tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/south-african-jazz-40702/articles
South African jazz – The Conversation
2022-08-18T14:11:56Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/188762
2022-08-18T14:11:56Z
2022-08-18T14:11:56Z
South African reedman Linda Sikhakhane’s new album is a revelation
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479662/original/file-20220817-20-7mwj30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail from the cover of Isambulo by saxophonist and composer Linda Sikhakhane.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tseliso Monaheng/Linda Sikhakhane</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>People were listening to (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Duke-Ellington">Duke Ellington</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Count-Basie">Count Basie</a>) at home because we felt this is our music and these are our black heroes. The attraction … was that the rhythms were more like our mbaqanga.</p>
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<p>So <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/ramakgobotla-john-mekoa-1945#:%7E:text=Ramakgobotla%20John%20Mekoa%20was%20born,his%20professed%20dream%20was%20concerned">said</a> the late South African jazz trumpeter Johnny Mekoa. He was describing how, in his 1950s childhood, Black South African jazz fans explicitly heard African roots (mbaqanga is a form of South African township jive) in the American jazz they played. </p>
<p>That sense of shared cultural history has persisted, from the country’s earliest dance bands (the <a href="http://electricjive.blogspot.com/2011/12/78-revolutions-per-minute-majuba-jazz.html">first</a> South African jazz record was cut in 1939) up to today. Successive waves of South African jazz innovators have sought fresh ways to bring the sound back home, drawing on diverse sonic, lyrical and spiritual roots.</p>
<p>Right now, the focus of the new jazz generation in the country is on the spiritual. Pianist <a href="https://theconversation.com/spirit-of-ntu-south-african-piano-maestro-nduduzo-makhathini-on-his-10th-album-183950">Nduduzo Makhathini’s</a> 2022 release, <a href="https://store.bluenote.com/products/nduduzo-makhathini-in-the-spirit-of-ntu">In the Spirit of Ntu</a>, <a href="https://www.bluenote.com/spotlight/nduduzo-makhathini-in-the-spirit-of-ntu/">invokes</a> “an ancient African philosophy … where our wholeness resides”. The title of the 2021 <a href="https://mg.co.za/friday/2021-03-09-album-review-indaba-is-a-rite-of-remembrance/">compilation</a> of new South African jazz, <a href="https://indaba-is.bandcamp.com/album/indaba-is">Indaba Is</a>, invoked the writings of philosopher and seer <a href="https://theconversation.com/obituary-south-africas-towering-healer-prophet-and-artist-credo-mutwa-134986">Credo Mutwa</a>. It is in that lineage that reedman <a href="https://lindasikhakhane.com">Linda Sikhakhane</a>’s third album, <a href="https://lindasikhakhane.bandcamp.com/">Isambulo</a> (Revelation) firmly belongs.</p>
<h2>Who is Linda Sikhakhane?</h2>
<p>Saxophonist and composer Sikhakhane began his music education in his Durban community in KwaZulu-Natal province, in school as a clarinettist, then at trumpeter Brian Thusi’s <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/siyakhula-music-center/?originalSubdomain=za">Siyakhula Music Centre</a>. By the end of high school he knew he wanted to pursue university music studies, but his teacher knew there was no jazz clarinet instructor at UKZN (the University of Kwazulu-Natal) and advised that he pick up the saxophone as a second instrument. “After a few days of translating all that I knew on the clarinet, my love for the saxophone got deeper in such a way that it became my first instrument,” he says. I interviewed Sikhakhane for this article, part of my <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Soweto_Blues.html?id=_fwkCIKoTpgC&redir_esc=y">ongoing research</a> on South African jazz.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479649/original/file-20220817-25-t57qqe.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An album cover with a photo of a man in traditional attire, his eyes closed and his hands raised as if in praise or prayer." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479649/original/file-20220817-25-t57qqe.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479649/original/file-20220817-25-t57qqe.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479649/original/file-20220817-25-t57qqe.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479649/original/file-20220817-25-t57qqe.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479649/original/file-20220817-25-t57qqe.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479649/original/file-20220817-25-t57qqe.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479649/original/file-20220817-25-t57qqe.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Isambulo/Linda Sikhakhane</span></span>
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<p>During his university studies he released his debut album <a href="https://lindasikhakhane.bandcamp.com/album/two-sides-one-mirror">Two Sides, One Mirror</a> and won an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58dJN1SB-Eo">overseas scholarship</a>, gaining his Bachelor of Music degree at the New School in New York. His second album, <a href="https://lindasikhakhane.bandcamp.com/album/an-open-dialogue-live-in-new-york">Open Dialogue</a>, reflected material from his graduation recital. </p>
<p>The disruptions of COVID-19 sent Sikhakhane home, where he again worked with Makhathini, and he is now studying further at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo.</p>
<h2>Zulu spirituality</h2>
<p>Isambulo was recorded during Sikhakhane’s six-week residency at the <a href="https://www.birdseye.ch">Birds Eye Jazz Club</a> in Basel, working with European and African co-players. They are trumpeter Matthias Spillmann, pianist Lucca Fries, bassist Fabien Iannone, drummer Jonas Ruther, vocalists Anna Widauer and Paras (Dlamini), and percussionist El Hadji Ngari Ndong. Says Sikhakhane:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Everyone brought originality and entered the space with so much humility – the qualities that must be central to improvisation. They understood the vision.</p>
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<p>That vision focuses on Zulu spirituality, the role of music in ceremonial rites, and the legacy of ancestors, personal and musical. The shared heritage of the music in both jazz and his community “made jazz a safe space” for him from the start. Working with Makhathini, for instance in the ensemble on his album <a href="https://nduduzomakhathini1.bandcamp.com/album/listening-to-the-ground-2">Listening to the Ground</a>, helped him reflect on and appreciate his upbringing – “which hinged on the notion of music as ritual”.</p>
<p>Ritual seeks new visions as well as looking back to heritage, “a process of constant discovery”. Thus the title track is the most abstract, its improvisation reaching forward into the unknown. It is followed by uNongoma, the album’s most explicit allusion to traditional forms, as singer Paras employs vocalese across jazz horns to allude to Sikhakhane’s place of origin (Nongoma in KwaZulu-Natal), and yearn for a parent. “Paras wrote those lyrics,” says Sikhakhane, “sonically projecting from that place, imagining its histories, landscape and cultural outlook.”</p>
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<p>Other of the album’s eight tracks reflect the range of Sikhakhane’s current composing. A Day Passed is a quirky, laid-back ode to procrastination. Inner Freedom revisits a melody from his 2017 debut, more richly textured, with Sikhakhane playing soprano and a more prominent role for Fries’s piano; still, like the original, grounded in Ngari Ndong’s compelling percussion. </p>
<p>Ikhandlela alludes to the light that flickers in darkness, with a gentle bass solo from Iannone. Gog'uldah, in tribute to his grandmother, is a moving, fractured, slow waltz theme with the saxophonist voicing his praises to his ancestor over a saxophone that spirals out into abstraction and finally silence.</p>
<h2>The journey</h2>
<p>Despite the formal academic requirements that shaped the original recital material on Open Dialogue, and the greater freedom of Isambulo, Sikhakhane says he still feels “strong continuity” between the two albums. The releases are, for him, “the continuation of an unending journey”. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/spirit-of-ntu-south-african-piano-maestro-nduduzo-makhathini-on-his-10th-album-183950">Spirit of Ntu: South African piano maestro Nduduzo Makhathini on his 10th album</a>
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<p>He has <a href="https://www.alljazzradio.co.za/2022/07/14/saxophonist-linda-sikhakhane-thinking-education-and-spirituality-in-music/">described</a> in an interview with Alljazzradio how his learning journey in music has always been motivated by a desire to shift from an “international” saxophone voice to one more radically shaped by South African spaces and sources. In that journey, music has been both a tool for discovery and a tool “to speak my language”.</p>
<p>Isambulo concludes with a tribute to those sources, Hymn for the Majors. Sikhakhane credits a long roll-call of names, from family members to early teachers such as Thusi, and musicians to whom he listens and with whom he has worked. “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Coltrane">(John) Coltrane</a>, <a href="https://abdullahibrahim.co.za/biography/">(Abdullah) Ibrahim</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/remembering-zim-ngqawana-10-years-on-a-singular-force-in-south-african-music-160570">(Zim) Ngqawana</a> and Makhathini are kindred spirits and a lineage of masters that I follow.” He adds:</p>
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<p>Isambulo speaks about constant discovery and through following any master you’re likely to find revelation: sound is inspired by the journey.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188762/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Zulu spirituality and the legacy of the ancestors, personal and musical, are the concerns of the saxophonist and composer.
Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/186349
2022-07-07T15:08:55Z
2022-07-07T15:08:55Z
Spiritual traditions fuel South African jazz artist Tumi Mogorosi’s new album
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472953/original/file-20220707-22-hghrxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail from the album cover of Group Theory: Black Music featuring a photograph by Andrew Tshabangu.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mushroom Half Hour and New Soil Music</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>Blues … Black … Darker than grey/ Creation sounds Gold Reef Mine rockfall crush-sounds/ Guitar-string gun-spit tear flesh/ Black sonic science/ Darkest Acoustics … (from Where Are The Keys? on Group Theory: Black Music)</p>
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<p>South African poet <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lesego-rampolokeng">Lesego Rampolokeng</a> often writes about Black music in his poems. His collaborations with musicians on record are rarer but always remarkable. There was the casette-only 1994 African Axemen collaboration with Zimbabwean <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/louis-mhlanga-mn0000275221/biography">Louis Mhlanga</a> and a stellar crew of other pan-African guitarists. And his <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/0Mz62X4VpTZ1rSKzwxVGqf">Tears for Marikana</a> on Salim Washington’s album, Sankofa. And now the track Where Are the Keys? on South African drummer and composer Tumi Mogorosi’s fourth outing: <a href="https://tumimogorosi.bandcamp.com/album/group-theory-black-music">Group Theory: Black Music</a>.</p>
<p>What makes the collaboration so satisfying is the shared skill of both Rampolokeng and Mogorosi in signifying. Not the “signification” of semiotics, but the righteous, subversive signifying perfected by the Black churches and theorised by US literary critic <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-Louis-Gates-Jr">Henry Louis Gates Jr</a>. For him <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Signifying-Monkey-Towards-a-Theory-of-Afro-American-Literary-Criticism">signifying</a> is “the practice of representing an idea indirectly, through a commentary that is often humourous, boastful, insulting, or provocative”. Communities repurpose ideas; poets like Rampolokeng do it via wordplay; jazz musicians, every time they improvise.</p>
<p>So when Black South African jazz players, <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Soweto_Blues.html?id=_fwkCIKoTpgC&redir_esc=y">decades ago</a>, heard and admired American jazz on record or at the movies, they not only copied the styles and approaches. They also employed many ways to “make it our own”. When <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/10.10520/EJC-550c6cb82">Peter Rezant</a>’s Merry Blackbirds recorded the international standard Heatwave in 1939, for example, they played the tune straight – but the words, in an African language, became a praise song for the band’s national prowess.</p>
<h2>Tumi Mogorosi</h2>
<p>Musician, activist and scholar <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2013-11-06-talking-drums/">Mogorosi</a> started his musical career as a chorister in church. So, it’s not surprising that part of his signifying has often been through working with voices. From singing, he moved to guitar and later drums. At 18, he studied music at the Tshwane University of Technology. He now has a master’s degree in fine arts and is registered on a doctoral programme. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472954/original/file-20220707-22-bq3hdz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472954/original/file-20220707-22-bq3hdz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472954/original/file-20220707-22-bq3hdz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472954/original/file-20220707-22-bq3hdz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472954/original/file-20220707-22-bq3hdz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472954/original/file-20220707-22-bq3hdz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472954/original/file-20220707-22-bq3hdz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472954/original/file-20220707-22-bq3hdz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Tumi Mogorosi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andile Buka courtesy Mushroom Half Hour/New Soil Music</span></span>
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<p>Along the way he produced his 2014 debut album, <a href="https://tumimogorosi.bandcamp.com/album/project-elo">Project ELO</a> (from a sextet with four accompanying voices). In 2017 he was part of the Swiss-based <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7MFRKYxvKM">Sanctum Sanctorium</a> with its allusion to sacred rites. He worked internationally with, among others, UK saxophonist <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KylWUp8tcug">Shabaka Hutchings</a>. </p>
<p>Those international collaborations set the scene for the joint release of the new album between South African label Mushroom Half Hour and UK imprint New Soil. In 2020, in a trio called Wretched with vocalist <a href="https://gabimotuba.com/gabisile-motuba-bio/">Gabisile Motuba</a> and guitarist <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2016-09-09-rising-star-turned-on-by-the-fury-of-sound/">Andrei van Wyk</a> he improvised and experimented with vocals and noise.</p>
<h2>The album</h2>
<p>Group Theory: Black Music has echoes of all those, but is a sonically distinct new project. The album’s <a href="https://tumimogorosi.bandcamp.com/album/group-theory-black-music">notes</a> refer to two musical sources, from South African and American jazz traditions. The rich South African vocal tradition of jazz composers like Todd Matshikiza and Victor Ntoni, and the work with voices of radical American jazzmen like Max Roach, Billy Harper and Andrew Hill.</p>
<p>Mogorosi <a href="https://tumimogorosi.bandcamp.com/album/group-theory-black-music">says</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>(Black voices in concert have) this idea of mass, of a group of people gathering, which has a political implication. And the operatic voice has both a presence and a capacity to scream, a capacity for affect. The instrumental group can sustain the intensity of that affect, and the chorus can go beyond improvisation, towards communal melodies that everyone can be a part of.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, alongside the jazz quintet (Mogorosi, reedman Mthunzi Mvubu, trumpeter Tumi Pheko, guitarist Reza Khota and bassist Dalisu Ndlazi) the tracks employ a nine-voice chorus, predominantly singing in unison to shape the communal voice. There are also two guest vocalists, Motuba and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/siyabonga-mthembu-187448229/?trk=public_profile_browsemap&originalSubdomain=za">Siyabonga Mthembu</a>, each providing a very different interpretation of the traditional Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.</p>
<p>That choice of song (the only one not composed by Mogorosi) makes explicit the community and spiritual traditions shared by Africa and the Black diaspora. Mthembu’s take on it is inspiring, heartfelt and soul-infused: the massed voices echoing the historic style of the <a href="https://www.discogs.com/artist/1760700-Howard-Roberts-Chorale">Howard Roberts Chorale</a>. Motuba’s voice is more subversive: underlined by Khota’s guitar improvisation, she fractures lyric and phrasing deliberately to build tension with the choir. </p>
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<p>The very distinctive instrumental voices, and the presence of veteran piano guest <a href="https://www.inyourpocket.com/johannesburg/andile-yenana-sextet-album-launch_10048e">Andile Yenana</a>, also interrogate conventional roles in an ensemble. Who is a leader and who a composer when each sonic element cedes and creates space for the ideas of others. Far less smooth is the sound of the chorus on Thaba Bosiu, the track featuring Yenana, where fragmented textures and that capacity to “scream” that Mogorosi notes come to the fore over urgent, imaginative improvisation from drums, guitar, piano and bass. The track is faded out (it’s a long album), but that’s the one I wanted more of.</p>
<h2>The theory</h2>
<p>The theoretical underpinnings of the album are many. The title Group Theory: Black Music foregrounds three: association, identity and closure. But there is nothing dry and theoretical about the sound. It’s warm, human and at points more tuneful than some of Mogorosi’s previous work. </p>
<p>The drummer <a href="https://tumimogorosi.bandcamp.com/album/group-theory-black-music">quotes</a> jazz historian and critic <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/amiri-baraka">Amiri Baraka’s</a> proposition about the “New Black Music” of another era – “Find the self, then kill it” – to point to the collective and global struggle to generate new identities, ideas and sounds from those who were previously hemmed in.</p>
<p>The closing track, Where Are the Keys? with the prominent presence of veterans Yenana and Rampolokeng, and the poet’s encyclopedic stringing together of all the music’s sonic, intellectual and revolutionary influences, ties everything together. </p>
<p>Reading the poetry (which is supplied) is a rich source of perspectives for all kinds of thinking beyond the edges of a record. The situation of war, poverty but also creativity into which the music is published means that, right now, closure isn’t an answer; it’s a question too:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Slash that … vinyl scratch/ The pain slides through the gash/ Tripping off morning horns/ Past the dawning…</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186349/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Group Theory: Black Music is the name of the new album from the composer, drummer and scholar. On it jazz meets political theory.
Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/184493
2022-06-07T15:32:43Z
2022-06-07T15:32:43Z
Legendary Mike Mzileni captured South Africa’s history and also its musical stars
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467410/original/file-20220607-14-d2ddkd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mike Mzileni at home in 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot City Press/News24 Video</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/sophie-thoko-mgcina-1938">Sophie Mgcina</a>, composer, educationist and performer, gazes out from the page, uncompromising and direct. She’s just swung around from the piano to face us; behind her, a score sits open. It’s 1993, and she’s been <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/A_Common_Hunger_to_Sing.html?id=PisMAAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">telling</a> journalist <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/voices/zuluboy-zb-arthur-molefe-a-writer-who-made-us-proud-20190611">Z.B. Molefe</a>, “I had to work like 10 black women to get where I am today.” But if she hadn’t said it, photographer Mike Ndumiso Mzileni’s accompanying image would have stated it loud and clear.</p>
<p>Respected elder statesman of press photographers Mzileni has <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/voices/veteran-photographer-mike-mzileni-died-with-no-regrets-20220602">died</a> at the age of 80, after a series of debilitating ailments, but not before an <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/trending/veteran-lensman-mike-mzileni-says-cameras-are-more-powerful-than-guns-at-new-exhibition-launch-20211213">exhibition</a> in January in Johannesburg had finally brought together both facets of his long career: news photography that captured history, and music photography where artists had the visual space to be who they really were.</p>
<h2>Photojournalism</h2>
<p>Mzileni was a photojournalist <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/trending/veteran-lensman-mike-mzileni-says-cameras-are-more-powerful-than-guns-at-new-exhibition-launch-20211213">described</a> by one reporter as “one of the last of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/journalism-of-drums-heyday-remains-cause-for-celebration-70-years-later-142668">Drum-era</a> soldiers credited as black journalism’s pathfinders”. He began working in the 1970s, during the turbulence of South Africa’s <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> years. He documented black life under white minority rule, one of the photographers who <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVPCIgLWowo&t=56s">captured</a> the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">Soweto Uprising</a> of 1976. </p>
<p>Ndumiso Mzileni was born in Stutterheim in the Eastern Cape on 16 January 1942. His work featured in publications including The World, Drum, the Rand Daily Mail and the Sunday Times. His longest stint was at City Press, which he joined on its establishment in 1982, rising to become chief photographer by his retirement in 2000.</p>
<p>Tributes were not slow to pour in: just about every young photographer who encountered him had memories of his kindness and support for their own careers, of the high newsroom standards he set and of the steadfast Africanist politics that informed his lens. “A camera is more powerful than an AK47,” he <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/trending/veteran-lensman-mike-mzileni-says-cameras-are-more-powerful-than-guns-at-new-exhibition-launch-20211213">admonished</a>; be responsible in how you employ it. </p>
<h2>The music photos</h2>
<p>For jazz fans, it is Mzileni’s images of music-making and musicians, collected in two books, <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/A_Common_Hunger_to_Sing.html?id=PisMAAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">A Common Hunger to Sing</a> (the source of that Mgcina image) and <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/All_that_Jazz.html?id=qOIBuAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">All That Jazz</a>, which bring home most powerfully the skill and insight we have lost. Alongside his vibrant performance images, Mzileni’s jazz portraits in particular established a standard and an approach that inspired and influenced younger counterparts such as <a href="https://www.instagram.com/siphiwemhlambi/?hl=en">Siphiwe Mhlambi</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467417/original/file-20220607-20-et4u88.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover with a woman singing passionately into a microphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467417/original/file-20220607-20-et4u88.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467417/original/file-20220607-20-et4u88.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467417/original/file-20220607-20-et4u88.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467417/original/file-20220607-20-et4u88.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467417/original/file-20220607-20-et4u88.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467417/original/file-20220607-20-et4u88.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467417/original/file-20220607-20-et4u88.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kwela Books</span></span>
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<p>Philosopher Susan Sontag <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312420093/onphotography">asserted</a>, “The painter constructs, the photographer discloses.” In other words, the truth of a photographic subject is there already; the photographer’s art is finding it and expressing it as an image so viewers can find it too. Photographers make, not simply find and “take” photographs. Their choices about a subject’s setting and pose, and how a shot is framed and lit, can reveal or obscure that subject’s truth, and sometimes even (accidentally or deliberately) convey something else entirely.</p>
<p>The worst of music photography – today’s unskilled point and shoot fan shots, which editors too often use instead of employing specialist, skilled photographers – doesn’t tell us much except what an artist was wearing, how wide their mouth gaped behind a mic or how dazzling the stage lights were.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Mzileni interviewed about the 1976 uprising in Soweto.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But that was not Mzileni’s enterprise. The discipline of black and white photography like his takes away the easy dazzle of stage lights and sequined costumes that a full-colour image can ride on. It makes intelligent choices about framing and lighting even more crucial. </p>
<h2>Women of jazz</h2>
<p>We see clearly how powerful those choices can be in the portraits of female artists Mzileni created for A Common Hunger to Sing.</p>
<p>There’s a democracy between the artist in front of the camera and the one behind it in how Mzileni presents these women. Some have chosen to wear African finery (<a href="https://www.discogs.com/artist/320023-Mara-Louw">Mara Louw</a>). Some, such as veteran <a href="https://samap.ukzn.ac.za/audio-people/snowy-radebe">Snowy Radebe</a>, sit in their best chair, in their best jacket and neat beret: a respected matriarch of family and church. Others, like Mgcina, <a href="https://www.discogs.com/artist/5078719-Lynette-Leeuw">Lynette Leeuw</a>, <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/peki-emelia-%E2%80%9Cnothembi%E2%80%9D-mkhwebane-1953">Nothembi Mkhwebane</a> and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/sathima-bea-benjamin">Sathima Bea Benjamin</a>, present themselves in the context of their music. Mgcina has that piano; Leeuw cradles her saxophone; Mkhwebane proffers her guitar ahead of her; Benjamin fans out some of her albums. Some smile; some look thoughtful, challenging, solemn or sad.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Mzileni discussing the South African photography archive.</span></figcaption>
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<p>And Mzileni’s lens doesn’t treat any of this as incidental to zoom in for the big shiny grin that has become the cliche of photographing female singers. Every fold and print detail of Louw’s attire, for example, matters for that image, because her vocal identity is as a consummate stylist of song. The clearly-lit experience lines on the faces of stage veterans reinforce their authority and stature: the portrait of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/dorothy-masuka">Dorothy Masuku</a> is distilled down to the fierce intelligence of her expression, and the working hands that wrote her songs. </p>
<p>Mzileni was fond of chiaroscuro and used it well: light illuminates the joy of those who have told happy tales in Molefe’s interviews; shadow underlines the regrets and frustrations of others. The full-page portrait of each artist does not just complement the full-page interview it sits opposite; it underlines but also enriches each story. The shared authorial credit on the book’s cover is more than justified.</p>
<p>Another master photographer, the Frenchman <a href="https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/henri-cartier-bresson?all/all/all/all/0">Henri Cartier-Bresson</a>, declared: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is an illusion that photographs are made with the camera … they are made with the eye, heart and head.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>With Mike Mzileni’s passing, we have lost the eye, heart and head of a titan of South African music portraiture.</p>
<p><em>This article appeared in an <a href="https://sisgwenjazz.wordpress.com">earlier form</a> at the author’s web page.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184493/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
‘A camera is more powerful than an AK47,’ said the veteran photojournalist, who was also famous for his jazz photos.
Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/183950
2022-05-27T15:55:12Z
2022-05-27T15:55:12Z
Spirit of Ntu: South African piano maestro Nduduzo Makhathini on his 10th album
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465557/original/file-20220526-12-m7uh63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nduduzo Makhathini's new offering is called In the Spirit of Ntu.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Oupa Bopape/Gallo Images via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://www.bluenote.com/artist/nduduzo-makhathini/">Nduduzo Makhathini</a> is a prolific South African pianist, improviser, healer, educator, scholar and storyteller. He possesses a gift that enables him to articulate a distinct and rich identity and genealogy. His sound signifies a deep rootedness in his ethnic identity in the Zulu culture, and an <a href="https://newint.org/immersive/2019/04/03/what-does-internationalism-actually-mean">internationalism</a> embodying it. <a href="https://store.bluenote.com/products/nduduzo-makhathini-in-the-spirit-of-ntu">In the Spirit of Ntu</a> is his tenth offering, and his second release under premier US jazz label Blue Note Records and the newly founded <a href="https://jazz.fm/blue-note-africa-launches-to-promote-african-jazz-artists/">Blue Note Africa</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>The philosophy of Ntu (stemming from the philosophy of <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/the-meaning-of-ubuntu-43307">ubuntu</a>) speaks to the merging of the physical and spiritual and so, in conversation with Makhathini, I have sought to understand how he continues to bridge the artistic, the cultural and the spiritual through song and narrative. My point of departure for our conversation was something he had said in a previous interview:</em></p>
<blockquote>
<p>I want to try to get the piano to speak the language of my people, and by the language of my people I mean isiZulu … the melodic structures of the language … that filters into how my people sing … drawing parallels between the piano and some of the traditional music that we grew up listening to.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p><strong>Phuti Sepuru:</strong> How does In the Spirit of Ntu speak the language of your people?</p>
<p><strong>Nduduzo Makhathini:</strong> I’ve been struggling with this whole idea of what really counts as indigenous when everything has been diluted? Also, what counts as indigenous when so much has been taken away? Like the many years of erasure and the various moments of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-slavery-and-early-colonisation-south-africa">slave trade, settler coloniality</a>, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a>. Do we still really have something that is indigenous to a particular group of people? A sound that is not contaminated; a thought that is not contaminated? </p>
<p>So, that is how I arrived at Ntu. I borrow a particular sensibility from jazz music, but there are other histories that are pre the arrival of jazz that are useful for me to think about what counts as the sound of my people. Then I started thinking about separating between jazz and the jazziness. When I speak about jazz, it’s of course the transatlantic stories, but when I speak about the jazziness I’m speaking about syncopation, swing, improvisation. These are things that have always been there; they did not come with the arrival of jazz in South Africa in the 1930s.</p>
<p>I’m particularly attracted to (Rwandan poet and philosopher Alexis) <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alexis-Kagame">Kagame</a>’s thinking about it. He speaks about the four categories: umuntu, which contains the spirit aspect – divinities, the ancestors; kintu; hantu is about time and space; and kuntu is about aesthetics and beauty. Given these categories, I realised that for these sounds to make sense, we need to start creating homes for them. For me, <a href="https://www.space.com/16042-cosmology.html">cosmology</a> is a pursuit – where are these sounds enunciating from? What are these homes? What do they look like? The sound of my people is also about conflict. It’s also about disparity – not being able to touch in concrete ways, the things that are important to us. It’s also about collective memory, the diasporas. In South Africa, particularly, the exile and inxile discourse and how jazz has always been emerging out of this moment of displacement.</p>
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<p><strong>Phuti Sepuru:</strong> In what way did the 2021 Durban <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57996373">unrest and riots</a> serve as the ‘canvas’ for this work?</p>
<p><strong>Nduduzo Makhathini:</strong> I was meant to record in the US, and of course, I couldn’t get that organised. Then I asked Jaleel (Shaw), Nasheet Waits, and all these guys who were meant to be on the record if they were keen on coming to South Africa. Jaleel was like, ‘Bro, given these riots and burning, I don’t think so.’ So, these are the underpinning themes and events that were taking place and I started thinking that we always think about ‘76 (the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">Soweto uprising</a>) to the ‘80s (<a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/apartheid-early-1980s">apartheid violence</a>), about (South African pianist <a href="https://abdullahibrahim.co.za/biography/">Abdullah Ibrahim</a>’s track) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-irE1AEH8Qg">Mannenberg</a> and how it locates that moment, but we always think of it as a backdrop – a soundtrack.</p>
<p>This album is emerging out of these burning fires. We’re burning because the system has always been a minute away from collapsing. And now, with the (COVID-19) pandemic, even the suggestions of <a href="https://sacoronavirus.co.za/2020/04/08/social-distancing/">social distancing</a> – how do people exercise social distancing if you’ve pushed them to extreme dysfunctionality in the townships? You started to see that all the regulations are for a particular people that live in a particular category – a class – but it’s not speaking to the majority. I’m one of those people that is in the unrepresented majority. The system failed artists dismally. Then I said, “I am with the people that are tired. I am part of those people that are tired. I’m going to play these sounds from these burning fires.” That’s how this album came about.</p>
<p>This is what I am doing with this album – I’m going to burn inside until my ancestors show up because this needs to change. I think about fire in a symbolic way.</p>
<p><strong>Phuti Sepuru:</strong> When listening to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj-juqNdsfo">Amathongo</a> on the new album, I was struck by the dissonant melody, reminiscent of amahubo (Zulu indigenous music), coupled with a sporadic, conversational approach in the piano. This is rooted in a trance-like combination of the bass groove, falling on distinct moments, against a fixed drum pulse. There are also evocative vocal chants that speak to traditional healing rituals. Please share more on this composition.</p>
<p><strong>Nduduzo Makhathini:</strong> I come from that culture and my grandmother used to sing a lot of amahubo. That memory is with me always. In this album, I sing more than I’ve ever done in any album and that’s what people are loving as well.</p>
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<p>Many years ago, I discovered (the book) <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/indaba-my-children-african-tribal-history-legends-customs-and-religious-beliefs/9780862417581">Indaba, My Children</a> and ubaba (Credo) <a href="https://theconversation.com/obituary-south-africas-towering-healer-prophet-and-artist-credo-mutwa-134986">Mutwa</a> speaks about the word ‘ithongo’ (dreamscape). He says something interesting because within the word ‘ithongo’, there is the word ‘ubuthongo’, which means deep sleep. But for us, it’s being ‘one with the star gods’. I love that. And it speaks about ‘iphupho’ – a dream. He says ‘uk’phupha’ is to float. So, there’s a sense in which all these things, for me, make sense of a cosmology that always sees the ancestral paradigm as really a paradigm that we’re inside of – in and out. And of course, using ritual as a connector to exist between the two. That’s really what the song is doing. The resistance of the bass line, versus all these crazy dissonant sounds… it’s living in the two worlds. </p>
<p><strong>Phuti Sepuru:</strong> Track six is called Re-Amathambo and features Swiss singer-songwriter <a href="https://www.annawidauer.at">Anna Widauer</a>. This track connects to the original, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTr5a93n4fw">Amathambo</a> (bones), found on your 2017 album, <a href="https://www.discogs.com/release/15689053-Nduduzo-Makhathini-iKhambi">Ikhambi</a>. How did you approach the song?</p>
<p><strong>Nduduzo Makhathini:</strong> Re-Amathambo is ‘re’ – a reply, but also ‘re’ (we) in Sesotho. I’ve been interested in the Basotho cosmology.</p>
<p>When we were touring, I started telling Anna about this idea about my view to the piano as ritual technology or a space for divination. I was telling her about how I recorded that song Amathambo as a way of trying to divine the future and the things that will be happening. On the one hand there’s the idea of amathambo being in the physical realm while exploring something that’s intangible in another realm. That speaks about how as people in the universe we are constantly hearing and thinking about similar things, but from different contexts. </p>
<p>Anna seemed to have so much connection to this idea of revealing these things: what are these codes that help us enter a mode of revelation or a prophetic mode? It was a chant before: ‘Weh mathambo, oooh mathambo, hlanganani.’ The story was: there was a man that went to a healer and every time the healer threw the bones, they would go different ways, suggesting that his life was falling apart. The coming together of the bones that the healer was chanting would mean the coming together of his life. So, we brought in that story, and I wrote lyrics, and came out with what I think is a beautiful version of this song.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183950/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phuti Sepuru does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The jazz star says he wants his piano to speak in his isiZulu language, and that his music is born from spiritual concerns.
