The June 8, 2006 guest, Olu Dara, was greeted by many fans and admirers, who came to hear the free-spirited multi-instrumentalist discuss his life and career.
 
And spirited the conversation was, in many ways. With deep humor he talked about his upbringing in various small towns in Mississippi, where his family tilled the fields as farmers. The oldest of seven, Olu began playing clarinet and performing for audiences at the age of 7. In addition to the customary blues of the deep South, he recalled hearing opera, and his father sang in a style reminiscent of Paul Robeson.
 
Olu was introduced to the cornet by an unlettered gentleman who, in almost mythological fashion, showed up in his small town one day and asked for a place to stay. His family obliged, and the man—who spoke six languages and played just about every instrument—began to teach him to play cornet.
 
He told Olu to blow into the mouthpiece as if he were blowing into a balloon. Once he got that down, he had Olu attach the remainder of the horn and form tones. Soon thereafter, the auto-didact genius played what turned out to be the bridge to Ellington’s “Sophisticated Ladies” and told Olu to play it. He did.
 
The next day he showed Olu the sheet music to the tune, a brilliant introduction to sight reading, and Olu understood immediately.
 
Although Harlem Speaks is a discussion series, Olu performed by singing and humming tunes significant to his development as a musician. For instance, he recalled hearing Lee Morgan on John Coltrane’s Blue Train recording as a college student, which changed him forever. “I felt as if I knew Morgan,” he recalled.
 
He even stood up and did the hambone of his young days, performing for white folks for some change.
 
A very poignant moment when he mentioned his grandmother’s singing while holding him on her lap. After Greg Thomas, the interviewer, asked him to sing in his grandmother’s style, he hesitated. “I thought this was supposed to be just an interview, not a performance,” he joked. But then he closed his eyes, and began humming and moaning and brought the spirit and memory of his grandmother to the proceedings.
 
Suddenly, struck by the memory, he put his hands to his face and began to weep.
 
For the next two hours he recalled his college days at Tennessee State University, leaving there before graduating and entering the Navy for four years, traveling the world on “secret missions,” coming to New York and Harlem, beginning his family, and playing with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers in the early ‘70s. “Blakey was a master, the best band leader I’ve ever had. I found my voice, my identity with him because he gave me the freedom to be myself.”
 
As did choreographer Diane McIntyre, who simply told him to play the piano one day, not even asking he if knew how. She believed in him implicitly.
 
After playing with Blakey Olu began playing so-called “free jazz,” but was brought back down to earth one day when his son, Nas, then 7 years young, said: “Daddy, that sounds like background for a horror film.”  From that point on, he stayed firmly within the groove of his own unique mix of blues, jazz, and sounds from music across the world.