“[Ubadah] McConner never appeared on a commercial recording,” writes Pierre Crépon in his review of the bassist's book African Omnidevelopment Space Complex We/New in The Wire 464, “but according to informed people in the Detroit area, he was undoubtedly an excellent musician. Earning a living as a General Motors worker, McConner operated at such a distance from the music business that his name is unlikely to ring bells, even for diehard free jazz enthusiasts. Fragments of his musical life are recounted in this book compiling a hundred pages handwritten in response to a request from the Arteidolia website.”

McConner's book – which also contains photographs and examples of his collages – begins with his birth in 1939 and ends in 2002 with the final edition of his weekly open house music and conversation sessions. In the closing chapter, excerpted below, the community organiser describes African Omnidevelopment Space Complex We/New's connection to the prison system and asserts the initiative's deep positive impact on the penitentiary musicians whom McConner knew.

ON FROM THE 70s INTO 2002

1976 saw me playing music from 8pm to 12 on Friday nights and on some Sundays and Saturdays during the early evenings. I worked seven nights a week, went to school Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at OCC [Oakland Community College], and I locked into that time with relentless energy. I was drinking wheat germ, an organic juice tonic, a potion and an elixir and apple juice daily. I drank a quart jar every night at work and I became known for my health cleansing concoction. Then, most significant was my addiction to Korean ginseng. I drank so much that I had to wean myself off of drinking so much. I cut down to just drinking my morning ounce on an empty stomach and gave up my ounce before bedtime; and I took one ounce before eating.

Ginseng gave me the energy to work at GM, go to school at OCC and play Friday night music with energy, great strength and with a love that never dimmed or diminished.

At the same time I had powerful ongoing connections with a lot of penitentiary musicians and brothers who went to county jail, to Ionia, Marquette, Standish Maximum Correctional Facility and Jackson prison. Rashid [McConner's twin brother] and I always knew that the brothers in our generation in the 1960s were too set in their ways and would not be receptive at all to the music we were incessantly burning to play.

So, it is no wonder that all the musicians we recruited to play the music of the African Omnidevelopment Space Complex/We New came from the young street brothers, the brothers who went in and out of prison for years, the disenfranchised and the brigands who took the music played at my home inside the walls of many of Michigan’s penal colonies.

One of the first two brothers that knew my music like he owned it is Donte Elliot. He lived right next door to me from nine to 18, and his bedroom window stayed open in the hot summers and took all the nights the drums spoke to him to Ionia Correctional Facility for 11 long years.

In his letters to me, he remembered the musical outpouring that came from my house Friday in and Friday OUT. Donte ran in and out of my house when he was a child of N Ardmore. He remembers how much music loved him. He absorbed the music in his cells, tissues, organs, brain, heart, bones and blood – and he lay deep in his cell and remembered the music so deep he could hear it.

Every Friday came so fast that it carried the weight of the day so swiftly that arrived in total cacophony of Friday night celebrations of music. Music ushered in the weekend and made the music be played harder, longer, higher and higher, and even as Donte was locked down in Ionia Correctional Facility, the music he had heard Friday night after Friday for years lived on in him.

Then one day after working all day in the kitchen, he came back to his cell to find that Melvin Hatchett was in a cell right next to him, and all the music he had heard at my house came full circle. In short, Melvin Hatchett had been one of the brothers who had regularly come to my house bringing his drums and had been one of the many drummers that Donte had listened to for years and years.

Consequently they formed a transcendent band based on all the music Donte had heard and all the drums Melvin Hatchett had played. As a result, for years they kept the music alive in their many talks and every Friday night they shared a connection from their prison cells with all the music that I continued to play. When they got out of Ionia, I was gratified to have them back with me musically and spiritually. Moreover, a lot of brothers went to prison and came back home to find me still playing my music on into the 1980s, 1990s and up to 2002. There was Abdul Salaam, Jonathan Manning, Abdul Hamid, Michael Simpson, ‘Black’ Bob Adams, William Myers, Jake Weathers, Kragin Bush, Butch Bard, Yusef Jones, Peter Jones, Mansu Abdul Hajj, Sadiq Goff, Muhammed Sekou Bey and others who spent time in the State of Michigan’s correctional facilities and who also came home to find me still playing my music on Friday nights.

They all knew that I kept the music on fire while they were in their jail house beds and they all relished, revered and remembered the music I played. Of course, I wrote to them all and kept them abreast and aware of how the music was still a part of their lives no matter how long they were away.

Equally important, a lot of brothers moved to different parts of the world, such as Patrick Brennan, who moved to New York, and they all came back from time to time to play with me on Friday nights. Scott Pinkston moved to Norcross, Georgia, and he would bring his tenor and alto back every summer when he came to visit his Pontiac family. Melvin Price made Sweden his home away from Pontiac, but he always came back with his trombone two or three times a year. Ted Russell found a job working in Muskegon, and he came down whenever he could with bass clarinet and kalimba. Fareed McKnight moved to Grand Rapids but remained devoted and dedicated to Pontiac Friday night music. Donald Washington took a job as a music teacher in Minnesota, and when school was out he brought all of his horns, tenor, alto, soprano and baritone back to the Friday night music scene. When Joel Letvin had to move to West Bloomfield to be closer to his job, he made his clarinet playing presence felt every chance he could on Friday. Umam Saladuhim joined the army as a member of the Eighth Army Band stationed in Germany. On leaves he always brought his bass clarinet, piccolo and flute back to the Friday night music sets. Andre Allen, tenor and alto, came back many Friday nights from Cleveland, Ohio after he got relocated to another GM plant. Todd Adams moved to Madison Heights but brought his piano straight to my house early on Friday so it would be on the set that night.

I was so surprised at all the music played at my home and all the many musicians who loved playing with me. I have so many stories about all the wonderful music and wonderful musicians that honoured me all the way up to year 2002. I am going to stop here in the 1970s to let everyone get a feel for the magnitude of the African Omnidevelopment Space Complex/We New Friday night music home concert series that I held up to 2002 in my home.

Read Pierre Crépon's review of the book in full inside The Wire 464. Copies of African Omnidevelopment Space Complex We/New are available via Arteidolia Press online.