Phuti Sepuru, Lecturer in Jazz, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/182702
2022-05-12T14:06:45Z
2022-05-12T14:06:45Z
Jazz: South Africa’s Shane Cooper and his band Mabuta make borders irrelevant
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462251/original/file-20220510-20-k7vw2d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Shane Cooper (striped shirt) with his Mabuta band members. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Aidan Tobias courtesy Shane Cooper</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African jazz seems to be having another international moment. Recently, for example, the Blue Note jazz label launched a new imprint, <a href="https://www.bluenote.com/announcing-blue-note-africa/">Blue Note Africa</a> dedicated to the continent’s music. Its first release – and his second for the label – will be South African pianist <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/nduduzo-makhathini-mn0003068518/biography">Nduduzo Makhathini</a>’s <a href="https://www.bluenote.com/nduduzo-makhathini-returns-with-in-the-spirit-of-ntu/">In the Spirit of Ntu</a>. In the same month, <a href="https://2022.jazz.org">Jazz at Lincoln Centre</a> hosted a South African season. </p>
<p>Even the UK’s annual BBC Proms this year will dedicate a night to <a href="https://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/proms/bbc-proms-2022/prom-56-the-south-african-jazz-songbook/">The South African Songbook</a>, with trumpeter <a href="http://www.theorbit.co.za/marcus-wyatt/">Marcus Wyatt</a> conducting the international <a href="https://www.mo.nl/en/the-orchestra">Metropole Orkest</a> and the voices of South African vocalist <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/node/6283">Siyabonga Mthembu</a> and Zimbabwe-born UK singer/songwriter <a href="https://nataal.com/eska">ESKA</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, such exposure is not unprecedented. South African painter <a href="https://www.gerardsekotofoundation.com/artist-overview.htm">Gerard Sekoto</a> was playing jazz in Paris bars in the late 1940s. The international careers of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-legacy-of-iconic-singer-miriam-makeba-and-her-art-of-activism-178230">Miriam Makeba</a>, <a href="https://abdullahibrahim.co.za/biography/">Abdullah Ibrahim</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/remembering-hugh-masekela-the-horn-player-with-a-shrewd-ear-for-music-of-the-day-86414">Hugh Masekela</a> are only the best known of a raft of musicians who sought exile from <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a>. The South African band <a href="https://theconversation.com/remembering-the-blue-notes-south-africas-first-generation-of-free-jazz-83824">Blue Notes</a> were massively influential on European jazz scenes from the 1960s onwards.</p>
<p>There are risks in being “fashionable” – not least that straitjackets of international audience perception may be created about what “South African jazz” is. Many of today’s international showcases have a nostalgic focus on the greats of the past such as Makeba and Masekela. However, multiple legacies inform the sound of South African jazz and contribute to the rich lexicon from which it can draw. But none of them defines it.</p>
<p>Today, South African jazz speaks in multiple, diverse voices. Its internationalism, thankfully, is no longer driven by hideous repression at home and, in the digital age, doesn’t always even require physical journeys. One example (and there are many) is the new album <a href="https://mabuta.bandcamp.com/album/finish-the-sun">Finish the Sun</a> from the group <a href="http://www.shanecoopermusic.com/mabuta/">Mabuta</a>, led by bassist <a href="http://www.shanecoopermusic.com">Shane Cooper</a>. </p>
<p>Finish the Sun is only the latest demonstration of how South African jazz simultaneously looks inwards and outwards and communicates with listeners and fellow-players everywhere. </p>
<h2>Finish the Sun</h2>
<p>Mabuta takes its name for the Japanese word for “eyelid”, opening a door between the conscious and the unconscious. Liminality – crossing borders and the interrogation of boundaries – was on Mabuta’s agenda from its first release <a href="https://mabuta.bandcamp.com/album/welcome-to-this-world">Welcome to this World</a> (2018). Cooper himself is a bassist who also skips the border into electronic club music; the 2018 personnel was all-South African, with the addition of UK saxophonist <a href="http://www.shabakahutchings.com/biography/">Shabaka Hutchings</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462253/original/file-20220510-16-e7gxme.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An album cover showing an illustration of a person floating on their back in a pool surrounded by rocks under a round sun." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462253/original/file-20220510-16-e7gxme.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462253/original/file-20220510-16-e7gxme.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462253/original/file-20220510-16-e7gxme.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462253/original/file-20220510-16-e7gxme.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462253/original/file-20220510-16-e7gxme.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462253/original/file-20220510-16-e7gxme.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462253/original/file-20220510-16-e7gxme.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Artwork courtesy Shane Cooper.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On this 2022 outing, South Africans Cooper (on guitars and synths as well as bass), keyboard player <a href="https://blackmajor.co.za/artist/bokani-dyer/">Bokani Dyer</a>, trumpeter <a href="https://weekendspecial.co.za/robin-fassie-kock-quintet-rfk5/">Robin Fassie</a> and reedmen <a href="http://www.theorbit.co.za/buddy-wells/">Buddy Wells</a> and <a href="https://www.newframe.com/home-is-where-the-music-is-for-sisonke-xonti/">Sisonke Xonti</a> work with guest drummers from Switzerland (<a href="https://www.juliansartorius.com">Julian Sartorius</a>, <a href="https://www.arthurhnatek.com">Arthur Hnatek</a> and Mario Hänni); Sweden (Christopher Castillo); the Netherlands (<a href="https://www.instagram.com/jamespete/?hl=en">Jamie Peet</a>); <a href="https://www.instagram.com/lmaduna/?hl=en">Lungile Maduna</a> (South Africa); and <a href="https://splice.com/sounds/splice-sessions/ss_congolese_drums_andre_toungamani">Andre Toungamani</a> (Senegal), some recorded at a distance.</p>
<p>Like its predecessor, Finish the Sun is “<a href="https://sisgwenjazz.wordpress.com/2018/02/06/shane-coopers-mabuta-and-the-obscenity-of-walls/">a bassist’s album but not a bass album</a>”. Cooper created all the compositions but the instrumental solos come from everybody – although the track Spirit Animal is quintessential Cooper. It is never clear whether he is the bass’s spirit animal or it is his. His concept sounds as much through his guitar and through his use of effects and washes. These shape the mood of the eight tracks, sometimes creating a feel that irresistibly invokes a time or place.</p>
<p>The album employs markers of national identity in surprising and often subtle ways so it speaks fluently across all musical borders. Nevertheless, it does draw deep from our lexicon.</p>
<p>The first two numbers, the title track and Where the Heart Is, are where South Africa speaks most explicitly. The title words can’t help recalling the classic song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-YSx21p9S4">Lakutshon’ Ilanga</a> (When the sun sets, I’ll remember you). Here, the album notes say, it alludes to “the energy (that) was felt by all the musicians in a way that sounds as though we were in the same room after finishing some sun together”. It’s a fast, cyclical, galloping Eastern Cape sound, but layering modernity and tradition in its juxtapositions of electronic and instrumental voices. Where the Heart Is maintains the pace, with a classic South African bass line, call and response and chorusing behind the solos; it can’t wait to get home.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cv-aeVhtfyM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The video off the first album.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By contrast, Umshana carries a vibe of South Africa’s Afro-Soul era, with Xonti’s solo chanelling the spirit of saxophonist <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/basil-coetzee">Basil Manenberg Coetzee</a>, while Kucheza has Dyer’s organ reminding us of Black Moses and the <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-soul-brothers-mn0000044338/biography">Soul Brothers</a>, and Cooper’s bass recalling bassist <a href="https://www.bakithikumalobass.com">Bakithi Khumalo</a>. None of these are obvious copycat quotes. Rather, the musicians are using a pinch of this and a dash of that to magick up some time-travel to where South Africans will recognise the scenery. </p>
<p>But if you’re in a club in Basel, you can just relish Umshana’s gorgeous rhythmic complexity or Kucheza’s chiming, joyful guitar and keys: you don’t have to have been where we’ve been. Nor do you need to know Johannesburg to recognise the moody urban vibe of Joburg Poem; Cantillo’s Swedish drums perfectly catch its feel.</p>
<p>Rather than retreating behind idiomatic musical borders, or spending energy explicitly fighting them, Mabuta simply make them irrelevant.</p>
<p>In many ways, that is the essential legacy of South African jazz on its international journeys from the 1940s onwards. And that, rather than any externally-curated definition, from however prestigious a platform, is what continues to keep the music vibrantly breathing and growing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182702/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The album Follow the Sun shows how South African jazz draws from diversity to speak fluidly across borders.
Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/178230
2022-03-02T14:26:29Z
2022-03-02T14:26:29Z
The legacy of iconic singer Miriam Makeba and her art of activism
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449553/original/file-20220302-19-vs81hr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by James Andanson/Sygma via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s world famous singer and activist <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/miriam-makeba">Miriam Makeba</a> (1932-2008) would have turned 90 on 4 March 2022. Born Zenzile Miriam Makeba in Johannesburg’s Prospect township, she had a life of remarkable global impact. She contributed to black people’s struggle for liberation and defended the integrity of African identity and artistry while living in a land absent of her ancestry. </p>
<p>Despite being banned from her home country for her outspokenness and resistance to apartheid, Makeba went on to build an illustrious international career, performing on some of the world’s most prestigious stages. She would be celebrated – and persecuted – in the US and invited to perform at the independence celebrations of numerous African countries before eventually returning to South Africa later in life.</p>
<p>In commemorating what would have been Makeba’s 90th birthday, it is fitting to pay tribute to her legacy of activism not only as a black African woman often living in exile in a western society but also as an artist who used her craft to teach and conscientise the world about Africa. </p>
<h2>Early years</h2>
<p>Her musical beginnings in the 1940s were at Kilnerton College, a Methodist elementary school where she sang in the school choir. The school’s alumni include South Africa’s former chief justice <a href="https://www.concourt.org.za/index.php/judges/former-judges/11-former-judges/70-deputy-chief-justice-dikgang-moseneke">Dikgang Moseneke</a>, <a href="http://www.unizulu.ac.za/unizulu-celebrating-the-legendary-musical-icon-professor-khabi-mngoma/">Professor Khabi Mngoma</a>, a hugely influential figure in music education, as well as struggle icon <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/lilian-masediba-ngoyi">Lilian Ngoyi</a>. </p>
<p>Makeba’s break into the professional circuit was with the singing group the Cuban Brothers. She later joined the well-established <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/manhattan-brothers">Manhattan Brothers</a>. They sang vernacular verses over what was a predominantly American swing and ragtime sound. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VDFznqweUTQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for Come Back Africa.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She was a founding member of the famous all-woman singing group <a href="https://www.allaboutjazz.com/miriam-makeba-and-the-skylarks-vol-1-miriam-makeba-and-the-skylarks-vol-2-miriam-makeba-teal-records-review-by-ed-kopp">the Skylarks</a>. In 1952, she was cast in Alf Herbert’s <a href="https://soulsafari.wordpress.com/2009/03/22/african-jazz-variety-alfred-herbert-1952/">African Jazz and Variety</a> production showcasing black talent. It was presented mainly to white audiences except on Thursdays when black audiences were allowed. This is where film producer Lionel Rogosin spotted Makeba and persuaded her to feature in his controversial documentary film, <em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049087/">Come Back Africa</a></em>. </p>
<p>This film depicted the harsh conditions under which black South Africans were forced to live by the apartheid government. Makeba’s short appearance attracted attention, including an invitation to attend the film’s premiere in Italy. Naturally, she agreed, never imagining that because of her role in the movie she would be banned by the apartheid state from returning home, not even to bury her own mother. This marked the beginning of her exile.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449501/original/file-20220302-21-1whx1ff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man and woman hold one another, smiling against a blue backdrop." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449501/original/file-20220302-21-1whx1ff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449501/original/file-20220302-21-1whx1ff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449501/original/file-20220302-21-1whx1ff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449501/original/file-20220302-21-1whx1ff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449501/original/file-20220302-21-1whx1ff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449501/original/file-20220302-21-1whx1ff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449501/original/file-20220302-21-1whx1ff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">RCA Victor</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Promoting the film in London, Makeba met African American folk singer and activist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Harry-Belafonte">Harry Belafonte</a>. He would play a significant role in her career in the US, forming half of the duet on their <a href="https://www.grammy.com/artists/miriam-makeba/4292">Grammy-winning</a> album <em><a href="https://www.miriammakeba.co.za/releases/An-Evening-With-Belafonte-Makeba-1965">An Evening with Belafonte & Makeba</a></em>.</p>
<h2>Art as activism</h2>
<p>Her artistry extended beyond the stage, beyond her impeccable vocals and her sophisticated interpretations of international and South African repertoire. Her very presence in the United States stood as a form of activism against the apartheid government who had attempted to silence her and erase her from the consciousness of her people. </p>
<p>Makeba’s life in the US coincided with the parallel experiences of black people in America and South Africa suffering immense injustice, marginalisation, racism and inequality. Like the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/American-civil-rights-movement">Civil Rights Movement</a> in the US was a vehicle through which black Americans protested. Academic Barber-Sizemore <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17533171.2012.715416">describes</a> Makeba’s voice as being “a surface onto which Americans projected their own narratives about Africa and American race relations”. </p>
<p>Her artistry, always informed by the circumstances in South Africa, served as a razor-sharp awareness tool. In journalist Gwen Ansell’s book <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Soweto-Blues%3A-Jazz%2C-Popular-Music%2C-and-Politics-in-Ansell/55a1e1246a1e98828e11447f7e347f76520cf11f"><em>Soweto Blues</em></a>, the late <a href="https://theconversation.com/remembering-hugh-masekela-the-horn-player-with-a-shrewd-ear-for-music-of-the-day-86414">Hugh Masekela</a> concurs that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There’s nobody in Africa who made the world more aware of what was happening in South Africa than Miriam Makeba. This was because of the way in which she described the songs…unwittingly she educated African American artists.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Makeba would describe life in apartheid South Africa when introducing her songs and would use every opportunity to address inequality. As analysed by academic Louise Bethlehem, Makeba’s work <a href="https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-6917766">resisted</a> the apartheid state’s threat to dismantle the very place of African art and culture in the world.</p>
<p>African Americans saw in Makeba not only what they were but also the possibilities of what they could become, expressed through song, dance, dress, language and ideology. Makeba found commonality with artists such as <a href="https://www.ninasimone.com/biography/">Nina Simone</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/aug/15/abbey-lincoln-obituary">Abbey Lincoln</a>, who historian Ruth Feldstein <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/how-it-feels-to-be-free-9780195314038?cc=za&lang=en&">referred</a> to as “an emergent collective of black women performers who combined their music with civil rights activism”. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zz-n2cQ2ex8?wmode=transparent&start=136" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Mama Africa the documentary.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Aesthetic as activism</h2>
<p>What I appreciate most about Makeba is the way in which she not only embraced but leaned into her sexuality and sensuality. The way she moved her body on stage was often provocative, drawing the audience into her world. She understood acutely the power of her black body and its curvature. </p>
<p>Her aesthetic of natural hair and minimal make up (if any at all) communicated eloquently her strong sense of self, rooted in her African identity free from the expectations of western notions of beauty and acceptability. </p>
<p>In remembering Makeba, we must guard against confining her activism to the anti-apartheid speeches she delivered at the United Nations in <a href="https://www.unmultimedia.org/avlibrary/asset/2553/2553678/">1963</a> and <a href="https://africanactivist.msu.edu/image.php?objectid=210-809-1981">1976</a>. Her activism was far more nuanced than that. It was interwoven in her music, her delivery of melodies, lyrics and artistic sentiment. Her artistry was a lantern that burnt vigorously through one of the darkest eras in history.</p>
<h2>A legacy spanning generations</h2>
<p>Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, <a href="https://lithub.com/mukoma-wa-ngugi-what-decolonizing-the-mind-means-today/">believes</a> that Africans singing in their native language is an international act of decolonisation and a marker of Pan African identity. Academic Aaron Carter-Enyi <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332734100_Decolonizing_the_Mind_Through_Song_From_Makeba_to_the_Afropolitan_present">acknowledged</a> Makeba’s influence on other African singers to sing in their mother tongues. Like Benin’s <a href="http://www.kidjo.com">Angelique Kidjo</a> who sings in Yoruba, Mali’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oumou-Sangare">Oumou Sangare</a> who sings in Mandinka and Nigeria’s <a href="https://npl.ng/team_members/onyeka-onwenu/">Onyeka Onwenu</a> who sings in Igbo. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449513/original/file-20220302-15-112ld6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An older woman in an orange and black dress sings into a microphone, smiling, in front of a full orchestra." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449513/original/file-20220302-15-112ld6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449513/original/file-20220302-15-112ld6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449513/original/file-20220302-15-112ld6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449513/original/file-20220302-15-112ld6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449513/original/file-20220302-15-112ld6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449513/original/file-20220302-15-112ld6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449513/original/file-20220302-15-112ld6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Makeba performing in Johannesburg in 2005.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">LEXANDER JOE/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Makeba’s influence transcends generations to reveal itself in contemporary cultural practices. We are because she was. Makeba’s legacy is too often suffocated by the complexity surrounding her <a href="https://www.news24.com/News24/who-owns-miriam-makeba-20180617">intellectual property</a> as well as her relationships with the men in her life. </p>
<p>Makeba was not just the wife of musician Masekela or <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Black-Panther-Party">Black Panther</a> leader <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Stokely-Carmichael">Stokely Carmichael</a>. She was not Belafonte’s “discovery from South Africa”. She arrived in America a consummate professional fit for purpose.</p>
<p>The role of these male figures in Makeba’s life may have been meaningful but it is also grossly overstated. Makeba’s legacy is strong enough to stand on its own two feet. Her name needs no co-anchor. She fought more with her “artivism” than many a man did with their armed weaponry. </p>
<p>It’s time to move beyond her widely-adopted nickname “Mama Africa”. Makeba was a stalwart and an icon of African liberation and identity. Her legacy carved the way for future generations to live a life of authenticity, fearlessness and bravery.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178230/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nomfundo Xaluva does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Makeba, who would have turned 90 on 4 March 2022, was a hugely influential artist and an icon of African liberation and identity.
