Woodstock alum who played with Jimi Hendrix teams up with local band in Lebanon

Clockwise from top left, Juma Sultan playing the congas alongside Jimi Hendrix during Woodstock, practicing with the Max Boras band and hanging out with Rochester Voice editor Harrison Thorp before last night's show. (YouTube screenshop, courtesy photos)

LEBANON, Maine - Juma Sultan, who played with Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock in 1969, was in Lebanon, Maine, on Saturday to play with members of the Max Boras band.
Sultan wrote and recorded with Jimi Hendrix from 1968 until the guitarist's death. His work appears on numerous Hendrix recordings that were released posthumously.
Prior to his performance at Charleez Hill music venue on Saturday, Sultan told The Rochester Voice he'd been working with members of the Max Boras band for about three years after first meeting them five years ago at a New Jersey concert venue where he was playing.
"We've been working on a sound and a group for three years," Sultan said. "But tonight will be our first time ever playing out."
Sultan told The Voice he still vividly recalls Woodstock, especially the rain that interrupted the three-day rock fest and how almost all the groups were delayed by eight hours.
"It was crazy," he said. "Somehow Richie Havens ended up starting the show."
Sultan also recalled Melanie's performance.
"She was such a sweetheart," he said. "A couple of years ago I was with her in Jacksonville, North Carolina, where all the former Woodstock performers gathered for a reunion. She couldn't call it Woodstock so she called it "Westock."
Sultan's primary percussion instruments are the congas and djembe, a drum native to West Africa.
In addition to serving as an interview subject on countless books and documentaries on the life of Jimi Hendrix, Sultan is the subject of an e-book by Stephen D. Farina, published by Wesleyan University Press, titled "Reel History: The Lost Archive of Juma Sultan and the Aboriginal Music Society," which is an imaginative, multimedia work detailing the story of the Aboriginal Music Society and how Sultan's extensive jazz recordings came to be archived at Clarkson University.

Sultan also joined Vince Martell, Spanky and Our Gang and and Bleu Ocean at B.B. King's Blues Club in August 2010, for the encore of "California Dreamin.".

To watch a video about the Max Boras band and Juma Sultan click here.