Warren Tartaglia
| Warren Tartaglia | |
|---|---|
| Born |
March 13, 1944 Mt. Vernon, New York, United States |
| Died | November 1965 |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, poet |
| Instruments | Alto saxophone |
Warren Tartaglia (aka Walid al-Taha) (March 13, 1944 - November 1965) was a jazz musician, poet and one of the six founders of the Moorish Orthodox Church of America.
He was born March 13, 1944 as Warren Tartaglia in Mt. Vernon, New York. His maternal grandfather, Harry Frank, was the first son of a rabbi and his maternal grandmother was Ida Frank. Ida and Harry Frank were the parents of Ruth. Ruth married Warren’s father Vincent Tartaglia, and became Ruth Frank Tartaglia. She almost died from post-partum bleeding at his birth and was in the hospital for a month, too sick to care for him, while Warren was in an incubator, for almost a month.
Tartaglia graduated from Mt. Vernon’s A.B. Davis High School where he was friends with Mike Maggid Bey and other future MOC founders. His friend Mike Maggid was the official photographer for the Noble Order of Moorish Sufis.
When he enrolled at N.Y.U. (Washington Square), Tartaglia ran a temple there and became the head of Orissa Province (New York State). His friend G.M. Foster (Ghulam El Fatah) would head Temple #14 in Newark, N.J., and be Governor of Behar Province (New Jersey). Tartaglia was also responsible for the chartering of Noble Order Temples 7, 22, and 23. Later, in 1965, some initiates of those temples would start the Moorish Orthodox Church at NYC’s Columbia University.
The Sultan Rafi Sharif Bey, brought him into the Noble Order of Moorish Sufis in Baltimore in 1959 after being introduced by a mutual friend and Noble Order member — his cousin’s friend Jane Raquel Jacobs (Yacoubi El). Tartaglia was 15 or 16 at this point and learned about Hassan Sabah and the Hashshasheen Ismaili Dervish Order. Like the Bey and Bey's father, Tartaglia was a jazz musician and shared interests in worker rights.
Tartaglia was an alto saxophone player, a poet, and an artist. He played with musicians such as Yusuf Lateef, Art Blakey, Jim Green, Freddie Mitchell, and Pony Poindexter. Art Blakey’s son and his daughter-in-law would join the Noble Order Moors.
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