Exclusive: Rare Music from EPCOT’s Unbuilt Africa Pavilion

On the walkway between China and Germany in EPCOT’s World Showcase is the Refreshment Outpost. As far back as I can remember, this area’s overarching motif – from the architecture, to the merchandise, and sometimes even the food – has been that of sub-Saharan Africa.

And that makes sense because this area of World Showcase is where Disney intended for decades to be the location of EPCOT’s Africa pavilion. That pavilion was going to celebrate the history, culture, and people of Africa through movies, dance, and music.

The Africa pavilion never got built. And with an Africa section in Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park, it’s hard to imagine it happening any time soon. So we’ll probably never know how the finished pavilion would’ve looked.

But we can learn a little bit more about how EPCOT’s Africa pavilion would’ve sounded. That’s because I found the original sheet music, by Disney composer Buddy Baker, and had it made into songs. Samples of that music are below.

A Brief History of EPCOT’s Equatorial Africa Pavilion

EPCOT fans know that Disney had always planned to include Africa in EPCOT’s World Showcase because Disney said so in its book Walt Disney’s EPCOT Center: Creating the New World of Tomorrow, written by Richard R. Beard and published in 1982, the year that EPCOT opened.

This is a remarkable book, and if you’re a fan of theme parks, it’ll make your heart flutter. The concept art alone is worth the price. For example, here on page 14 is a sepia-toned side view of an EPCOT map, with labels for the major pavilions that were going to be built.

And the really interesting thing in this image is that everything you see here with a label was actually built – except one. Let’s go through it and see what that was, eh?

At the bottom of the map is the iconic Spaceship Earth, here at the front of the park, and dedicated to the history of human communication. We got that, and it’s still here today. On the left is World of Motion, telling the history of transportation. We got that too, although it’s gone through a lot of changes. On the right is The Land pavilion, entertaining and educating us about man’s relationship with nature. That also got built, and you can still see a lot of the original story and ideas today.

At the top of the map is World Showcase, a sort of permanent World’s Fair, where different countries highlight their people, culture, and industry, through rides, films, and exhibits. Ten countries are labeled here.

EPCOT’s World Showcase Countries That Got Built

We got 9 of them – Mexico, China, Germany, Italy, the United States, Japan, France, the United Kingdom, and Canada. And later we got two more countries: Morocco in 1982 and Norway in 1988. And all of them still exist today. But as we said, the only thing on this map that has a label and that wasn’t built was this – the Africa pavilion, here between China and Germany, and it would’ve been built on the exact spot of land where the Refreshment Outpost is now.

And Disney really tried to build Africa. In fact, later in the book – on pages 116 through 119 you’ll find an overview of what the Africa pavilion might have looked like. And if you do a quick search on the internet you’ll find a couple more concept art sketches too.

Disney Composer “Buddy” Baker Wrote EPCOT’s Africa Pavilion Music

Norman “Buddy” Baker was a music composer for Disney for five decades, and Buddy wrote many of the classic Disney music songs for Disney’s theme parks, including EPCOT’s Spaceship Earth, The Land, Universe of Energy, and lots more.

Buddy started writing music for Disney in 1954. His last attraction score was for Sindbad’s Seven Voyages at Tokyo DisneySea, which opened in 2001. Buddy’s wife Charlotte donated his papers to the Fales Library at New York University, creating the Norman “Buddy” Baker Collection, after Buddy died in 2002.

I’ve visited the archives a lot. Part of the fun is seeing Buddy’s hand-written notes for theme park songs that we’ve all loved for years. And part of the fun is finding the occasional music that nobody’s ever heard, because the attraction he wrote it for never got built. 

Unreleased Disney Theme Park Audio for Rides That Never Got Built

I’ve found eight songs for unbuilt attractions so far:

• Two of them are for EPCOT’s Africa pavilion
• Another three songs are for Disneyland’s Enchanted Snow Palace, which was an early Disney take on the story that would be Frozen
• Two of the other songs appear to be from what looks like an early concept for Universe of Energy but with Jiminy Cricket as the host.

I haven’t been able to find anything about this idea outside of the archives, but the music’s in the right folder, the dates on it are right, and the music was never used elsewhere. The lyrics focus a lot on conservation, which would’ve made sense until Exxon became the Universe of Energy sponsor. There’s a detective novel in here somewhere, I just know it.

The last unreleased theme park sound I found included the original first verse for This Is America, Marc Davis’ early concept for what would be EPCOT’s World Showcase pavilion. The interesting thing about those lyrics is that they were left out of the recent two-volume book Marc Davis in His Own Words: Imagineering the Disney Theme Parks.

Buddy Baker’s Notes for EPCOT’s Africa Pavilion Soundtrack

The archives have Buddy’s notes about what instruments he wanted for the Africa pavilion tracks, and how he described those instruments. I’m not sure whether Buddy Baker was describing them to get familiar with them himself or to tell the people at Disney Studios what kinds of instruments to get. I say that because they’re not the typical instruments you’d see in a recording studio:

Left to right, Buddy’s drawn seven instruments: “Large Toms” from West Africa, a bata drum, a rhythm log, an African xylophone, then regular tympany drums, shakers, and “thumb” something.

Buddy also created notes – possibly for himself – on how these instruments are played:

Musicians Who Played on EPCOT’s Africa Pavilion Songs

To play these instruments for EPCOT’s Africa pavilion soundtrack, Buddy called in some of the biggest names in African music from Southern California. As far as I can tell, these folks were the “A-List” of this music at this time:

Kobla Ladzekpo is a Ghanaian drummer who moved to the US in the 1960s. Kobla served as Co-Director and Conductor of Cal Arts’ African Music and Dance Ensemble and was Assistant Professor of African dance and music at UCLA.

