Drums In The Bloodline

Weedie Braimah brings the African element to the music.

- Geraldine Wyckoff

D jembe master Weedie Braimah will be on stage at the Jazz Fest with trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, trombonist/trumpeter Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews, percussionists Alexey Marti and Bill Summers and the Trumpet Mafia. At least those are the artists he recalls he’ll be performing with— there could very well be others. Those hip to Braimah’s enthusiasm to play and his skill at adapting to an array of styles know he’s liable to turn up anywhere.

“I’ve always wanted to bridge the gap between African music in Africa and African music in America,” says Braimah, who was born in Ghana, raised in East Saint Louis and has been residing in the Crescent City for the last two years. “I tell people if you go to New Orleans, you can see it. African music is alive in the culture. It’s very New Orleans but it’s definitely African as well. I can’t separate the two. I always like to integrate those families back together again.”

In many regards, on moving to New Orleans, Braimah reignites the deep drum tradition that rages on the maternal side of his family. His mother, Ann Morris, who married Ghanaian drummer and composer Oscar Sulley Braimah, was a jazz drummer and the daughter of the renowned Weedy Morris who played drums behind luminaries such as Illinois Jacquet and Oscar Peterson.

“Out of all of Weedy’s children, only one was a musician and that was my mother,” Braimah points out. “And the one instrument that she picked up was the instrument that her father was known for.”