Adele Sebastian - 1981 - Desert Fairy Princess

Adele Sebastian

1981

Desert Fairy Princess

01. Desert Fairy Princess 8:56
02. Belize 5:28
03. I Felt Spring 6:56
04. Man From Tanganyika 8:12
05. Day Dreamer 5:43
06. Prayer For The People 2:32

Bass – Roberto Miranda
Drums – Billy Higgins
Flute, Vocals – Adele Sebastian
Marimba – Rickey Kelley
Percussion – "Daoude" Woods
Piano – Bobby West

Adele Sebastian was an Afro American jazz flutist and singer, active from the early 70s (when she was still a teenager) until her untimely death at the age of 27 in 1983 from a kidney failure. In fact she had been depending on monthly dialysis to stay alive for years. She lived through and for the music and you can hear it on her only solo album “Desert Fairy Princess” which was first issued in 1981. The mostly acoustic instrumentation brings a very natural and therefore rather retrospective sound considering the year the album was recorded. Adele and her band pull it off right from the start as if it had been 1966 and it was time for a revolution to shake the dust from the old time jazz. In a perfect way she mixes classic American vocal jazz elements with playful and more free passages, Latin music and tribal African sounds in the lengthy and quite rhythm oriented “Man From Tanganyika” and makes the title track start with a mystical “Allahu akbar“ chant while it turns more and more into a dark and gloomy song with something like a psychedelic edge reminiscent of Pharoah Sanders on his early works. Wild rhythms from drums, percussions with tons of bells and chimes weave a thick groove carpet and conjure a magical atmosphere. Those jazz aficionados who love the mid 60s John Coltrane, his sidekick Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane will go crazy for this album.

The name Adele Sebastian likely doesn’t ring bells in broader jazz circles, but it should. During her lifetime, a tragically short span of 27 years due to kidney failure, she played flute alongside a number of prominent West Coast jazz musicians, and was a member of pianist Horace Tapscott’s Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, a community arts collective offering local jazz and music education to students across Los Angeles. In its heyday, the Arkestra would perform in prisons, hospitals and churches, but didn’t record its first studio album until the late 1970s.

For Sebastian, a trained musician with an interest in Pan-Africanism, performing in the Arkestra married her love of art with her sense of Black pride. “I want to be an inspiration to all people,” she once said. “I strongly believe in, contribute to and support the preservation and education of the black arts. For these are my people and our contributions are priceless.”

Sebastian was born in 1956 in Riverside, California to a mother, Jacquelyn, who played piano, and a father, Malvin, who played saxophone. Her brothers were singers and Sebastian took up the flute at a young age. She played through high school, then went to California State University, where she majored in theatre and minored in Pan-African Studies. Reportedly, this is when she started making her way through the scene, quickly earning a rep through her artistry. In 1973, Sebastian co-wrote, staged and choreographed the Black History musical It’s A Brand New Day. Five years later, her flute could be heard across the Arkestra’s studio work. A funk-driven ensemble version of her track, “Desert Fairy Princess,” appeared on Live At I.U.C.C., the band’s 1979 album.

In 1981, Sebastian released what would be her only solo album: Desert Fairy Princess, a 38-minute spiritual jazz suite that brought her creative ambitions to the fore. Featuring Bobby West on piano; Daa'oud Woods on percussion; Billy Higgins on drums; Roberto Miranda on bass; and Rickey Kelley on marimba, the album conveys matters of the soul in ways that align with Sebastian’s aesthetic. These songs are incredibly emotive, her flute billowing amid the simmering hum of Higgins’ drum and West’s radiant piano.

There’s a palpable joy emanating here; on arrangements like “Belize” and “I Felt Spirit,” Sebastian’s playing sounds light and effervescent, the sound of a woman with the world to gain. The same went for “Man From Tanganyika,” her version of McCoy Tyner’s original. Where his track focuses on the piano as its lead instrument, Sebastian’s arrangement rightfully puts the flute center stage. Elsewhere, on “Day Dream,” it’s as if she’s reflecting on her past. Yet there’s no sorrow; instead, she can only smile when pondering freedom. “I’m looking back on my yesterdays,” goes a line from the track. “I’ve made brand new plans just to fit my ways.” The lyrics land differently now; Sebastian passed just two years later.

It’s been said that she was adored musically and personally. I can see that. And while I try to avoid comparisons between artists, Desert Fairy Princess hits me the same as Roberta Flack’s records. The artists are remarkably sincere in their work; the music itself feels guided by omnipresent forces. Forty years later, Desert Fairy Princess is a major part of Sebastian’s legacy. Her star shone brightly and faded too soon.

A special home to spiritual jazz on the west coast at the end of the 70s – and crucial for giving us some really unique talents like this! Adele Sebastian may have only ever cut this one album as a leader, but she's a hell of a flute player with a very deep, spiritual vibe – these sublime lines that soar and stretch out over modal rhythms – played by a totally hip group that includes Rickey Kelley on vibes, Roberto Miranda on bass, and Billy Higgins on drums and a bit of gembreh – a string instrument that brings a nicely exotic vibe to the record. The group's rounded out by Bobby West on piano and Daoude Woods on percussion – and the songs have this open flow that's wonderful – never too far out, but always searching – as the group soar through a version of McCoy Tyner's "Man From Tanganyika"