Photograph by Mike DeFilippo

 Those who love the St. Louis arts scene in all its quirky, fractured, landlocked, erratic glory have reason to celebrate and to mourn this month, as the Black Artists’ Group Trio breathes its last with a farewell concert.

The BAG Trio was a well-kept secret—probably a little too well-kept. Bassist Zimbabwe Nkenya, percussionist “Baba” Mike Nelson and percussionist Gary Sykes are practitioners of free jazz, which may be a little “out there” for some ears, but is just what the doctor ordered for those of us a bit weary of the predictable. Nkenya, Nelson and Sykes, in a series of monthly free concerts held at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site, have unleashed a torrent of red-hot, beautiful, wild, crazy music that’s been a tonic to wash away the clichéd.

The BAG Trio is a project of BAG II, which is, in turn, a descendent of the famous Black Artists’ Group collective that shook up St. Louis in the ’60s and ’70s. The original BAG flourished during the time of the Black Power movement. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and the raised-fist protest by black Olympic athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, were the signposts of a polarizing era. BAG’s cross-disciplinary blends of stage drama, poetry night, dance and music had an air of committed fervor and of new, fertile possibilities.

Original BAG members Sonny “Ajule” Rutlin, a poet, and Vincent Terrell, a theater impresario, formed BAG II just a few years ago with Nkenya and other, somewhat younger artists. The sudden deaths of both Rutlin and Terrell have left the remaining BAG II-ers with some organizational challenges—and feeling bereft. The BAG Trio’s final concert, on December 28, will be a multidisciplinary tribute to fallen comrades. “There will be some music, some poetry, some paintings exhibited,” Nkenya says, “and we’re inviting everybody in St. Louis who knew these men to come down—all poets, actors, playwrights, artists, musicians, all of St. Louis.”

And those who make the trek will hear free jazz inspired by enigmatic greats like trumpeter Ornette Coleman and pianist Cecil Taylor.

“The [BAG Trio] concerts are not commercial jazz, soul jazz or blue jazz,” says Nkenya. “We try to represent music that might not otherwise get heard in St. Louis, stuff that might be popular in parts of Europe or Chicago.”

Though Nkenya feels it’s time to move on, he vows he will continue gigging in town, looking for musicians and audiences who share his love of avant-garde music. In fact, the bassist, who moved back to St. Louis from New Mexico two years ago, has already played at the St. Louis African Arts Festival, the Art Outside Festival at Schlafly Bottleworks, Legacy Books, the Open Lot gallery, the Saint Louis Art Museum, Washington University’s Jazz at Holmes Series and Kemper Art Museum, Central Reform Congregation and the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center. He’s been featured on Josh Weinstein’s much-admired All Soul, No Borders radio show on KDHX-FM, too.
Nkenya says he owes his long career and worldwide fan base to free-jazz musicians from the original Black Artists’ Group—guys like Julius Hemphill, Charles “Bobo” Shaw, Floyd LeFlore and Oliver Lake, who experimented with new sounds and cut a path through
the conventional.

“The reason that I’m still playing today is because of BAG—seeing them play when I was in high school, the kind of music they were doing, it kept me going,” he says. “Their perseverance, the way they wrote and presented their music, it was a strong influence on me.”
And what about the message behind the art? Is BAG’s Afrocentric spirit best consigned to a quixotic, quaint past, along with bubas, sandals and daishikis?
 
“No,” says an emphatic Nkenya. “We need a black arts movement now more than ever. Even more so than in the ’60s, man.” He cites problems with police brutality and de facto segregation in St. Louis and adds, “Some people are so rich, and some people are so poor. More so than in the ’60s. Some people got so much, and some people got no future. And people just turn a blind eye to it.”

For more information, visit myspace.com/zimbabwenkenya and myspace.com/workingthespirit.