Kahlil Gibran, Thomas Hardy, Chester Himes, Langston Hughes, Elmore Leonard, Wilfred Owen, Richard Stark.
Plus one-offs like ‘Candide’, ‘Gulliver’s Travels’, ‘Confederacy of Dunces’, ‘Last Exit To Brooklyn’ and ‘Ringolevio’.
And mythologies and traditional tales from all times and cultures.
Musical influences
Again, there’s many too many to mention. But here’s a tiny taster from the iceberg’s tip:
Billie Holiday (phrasing and intervals), Charlie Parker (Blues and flow, especially when slow), Count Basie (economy and dynamics), Augustus Pablo (liberating the melodica from the toy-box), Thelonious Monk (off chords), Keith Hudson (dub homages to 1920s Blues), Ginger Johnson (West African polyrhythm), Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley (Rock and Roll), and the 70s Jazzy Reggae vibes of Lennie Hibbert, Ernest Ranglin and Jackie Mittoo.
Drums: Art Blakey and Leroy Wallace (‘Horsemouth’) for swing; Max Roach and the African Ancestral tradition for polyrhythmic punctuation. Charlie Parker for fluency of flow.
Vibraphone: Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Thelonious Monk, Lennie Hibbert, Milt Jackson, Charlie Parker, African Ancestral ‘Marimba’ tradition.
Melodica; Billie Holiday, Augustus Pablo, John Coltrane, Hugh Mundell.
Vocal: Billie Holiday, Sugar Minott, Louis Armstrong, Bob Marley.
You’ll find traces of all of them and many more in Remi’s music. Beyond that, there’s the usual spectrum of divinely inspired musical magi and geniuses, from Miles Davis to Fela Kuti to Allen Toussaint to Yabby You to Annette Peacock. A list waaay too long for here.
Long time awaiting
Q: Why has it taken till almost age 70 for Remi D to present a novel and to start composing and put an album out?
A: Lack of self-confidence and a chaotic life with repeated loss and no family backing starting from 15 days old in the orphanage.
Childhood traumas of junkie life and death, scorned and unvalued by all he depended on, being homeless, eating out of rubbish bins, experiencing loss beyond loss and constant pressures pushing him back down despite all efforts to reach higher ground and build a life by honest hard work.
None of that can ever be overcome, healing is learning to live with it, to shine through it and to keep the rhythm of life in your heart. Through it all, music was always in Remi’s heart, but doing an album was the last thing on his mind.
The PhD helped in the second half, gave him a modest living, but for 30 years he never tried to get beyond classroom teacher for the same reason he never tried to make a song or an album: It was all he could manage to stay on his feet and keep running on empty.
Who feels it knows it: Assuming most people face subjectively equivalent ordeals of endurance, Remi describes adulthood as like running a marathon on broken legs.
Q: Why are the novel and album happening now, exactly?
A: Because serious illnesses forced Remi out of teaching, giving him time to play the roles of author and editor, proofreader, publisher, podcaster, bloggist and cook; as well as drummer, vibraphonist, melodica player, percussionist, rapper, singer and songwriter.
And because the world actually seems to need this very novel and this very album at this very moment in time.