- Apollo Theater is like Carnegie Hall in that, by stepping onto its historic stage, you become part of its legacy. The venue's brightly-lit marquee, with the red letters running up the building, is like a sacred site for jazz, R&B and gospel lovers all over the world. The neo-classical theater, which opened on 125th Street in Harlem in 1914, is a focal point of black history in New York—its amateur nights buoyed the early success of artists like Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown, D'Angelo and Lauryn Hill. Africa Now!, which has been running at the venue for six years, celebrates contemporary music from across the continent, and on Saturday they had Jeff Mills performing live with Tony Allen, the revered Nigerian drummer who—together with Fela Kuti—more or less invented Afrobeat.
Their setup was stripped-back: Allen with his drum kit, Mills with his 909 and French musician Jean-Phi Dary on two keyboards. Allen and Mills have collaborated a few times since their first gig in Paris two years ago, so while their set definitely felt improvised, they also had an established rapport that made it feel like more than a jam session. It took them a few minutes to settle into a lucid groove, with Mills's sparse patterns offering an angular counterpoint to Allen's nimble pitter-patter. Though Dary noodled occasionally, the keyboardist mostly stuck to simple, repetitive three- or four-note phrases, using filter sweeps to reference electronic music tropes. Oddly, the fact that it was played, rather than sequenced and looped, left it feeling a little artificial, like he was approximating his best idea of what techno was supposed to sound like.
Mills's drum machine was the only sequenced device onstage, which kept the performance from being dominated by the inflexible meter of a quantized beat. He had one trick in particular that kept it feeling fluid: by using the button that restarted his drum sequence, he was able to correct the timing and realign with Allen if they ever fell out of sync. It was a good excuse to show off his tactile skill, bashing out tight drum rolls while tweaking knobs and modulating effects, his hands like hummingbirds in a flower garden. They don't call him The Wizard for nothing.
The most exciting moments in the music were the least crowded, when the arrangement left plenty of negative space for their percussive grooves to unfurl. The closing sequence was dubby and spacious, and it was best when Dary backed off the mid-range synths to let the bassline do the heavy lifting. At times, the 909 enriched Allen's syncopations, especially one phrase towards the middle of the show, where Mills's 3/4 cymbal part formed the backbone to the rest of the rhythm. But there were also points when the two drum parts clashed, and with only a 30-minute runtime due to the format of the show (four acts in about two hours), they didn't quite have enough time to develop their ideas. Ultimately, it wasn't the explosive chemical reaction you'd expect from two titans sharing the stage. But it was a refreshing experiment to watch, and a nice reminder of the value of stepping out of your comfort zone.