An interview with Abdul Wadud; 43 years on

The New York Times recently did an article on the African American cellist Abdul Wadud (1947-2022) and I’m glad to say, linked it to an interview I did with Wadud for Coda Magazine in 1980. Thanks for the USA website Point of Departure for having the foresight, and insight, to reprint the article last year in a new format, introduced and edited by Pierre Crépon, under the title “Knocking Down Barriers: An Interview with Abdul Wadud, 1980.”
NINETEEN EIGHTY! Working for Coda in those years gave me so many opportunities to become immersed in a music that relatively few people knew much about. A career in the arts is not easy, and it’s encouraging to think that one’s work accumulates incrementally, and that what can seem to have been ephemeral can sometimes bounce back into the spotlight, years after it’s done and – you think – gone.

Abdul Wadud with his daughter Aisha. Newark, NJ, July 28, 1980. Photo by David Lee.

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