Like the Washington City Paper theater and dance critics who've seen Fela! during its ongoing run at the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Harman Center, I found much to like about this musical bio of Nigeria’s most controversial musician. But I found one thing in the production a bit curious. While the actors and dancers all seemed to be of African descent, you could say the same about only one member of the 10-piece band that also appears on stage. The ensemble sounded great, so I wondered who they are, and if they have any connection to Fela Kuti or Nigeria. After all, the Fela whom I saw, at the now-defunct Kilimanjaro in Adams Morgan, had an African band.

The musicians in the current D.C. run have played with or are connected in some way with Brooklyn band Antibalas, whose sound is based on Fela’s Afrobeat style. In fact, Rikki Stein, who was Fela’s manager and manages Fela’s estate, suggested the producers contact Antibalas when the musical was in its embryonic stages. Antibalas performed for them, and the band's trombonist and music supervisor Aaron Johnson then helped choose songs and write the arrangements for Fela!, and even co-wrote a number in the musical.

The musicians on the Harman Theatre stage have all played or substituted in the Tony-winning Broadway version. In an email, the Iowa-born, Long Island-raised Johnson acknowledged that none of the musicians are African. He also noted that he's played with Fela’s onetime drummer Tony Allen, as well as with Fela’s sons Femi Kuti and Seun Kuti, plus many other musicians who used to play with Fela. But he did not “think they were ‘contacted’ for the gig, as the skill set required was more than just being able to play Afrobeat."

The entire production, while laudable, is essentially an American take on a Nigerian icon. Lindsay Tolar, the Shakespeare Theatre Company's publicist, says that in creating the show, choreographer Bill T. Jones did not go to Nigeria, but did research via “both reading and watching much footage (interviews & performance) about Fela.” She also says Maija Garcia, Jones' associate choreographer for Fela!, has a solid background in African/Afro-Cuban dance and played an important role in the choreography. And of course,  Sahr Ngaujah, who adeptly plays Fela in the show, is a U.S.-born, Atlanta-raised actor of Sierra Leonean descent.

The question of how to dispose of my mortal remains has weighed on me of late. Raised Baptist and Episcopalian by turns—with a meager annuity of Judaism courtesy of certain paternal relatives—I've since strayed from the path of righteousness into the turpid thickets of cohabitation and Crescent City blues. Which means, of course, that for this agno-mystic, ruminations on divine judgment and soul-transposition present thickets of their own—as does the cadaverous question that opens this paragraph.

Old-fashioned interment calls for expensive cedar and the chance of an open casket situation—neither of which I can abide. Cremation, on the other hand, has clear advantages: quick, clean, and a fine consummation of the "ashes to ashes" rap they've been laying on us all these years. (A Viking cremation would be especially nice.) In any scenario, I expect to be gutted of all worthwhile and potentially worthwhile organs—as I have testified on the back of my driver's license, in various legal documents, and to many of the kind folk who wait in line with me at Safeway.

A curious "third path" is that of the New Orléans-style "jazz funeral," which legitimizes through sheer panache the otherwise unappealing coffin-based approach. I have long been an advocate for this practice, and my enthusiasm for it was affirmed last night at the Black Cat, where the Portland-based MarchFourth Marching Band opened for Antibalas. MarchFourth is a feast for the eyes as much as for the ears—a seething mass of top-hats, trombones, men and women on stilts, and drum harnesses jerry-rigged from old bicycle parts. Sporting a weatherbeaten, kaleidoscopic caricature of marching band uniforms, the troupe plays jazz, funk, and African inflections with grit while swaying in unison, dropping wisecracks, conducting mass singalongs, and generally mugging (in the undead-and-loving-it vein) for the benefit of a transported audience. Bluesy voodoo ambient grotesqueries—a fitting dirge for the unrepentant.

As I watched these guys do their thing, I was reminded of the lyrics to "The St. James Infirmary Blues" (which receives admirable renditions from Louie Armstrong and from these fellas). "If horn licks like that can't sanctify vice," I thought, "they can at least send it out on a high note."

Check out the video below for some interesting shots of the group in Hamburg. Meanwhile, I'm off to points north for a weekend of godless debauchery and fine music.

Photograph courtesy of MarchFourth