Juma Santos

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Juma Santos, also known as Jumma Santos (January 15, 1948 – September 1, 2007), born James P. Riley, was a percussionist and master drummer known for his extensive work over four decades with African music, Caribbean music, jazz, fusion and R&B artists.

Biography[]

Born in Massachusetts, Santos served time in prison in upstate New York twice, was homeless for a time, and lived in Harlem and Brooklyn before moving to Detroit in 2000. He also spent time in Ghana and Cuba.

He combined and fused styles and playing techniques of various African musical instruments, experimenting with rhythms, songs, and chants with modern jazz harmonies and melodic forms and structures. His career included performing with many noted artists on projects of historical significance, including recording on more than 75 albums.

Santos recorded on Miles Davis's Bitches Brew and toured with Davis for a year. He also toured and recorded with Nina Simone, David Sanborn and Taj Mahal. Other performance residencies include stints with Ahmad Jamal, Dave Liebman, Pee Wee Ellis, Jack DeJohnette, , Don Alias, Freddie Hubbard, the Fabulous Rhinestones, Harvey Brooks, Roy Ayers, Don Moye, and his own groups, Rosewater Foundation, Afro Jazz Messengers, the Pan-African Drum Ensemble, the Jumma Society and Sounds of the Urban Forest. A conga player listed as Juma Santo or Juma Saton is credited on some recordings and performances of Jimi Hendrix. That conga player Juma Sultan was an entirely different individual, and not the same person who is the subject of this article.

He taught a generation of aspiring Afro-Cuban percussionists in NYC in the 1990s (at the Fareta School of African Dance and Drum) and in Detroit in the 2000s.

Juma Santos was also a fine painter who had had several successful exhibitions.

He died in September 2007, in Chicago, apparently of complications from malaria, at the age of 59 and mainly because his religious beliefs did not allow him to use traditional Western medicine when he became ill.

Discography[]

As sideman[]

• 1969: Bitches Brew, Miles Davis
• 1969: Black Gold, Nina Simone
• 1971: Ubiquity, Roy Ayers
• 1971: Paul Pena, Paul Pena
• 1971: Compost, Compost
• 1972: He's Coming, Roy Ayers
• 1973: Life is Round, Compost
• 1973: Geechee Recollections, Marion Brown
• 1973: Lawrence of Newark, Larry Young
• 1973: Andy Pratt, Andy Pratt
• 1973: Live at Berkeley, Nina Simone
• 1976: Light'n Up, Please!, Dave Liebman
• 1976: David Sanborn, David Sanborn
• 1977: Beyond the Rain, Chico Freeman
• 1979: The Love Connection, Freddie Hubbard
• 1984: , , [Minor Music 1984]
• 1992: Family Portrait, Victor Lewis

References[]

External links[]