Nomfundo Xaluva, Lecturer, South African College of Music, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/172532
2021-12-15T14:33:37Z
2021-12-15T14:33:37Z
Celebrating Dolly Rathebe, South Africa’s original black woman superstar
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435044/original/file-20211201-27-aij6vy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dolly Rathebe (centre) in detail of the album cover for Dolly Rathebe & Elite Swingsters.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gallo Music Publishing</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/dolly-rathebe">Dolly Rathebe</a>, the musical legend of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/sophiatown">Sophiatown</a>, is part of South Africa’s rich heritage and history. Sophiatown was a much-storied suburb and vibrant cultural hub in Johannesburg that was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/apr/11/story-cities-19-johannesburg-south-africa-apartheid-purge-sophiatown">destroyed</a> by the South African state in 1955. Its 60,000 black residents were forcibly removed to Meadowlands, a township outside the city, as the country’s white ruling party entrenched apartheid’s policy of racial segregation. </p>
<p>Together with <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/miriam-makeba">Miriam Makeba</a>, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/letta-mbulu">Letta Mbulu</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/dorothy-masuku-africa-has-lost-a-singer-composer-and-a-hero-of-the-struggle-112425">Dorothy Masuku</a>, Rathebe’s name represents a golden era of local blues and jazz music that captured the lives of black people. </p>
<p>These mega divas of Sophiatown came out of a golden era of literary and musical genius, a time – the 1950s – often referred to as “the <em>Drum</em> decade” after the popular black urban culture <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/drum-magazine">magazine</a>. <em>Drum</em>’s dramatic first decade, 70 years ago, amplified the names of black South African writers, <a href="https://theconversation.com/journalism-of-drums-heyday-remains-cause-for-celebration-70-years-later-142668">journalists</a>, anti-apartheid freedom fighters, beauty queens, gangsters and musicians.</p>
<p>During these times, South African female musicians rose and became stars. Their names were as big as the names of politicians like <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/biography">Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela</a> and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/gangsterism-sophiatown">gangsters</a> like Boy Faraday. They were gorgeous, they were powerful on and off stage; their pictures graced the covers of magazines and newspapers. Their legendary songs announced South Africa’s race blues to the world – an important record of their disruption of apartheid and patriarchy.</p>
<p>In March 2021 the <a href="https://jias.joburg">Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study</a> held a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=263675351884650">symposium</a> celebrating 70 years of <em>Drum</em> magazine, where I presented a paper, The Mega Divas of Sophiatown. It remembers the impact that these female stars had on popular culture, politics and jazz music globally. I was struck by the role that Rathebe in particular played in inspiring Makeba, Mbulu, Masuku and many others to follow their dreams and become singing stars. I wanted to know more about her, to excavate and celebrate her legacy. </p>
<p>A few months later I was awarded the University of Pretoria <a href="https://www.futureafrica.science">Future Africa Institute</a> Fellowship and a Xarra Books publishing deal to <a href="https://www.up.ac.za/news/post_3000475-esteemed-african-writer-and-academic-appointed-inaugural-fellow-of-up-artist-in-residency-fellowship-programme-">research and write</a> Rathebe’s biography. It is a unique opportunity to share the life of a legend with future generations – and to map the musical links between the past and future.</p>
<h2>Dolly takes Joburg</h2>
<p>Dolly Rathebe <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13696810903488595">paved</a> a glittering path as Africa’s very first black female movie superstar after appearing in the 1949 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZsP88-63A0">film</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0211906/"><em>Jim Comes to Joburg</em></a>. </p>
<p>She was born in 1928, in Randfontein, west of Johannesburg. Her parents named her Josephine Malatsi. She changed her name to the more glamorous Dolly Rathebe, apparently after a young lady from a well-off family. Rathebe was spotted singing at a Sunday picnic by two British film makers – director Donald Swanson and producer Eric Rutherford. The two immediately recognised her star quality and gave her the role of Judy, a club singer, in the movie. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435046/original/file-20211201-15-1k4y99n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A glamorous man and woman smile as they share a microphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435046/original/file-20211201-15-1k4y99n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435046/original/file-20211201-15-1k4y99n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435046/original/file-20211201-15-1k4y99n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435046/original/file-20211201-15-1k4y99n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435046/original/file-20211201-15-1k4y99n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435046/original/file-20211201-15-1k4y99n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435046/original/file-20211201-15-1k4y99n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Screenshot from Jim Comes to Joburg featuring Rathebe (left) and Daniel Adnewmah.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Warrior Films/Apex</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The synopsis is simple: a young man leaves his rural home to find his fortune. He is attacked and harassed in Johannesburg. But he is offered a chance to make it as a singer with a night club’s star singing sensation – Dolly Rathebe. The audience loved Rathebe’s sultry vocals and magnetic screen presence. Overnight her name became slang for everything nice. If it’s “Dolly”, it’s great. If it’s “double Dolly”, it’s out of this world. </p>
<p>Her famous <em>Drum</em> <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/showcasing-photos-that-defined-and-defied-racist-sa-11131464">cover</a> – wearing a bikini made of two handkerchiefs tied together on the city’s famous mine dumps – propelled her to legend status. The picture, taken by <a href="https://theconversation.com/jurgen-schadeberg-chronicler-of-life-across-apartheids-divides-145390">Jurgen Schadeburg</a>, got them both arrested for flouting the <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv01538/04lv01828/05lv01829/06lv01837.htm">Immorality Act</a>, an apartheid law that forbade sexual relations between whites and other races. The police suspected that they were lovers. Rathebe’s arrest just made her legend grow. Everyone was talking about it, and everyone was talking about Dolly Rathebe and singing her songs.</p>
<h2>Musical life</h2>
<p>Rathebe travelled and sang all over southern Africa with top bands like the <a href="https://www.capetownswing.co.za/the-manhattan-brothers/">Manhattan Brothers</a> and the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/benni-gwigwi-mrwebi">Elite Swingsters</a>. She was a star attraction for many years in <a href="https://soulsafari.wordpress.com/2009/03/22/african-jazz-variety-alfred-herbert-1952/">Alf Herbert’s African Jazz and Variety Show</a> which opened in 1954.</p>
<p>Rathebe’s music was not overtly political. She sang mainly about everyday troubles. There was <em>Uyinto yokwenzani umbi kanganka</em> – where she is complaining about her lover. And then <em>Into Yam ndiyayithanda nomi isel’ utswala</em> – where she is complimenting her lover, even though he drinks too much! Her own compositions were mainly about ordinary day-to-day highs and lows, like <em>Andisahambi Netshomi zam</em> about a young lady promising her mother not to go out late at night with her friends anymore.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WjvRCr1mtV0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Performing in 1992.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Her compositions ranged from the popular talk of parties, gangsters and matters of the heart to the more political <em>Mbombela</em>, a beautiful melodic, deeply emotional classic that laments the fate of workers who have to catch early morning trains to go and create wealth they will never own:</p>
<p><em>Wenyuk’ umbombela, wenyuk’ ekuseni! Wenyuk’ umbombela</em>… (There goes Mbombela the early morning train…) <em>Shuku shuku shuku shuku</em>… </p>
<p><em>Mbombela</em> became a Grammy-winning <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXV_dip-HNs">hit</a> after it was sung by Miriam Makeba and Harry Belafonte on their legendary album <em>An Evening with Harry Belafonte and Miriam Makeba</em>.</p>
<h2>A political force</h2>
<p>Although Rathebe’s compositions were not overtly political, her celebration of black life, black beauty and black humanity through her films and music was subversive. Apartheid sought to erase black creativity and achievement; Rathebe refused to be silenced. Rathebe, Makeba, Mbulu and Masuku’s music were dazzling and authentic; insisting on recording the humanity, depth and elegance of black lives beyond the cardboard cut-out smiling natives favoured by the apartheid government propaganda machinery.</p>