Alfred Ladzekpo is a retired violinist and Ghanaian drummer who also co-directed Cal Arts’ African Music and Dance program, as well as at Columbia University. Alfred later toured the world giving lectures and recitals on African music and dance.

Agbi Ladzekpo is Kobla’s nephew and also a Ghanian drummer, with several recordings to his credit.

Leonice Shinneman is a world-renowned percussionist specializing in Indian and African music. He’s collaborated many times with the Ladzekpos on Ghanaian recordings. And you can hear him on tracks with everyone from Kiss to Jennifer Lopez.

I can’t find much on Jim Snodgrass other than he was a percussionist who later graduated from CalArts. Here’s a 1980 photo of Jim with Leonice at Cal Arts. I love the quote about playing Frank Zappa at music competitions where everyone else is playing Bach and Handel. And I can’t find anything on Chris Armstrong or Alan Golansky. Let me know in the comments if you have information on them.

It looks like Buddy added one more musician to that list, who Buddy referred to as “Emil.” I think this is Emil Richards, a noted musician in Southern California around that time. Emil also had a collection of exotic percussion instruments, and would likely have been familiar with what Buddy was trying to use. 

Fun Fact: Among Emil Richards many credits are his work on Disney’s Coco soundtrack and Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On. 

It’s a mark of true professionalism that Buddy took the time to research and use the correct instruments for EPCOT’s Africa pavilion soundtrack. And it’s impressive that Buddy went out to find experts in the musical styles he wanted.

The Africa Pavilion Recording Sessions

I don’t know if or when the Africa pavilion music was ever recorded. I can’t find a date reference in any of Buddy Baker’s papers. And this internal Disney memo on the status of EPCOT’s soundtracks, from February 9, 1982, doesn’t have dates listed for Africa’s audio:

The note “ALL PHASE 2” next to Africa’s tracks is almost certainly a reference to Disney moving the opening of Africa’s pavilion from EPCOT’s opening in 1982 to a later “Phase 2” that never happened.

The other bit of information we can get from this memo is that the Africa pavilion needed three hours of background music. Those were to be four, 45-minute soundtracks for the pavilion’s exterior, the stores, the pre-show, and the main show.

Buddy’s archives contain his notes on many of these other pavilion soundtracks too.

Buddy Baker’s Sheet Music for EPCOT’s Africa Pavilion

Buddy Baker’s archives contain two songs for EPCOT’s Africa pavilion. Since we know the Africa pavilion needed four, 45-minute loops, these two songs almost certainly existed to give Imagineers some sense of how the music was going to sound. They’re test tracks, if you will. 

The first song is titled “Africa Mono Trk Bar Sheet”. It’s a three-page percussion track, and Buddy’s notes indicate the musical instruments to be played. Note the phrase “(Emil Enter / Add Drums)” in the lower right corner. As I noted earlier, I think this is the reference to Emil Richards.

An alternate version of this track exists in the Buddy Baker Archives. The main difference between the two versions is the addition of lyrics on page three.

Both versions seem to run about 4 minutes and 5 seconds (4:05) when recorded.

I had the full track recorded and produced in stereo. Here’s the first 30 seconds from Track 1 of EPCOT’s Unbuilt Africa Pavilion:

 

The second song is a single untitled page of hand-written percussion that lasts about 90 seconds:

If Buddy Baker ever did a recording session for this music, this one sheet of paper seems like it’d be evidence that it happened. For one thing, it’s hand-written on a page from a music composition notebook, not on the standard sheet music paper that Disney’s other tracks use.

Also, Buddy’s got a note on the right-hand side that reads “then all bells” and encircled. That’s the kind of note that might be done in a recording studio after you’ve talked to the musicians and told them how you want them to sound. That is, there’s no need to write down anything more because you’ve just told them two minutes ago what you want to hear five minutes from now.

Here’s a sample of Track Two from EPCOT’s Africa Pavilion:

 

That brings me to one of the most gratifying things about going through the Buddy Baker archives – seeing an absolute professional at work, in his own writing. I say all the time that professionals – in any field – are unimaginably more skilled in what they do than you or me doing the same thing. 

Reading through Buddy’s notes to himself and other musicians, you can feel the sense of absolute mastery he had for this kind of music. Disney’s theme parks, and especially EPCOT, are so much better because of Buddy Baker’s music.

More Stories About EPCOT’s Unbuilt Africa Pavilion

If you’d like to learn more about EPCOT’s unbuilt Africa pavilion, my friend Jim Hill and I recorded a set of videos with Disney Imagineer Jim Shull – who actually saw Africa’s feature film for EPCOT! – on the entire history of the pavilion. It uses archival material from the Buddy Baker archive as well as the Alex Haley archives. Here’s the link to Jim’s Patreon channel:

Disney’s Unbuilt Africa Pavilion: The Lost Chapter of EPCOT (video) / (audio)

Africa Rediscovered: The Lost Film from EPCOT’s Africa Pavilion (video) / (audio)

A Patreon-exclusive Disney Dish episode on the Africa Pavilion is here.

Let me know in the comments if you enjoyed this look at unreleased Disney theme park audio. I’m happy to write more about the fabulous songs in the Buddy Baker archives.