R.I.P.
IBRAHIM
GONZALEZ,
THE “MAMBO
DERVISH”
By Robert Knight
“Five O’Clock Shadow”
5 Jun 2013
On the evening of June 3rd, 2013, our dear friend
and WBAI colleague Ibrahim Gonzalez
passed away at home, in his sleep.
Ibrahim was known both personally and institutionally as the “Mambo
Dervish,” based on his skill as a bandleader and conga player, for his devotion
to Sufi Islam, and for his free-form and
musical programs “In The Moment” and “Radio Libre!”
Ibrahim was a co-founder in 1975 of the Allianza Islamica, the nation’s oldest
national organization for Latino Muslims, which was then based in his childhood
community of East Harlem, before moving to Mott Haven in Ibrahim’s beloved
Bronx. Although he was first reared as a Catholic, He
said he was not so much converted as he was re-verted to Sufiism.
Ibrahim said of the Islamic Alliance that “Islam represented a place for us to be part
of a larger community. When we realized that within Islam there was every
spectrum of people, regardless of class, regardless of race, we were attracted
to that universal principle of human interaction and communion with the
divine.” But the organization’s
commitment to nonviolence did not immunize Ibrahim from a 1994 visit from FBI
agents, whom Ibrahim characterized as”looking for terrorists.”
However, the most explosive element of Ibrahim’s life was his
dynamic mastery of the conga, through which he has composed for symphonies and
led his own eponymous orchestra and quintet, as well as the Nuyorican Jazz
Experience, among innumerable projects and performances celebrating the Afro-, Caribbean- and
Latin rhythms of salsa and Nuyorican culture.
Ibrahim recently headlined a WBAI benefit at the world famous
SOB’s, and has appeared at the Bronx Museum, and many other venues. Ibrahim -- always nattily dressed in such
trademark outfits as suspenders, bowties, berets, fedoras, Panama hats, sandals,
silk shirts and linen suits -- was ubiquitous as the smiling center of a
whirlwind of music, daily incarnating his legend as the “Mambo Dervish.”
But Ibrahim’s gifts were so bountiful that not even music
could contain them all.
Here at WBAI, Ibrahim’s gentle dialogs and grasp of global
affairs earned him his highly acclaimed airtime on such programs as “Wake Up
Call,” “Radio Libre!” and his mystical morning show, “In the Moment,” which he
described as “a spontaneous mix of
eclectic sounds, interviews and live performance.” Prior to his arrival at WBAI, Ibrahim was also
featured on the broadcasts of our current CCNY studio hosts, WHCR – Harlem
Community Radio.
Ibrahim Gonzalez is survived by four brothers, five children
and eleven grandchildren, numerous nephews and nieces and other relatives
located in NY, California, Puerto Rico, Africa and elsewhere, as well as his loving wife,
Janet Norquist-Gonzalez, an educator and award-winning cartographer.
On a personal note, your reporter recalls the time late last
year when he was hospitalized in his own near-death crisis, the complete
recovery from which was aided in no small part by the bedside presence of his
beloved friend Ibrahim Gonzalez, who on several occasions roused him from his
Propofol stupor into the redemptive joy of hearing Ibrahim read aloud his
favorite science fiction novel from an edition too heavy at the time for the
then-weakened and unsteady hands of your reporter.
Ibrahim’s healing instincts also extended to his beloved
WBAI, where, with staff and management initiatives, and your kind contributions,
we together move to a higher state of institutional health. Among Ibrahim’s most recent messages to your
reporter was this: “I just want to help.”
This is “Five O’Clock Shadow” on the Pacifica Radio Network,
originating at WBAI. I’m Robert Knight
in New York.
If you, too, would like to help WBAI survive, please consider
making a tax-deductible donation at this time with a call to our pledge center,
on behalf of the station so loved by our late friend and colleague. The number
is 516-620-3602.
Inner Tube 1 - Self Portrait or Getting Acquainted
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| Ibrahim Gonzalez on Open Bronxnet Community Television Apr 9, 2013 |
