Reel History: The Lost Archive of Juma Sultan and the Aboriginal Music Society

Postscript

POSTSCRIPT 296 In early 2010 I received an inquiry through thejumasarchive.org website from an independent record label owner who was interested in the possibility of releasing some of the music from the archive. Within weeks a second indie producer from another label contacted Juma with the same idea. By the spring I learned that Juma was negotiating potential commercial arrangements with both labels. On June 15, 2010, Johndan and I returned to Juma's barn for the first time in five years. Juma and Michael Heller had invited us to be "part of the team," as Juma put it, and meet with one of the producers who wanted to explore the archive for potential material. The producer was particularly interested in Aboriginal Music Society recordings, none of which had ever been released commercially. The meeting took place near the barn in a small building that Michael and Juma had transformed into their work space when the two of them catalogued and digitized tapes in 2009. Through much of the day Johndan and I observed Juma, Michael, and the producer review and discuss material. Most of their efforts centered on verifying the players on two particularly compelling AMS sessions. Occasionally Johndan and I provided some background information or technical advice relating to the raw, digitized recordings. Late in the day as the producer sifted through archival documents, Michael turned to me and suggested we take a few moments to go up to the barn to look for that missing Nairb-Pharoah-Juma tape. "Perfect," I said. What a difference five years had made: a door with a handle and lock had been installed, windows had been repaired, holes to the outside had been filled in, and the tapes and their individual boxes were now stored in large, clean, archival boxes, labeled with a precise system that enabled one to locate recordings easily. Michael unstacked boxes, slid one across the wooden plank floor towards me, and lifted the lid. In it I saw dozens of reels of tape, none of them in a tape box, none of them labeled. Here lay terra incognito: unidentified loose reels that had not yet been played. 2.97 We were looking for that rare, two-holed reel that had appeared as the take-up reel in my inadvertent video of the recording. Weflipped through the cache one by one - almost like flipping through a bin of vinyl albums -- and we found one two-holed reel. "That's it," I said. Back in the other building, Michael threaded the player. As the spool unreeled, we heard some clicks and unidentifiable noises then nothing. Michael fast-forwarded and engaged play again. Weheard a momentary lick of electric guitar then silence. I looked at Juma, "Jimi?" I said, to which Juma shook his head no instantly. Then the music started again. It sounded familiar. Within a few seconds Michael identified it. "Bitches Brew," he said. Welistened for a half minute. I heard Miles. Someone years ago had put a mic up to a record player and recorded a few minutes of that album. The rest of the tape had nothing on it. To coin a phrase, irony is not dead. Moments later Juma asked me to go back up to the barn to help him look for some old drums and flutes. The producer wanted to take some pictures of the original handmade instruments that Juma used with AMS.For these we had to go up to the third floor of the barn and there I was reacquainted with the clutter and chaos that I had seen years before on the floor below. We waded through boxes, trunks, duffel bags, and crates. A couple of drums were apparent but the flutes were not. There were no lights up there and the day's light was waning. At one point Juma was across the room and he said something like, "Man, I'll have to get Michael up here to look at this box." I worked my way over to him and saw him holding up flyers for what appeared to be the first Woodstock festival. "Are there tapes in there?" I asked. "I don't know. We'll have to get back up here sometime." After more rummaging, we emerged with several drums and one wooden flute. "There are more," he said as we walked back toward the others in the fading light. "Wejust have to...