Juma Santos

Juma Santos, also known as Jumma Santos (born James R. Riley, December 27, 1948 – September 1, 2007) was a percussionist known for his extensive work over four decades with African music, Caribbean music, jazz, fusion and R&B artists recognizes as a master drummer.

He combined and fused styles and playing techniques of various African musical instruments, experimenting with rhythms, songs, and chants with modern jazz harmonies and melodic forms and structures. His career included performing with many noted artists on projects of historical significance, including recording on more than 75 albums.

Santos recorded on Miles Davis's Bitches Brew and toured with Davis for a year, credited as "Jim Riley". He also toured and recorded with Nina Simone, David Sanborn and Taj Mahal. Other performance residencies include stints with Ahmad Jamal, Dave Liebman, Pee Wee Ellis, Jack DeJohnette, Gato Garcia, Don Alias, Freddie Hubbard, the Fabulous Rhinestones, Harvey Brooks, Roy Ayers, Don Moye, and his own groups, Rosewater Foundation, Afro Jazz Messengers, the Pan-African Drum Ensemble, the Jumma Society and Sounds of the Urban Forest. Juma can be seen performing with Nina Simone in the academy award-winning documentary Summer of Soul.

He taught a generation of aspiring Afro-Cuban percussionists in NYC in the 1990s (at the Fareta School of African Dance and Drum) and in Detroit in the 2000s.

Juma Santos was also a fine photographer/painter who had had several successful exhibitions.

He died in September 2007, in Chicago, apparently of complications from malaria, at the age of 59 and mainly because his religious beliefs did not allow him to use traditional Western medicine when he became ill.

Discography As sideman 1969: Bitches Brew, Miles Davis 1969: Black Gold, Nina Simone 1971: Ubiquity, Roy Ayers 1971: Paul Pena, Paul Pena 1971: Compost, Compost 1972: He's Coming, Roy Ayers 1973: Life is Round, Compost 1973: Geechee Recollections, Marion Brown 1973: Lawrence of Newark, Larry Young 1973: Andy Pratt, Andy Pratt 1973: Live at Berkeley, Nina Simone 1976: Light'n Up, Please!, Dave Liebman 1976: David Sanborn, David Sanborn 1977: Beyond the Rain, Chico Freeman 1979: The Love Connection, Freddie Hubbard 1984: Georgia Blue, Julius Arthur Hemphill and the JAH Band, [Minor Music 1984] 1992: Family Portrait, Victor Lewis 2006: A Gift From Trane, Ghasem Batamuntu [Tahoe Records]