Talib Ahmad Dawood (formerly Alfonso Nelson Rainey, born January 26, 1923, on Antigua; died 9 July 1999,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

) was an American

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

trumpeter.

Career

Dawud came from

Antigua and Barbuda Antigua and Barbuda (, ) is a sovereign country in the West Indies. It lies at the juncture of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean in the Leeward Islands part of the Lesser Antilles, at 17°N latitude. The country consists of two maj ...

, taking lessons from his father, a trumpeter who played in marching bands; his mother was a singer who accompanied herself on piano. Dawud also learned

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

and

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks ...

. He had his further education in the United States at a high school and music school he experienced in the United States, came as the end of the 1930s to New York. Because of the support of the Barrymore Foundation, he first took the stage name Barrymore Rainey. After studying at the

Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most el ...

in 1940, he played with Tiny Bradshaw,

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...

, Benny Carter, Andy Kirk, Jimmie Lunceford, Roy Eldridge with further swing orchestras. In Philadelphia he met Sheikh Nasir Ahmad, an Ahmadiyya missionary, through whom he converted to Islam and took the name Talib Dawud. In the second half of the 1940s and again in 1956 he was a member of the

Dizzy Gillespie John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge but addi ...

Big Band, performing with in 1957 at the Newport Jazz Festival. In 1954 he married Sayida Fazl of Cleveland, Ohio, his second marriage. They bore a daughter Rafiqa and his second son Idris after having a son Farouq by his first marriage. In 1958 he then married the singer

Dakota Staton Dakota Staton (June 3, 1930 – April 10, 2007) was an American jazz vocalist who found international acclaim with the 1957 No. 4 hit "The Late, Late Show". She was also known by the Muslim name Aliyah Rabia for a period due to her conversion to ...

. He was no longer working as an active musician since 1959 and operated an Africa-Import Shop in New York City. As a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, which distanced itself from the

Nation of Islam The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a religious and political organization founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930. A black nationalist organization, the NOI focuses its attention on the African diaspora, especially on African ...

, he wrote numerous articles in the African-American

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

daily ''New Crusader'' on the controversy between

Elijah Muhammad Elijah Muhammad (born Elijah Robert Poole; October 7, 1897 – February 25, 1975) was an African American religious leader, black separatist, and self-proclaimed Messenger of Allah, who led the Nation of Islam (NOI) from 1934 until his de ...

and Malcolm X."MALCOLMOLOGY 101, #18: NOI ANSWERS MUSLIM CRITICS"
''Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention'', March 14, 2011. In his later years he took up the study of martial arts in his native country Antigua and became a multi degree black belt in three disciplines and sensei.

References

American jazz musicians Musicians from New York (state) 1923 births 1999 deaths American Ahmadis American Muslims Antigua and Barbuda emigrants to the United States American jazz trumpeters American male trumpeters 20th-century trumpeters 20th-century American male musicians American male jazz musicians {{US-jazz-trumpeter-stub