In the 1950s, Chief Bey performed in an international tour of
Porgy and Bess along with his wife Louise Hawthorne, starring
Leontyne Price and
Cab Calloway. He also began a busy recording career, performing with flautist
Herbie Mann's
At the Village Gate (1961),
Art Blakey's
The African Beat (1962),
Ahmed Abdul-Malik's
Sounds of Africa (New Jazz, 1961), as well as albums by
Harry Belafonte,
Miriam Makeba, Miriam Greaves and
Pharoah Sanders, among others. He took his stage name after joining the
Moorish Science Temple of America, a Muslim sect whose practitioners often add the suffix "Bey" to their names. Then he taught the
shékéré, a West African gourd percussion instrument, at the Griot Institute at Intermediate School 246 in Brooklyn. He performed on
Baba Olatunji albums as a vocalist and played African drums and Percussion, Agbé/large Shékéré, Agogo/Bells. As a drum maker, he invented the No Whole Tension Technique of roping skin onto drums. He worked with
Count Basie,
Duke Ellington,
Nina Simone,
Geoffrey Holder,
Randy Weston,
Reggie Workman, Sonny Morgan,
Mongo Santamaria,
Eddie Palmieri,
John Coltrane. ==Personal life and death==