Alaadeen & Fanny 2009

     I am Alaadeen’s wife. He called me Fanny. He called me Hun. But I knew when he was serious about something, because that’s when he called me Victoria. It’s been just over a year now since Alaadeen’s passing. Musicians have said; “Don’t let him die.” So many have asked me to keep his legacy alive. That’s something that’s more than easy for me to do.

     One afternoon, during Alaadeen’s last month of life, he woke up and mentioned that he wanted to write. I thought he meant compose. In my mind I was trying to figure out how to make this happen. He wanted to be upstairs in his bedroom away from everything and everyone. That meant that I needed to move his piano upstairs. And I knew that his arms and hands were not working right; how could he play the piano? My mind was going strong to attack this problem. I had always found a way to make Alaadeen’s projects a reality. I wasn’t going to let him down now. So my mind moved into fight mode again. But only seconds later, I found out that he meant he wanted to write his life story; not compose a tune. He wanted his book to be called “Dysfunctional”. In a “dream” state, his life passed before him and he wanted others to learn from his mistakes.

     I’ve learned to believe and trust in what dying people have to say. I took his request very seriously. I asked him to talk into a tape recorder telling stories from his past. A week before Alaadeen passed, he asked me to get the recorder out again. It was hard for him to talk; his voice was weak and labored. This time, he told me about his parents. In our 24 years together, I was never allowed to ask questions about his mother. One time I tried but was immediately shut down. He said, “I don’t want to talk about it!” When he recorded these stories, I knew that it was the last tape that I would receive. He had saved the most painful stories till last.

     Alaadeen passed on August 15th and I buried his body on August 17th. On August 18th, I began to organize the tapes. I transcribed all interviews that I had been collecting for 24 years. Some were radio interviews, some television, some panel presentations, some part of educational clinics, and I included his recorded stories during his illness. I wasn’t able to use a software voice recognition program to help with transcribing because I no longer had Alaadeen to give a sample recording of his voice. So I typed and paused the tapes; typed and paused; typed and paused. Then I took all the like-minded stories and put them together. A tape would have one statement about a particular event, and another tape would have a few more statements about it, and anther interview would have a few more memories about it. Then I put them all together in chronological order and in chapter format. I thought about cleaning up some of the four-letter words but decided against it. I kept everything in Alaadeen’s words; in his narrative. 

     The result is the book that Alaadeen wanted to write; “Dysfunctional / life journeys of a second generation jazz musician.” It was my idea to add the subtitle. I just couldn’t let it stand alone as “Dysfunctional”.

To buy paperback copy of “Dysfunctional” go here: http://www.alaadeen.com/books-manuals.html

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