<p>Rathebe’s bold occupation of public spaces and her proudly African, slick city diva image made her the darling of movie and music lovers all over Africa. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/journalism-of-drums-heyday-remains-cause-for-celebration-70-years-later-142668">Journalism of Drum's heyday remains cause for celebration - 70 years later</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The decade in which the mega divas forged their phenomenal careers is also the decade of the historic South African <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/1956-womens-march-pretoria-9-august">1956 Women’s March</a> where women freedom fighters <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/lilian-masediba-ngoyi">Lillian Ngoyi</a>, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/helen-joseph">Helen Joseph</a>, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/bertha-gxowa-mashaba">Bertha Mashaba</a>, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/rahima-moosa">Rahima Moosa</a>, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/sophia-theresa-williams-de-bruyn">Sophie de Bruyn</a> and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/albertina-nontsikelelo-sisulu">Albertina Sisulu</a> organised 20,000 women to march to the government buildings in Pretoria to stop amendments to the <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv01538/04lv01646/05lv01758.htm">Urban Areas Act</a>. These would’ve meant black women had to carry pass books as well as men. Their movement would have been severely restricted, exposing them to more arrests and harassment. </p>
<p>Dolly Rathebe and the other mega divas navigated politics, life and their music, gaining superstardom locally and abroad despite their third class citizen status in a racist South Africa. In the late 1950s, when apartheid repression intensified and Sophiatown was demolished, Rathebe moved to Cape Town to raise a family and run a shebeen. Her performances and public life faded. Her fellow divas went into exile, ending a golden era of incredible artistic output.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172532/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nokuthula Mazibuko Msimang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Her celebration of black life, black beauty and black humanity through her films and music was subversive.
Nokuthula Mazibuko Msimang, Artist in Residency, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/171038
2021-11-03T14:59:13Z
2021-11-03T14:59:13Z
Sipho Hotstix Mabuse: a South African legend whose music spans generations
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429919/original/file-20211103-21-1oojtch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sipho 'Hotstix' Mabuse has his photo taken by fellow musician Nhlanhla Mafu, in 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Oupa Bopape/Gallo Images via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Drummer, saxophonist, composer, activist – and anthropology student – <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/hotstix-evolutionary-musician">Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuse</a> has turned 70. If you wanted a guidebook to the distinctive character of the South African jazz scene, Mabuse’s 50-year career offers one. </p>
<p>South African jazz occupies a landscape that is rarely elitist, never haughtily insulated from popular and traditional sounds. Professional survival demands a multiplicity of roles and identities from its artists. And the music has always had something to say about the politics of its day, then and now. </p>
<p>Mabuse’s remarkable life shows us all that and more.</p>
<p>Sipho Cecil Peter Mabuse was born in <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/orlando-west-soweto-2/">Orlando West</a>, a township in the heart of Soweto, Johannesburg’s historically black urban settlement. His father ran a small corner shop selling household supplies including coal, though he was, the drummer <a href="http://www.702.co.za/articles/328596/i-m-very-conscious-about-how-i-spend-i-don-t-buy-fancy-cars-i-buy-bargains">recalled</a>, never really committed to the entrepreneurial life.</p>
<p>But, like many of his neighbours, he was committed to resisting the oppressions of apartheid. During the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/anti-pass-campaigns-1960">1960 anti-pass campaign</a>, the young Sipho <a href="https://www.newframe.com/music-makes-us-strong/">held his father’s hand</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>marching alongside <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/biography">Nelson Mandela</a>, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/henry-gordon-squire-makgothi">Henry Makgothi</a>, other leaders, in Orlando West. I was just a little impressionable kid, but I’m carrying those memories with me… </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Part of Soweto’s hunger for change was an appreciation for music, and especially jazz and the more conscious American soul artists. “Nina Simone blew me away,” Mabuse recalled. </p>
<p>Playing drums in a youth band was fine as a hobby. But music as a career? That was initially unthinkable in the Mabuse household: the young Sipho must study for university.</p>
<h2>Beginnings</h2>
<p>Things changed when some boys from another school joined Orlando West High for their final exams. Guitarists <a href="https://www.newframe.com/new-life-for-seminal-sounds-of-the-beaters-harari/">Selby Ntuli and Alec Khaoli</a> were already creating original music and aspiring to emulate what were called the “<a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/what-lives-two-south-african-music-giants-tell-us-about-culture-under-apartheid-gwen-ansell">township soul</a>” bands of the late 1960s, who borrowed their sartorial style from Stax and Motown, identified their own experiences of oppression with the mood of US <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/black-power">Black Power</a>, and crafted lyrics in all African languages spoken on the streets. </p>
<p>Township soul was highly political in its proud self-assertion of identity even when its songs ran the gamut from teenage love to community hopes and fears.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429923/original/file-20211103-27-1l92i7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A musician performs into a microphone, his hands up and fingers splayed, a saxophone around his neck." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429923/original/file-20211103-27-1l92i7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429923/original/file-20211103-27-1l92i7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429923/original/file-20211103-27-1l92i7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429923/original/file-20211103-27-1l92i7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429923/original/file-20211103-27-1l92i7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429923/original/file-20211103-27-1l92i7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429923/original/file-20211103-27-1l92i7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mabuse in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Richard Heathcote/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The school principal encouraged his students to perform to raise scholarship money, and the young Mabuse offered his services as a drummer. Another teenage musician, Monty Ndimande, joined. Their early forays into more professional arenas such as community halls were disastrous. But solid rehearsal and sponsorship from a successful local boxer meant the band (which called itself The Beaters in deliberate echo of four equally musical Liverpool youngsters <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/the-Beatles">The Beatles</a>) soon had a dedicated following.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Little did we realise there would be such a demand. Some of the other bands were older, but because we were a high-school band, students from all the high schools identified with us. The money just started rolling in…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That led to recordings and, eventually, a decision to quit school and become professional musicians.</p>
<h2>Identity shift</h2>
<p>The youngsters started touring neighbouring African states and opening for visiting overseas artists. As fast as the money rolled in, they spent it. Mabuse <a href="http://www.702.co.za/articles/328596/i-m-very-conscious-about-how-i-spend-i-don-t-buy-fancy-cars-i-buy-bargains">reflected</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We were well dressed … We bought some of the most expensive clothes … If I had known about money what I know now, things would’ve been different. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A 1975 stay in neighbouring Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) as that country’s independence struggle intensified was seminal in reshaping the band’s identity and discourse. Mabuse <a href="https://matsulimusic.bandcamp.com/album/harari-2">recalled</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A groundswell of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/black-consciousness-movement-bcm">Black Consciousness</a> influence was pervasive. In Harari we rediscovered our African-ness, the infectious rhythms and music of the continent. We came back home inspired! We were overhauling ourselves into dashiki-clad musicians who were Black Power saluting and so on.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On their return to South Africa:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Whether you played <a href="https://www.masterclass.com/articles/mbaqanga-music-guide#quiz-0">mbaqanga</a> or not, everybody became proud of who they were: {believing} the type of music that we do must relate to the politics of the day … the music must derive from our environment.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Their subsequent album, <em><a href="https://matsulimusic.bandcamp.com/album/harari-2">Harari</a></em>, recorded for the country’s only independent black record label, As-Shams, soon gave its title to a <a href="https://www.newframe.com/new-life-for-seminal-sounds-of-the-beaters-harari/">re-named band</a>. The studio stable brought them into contact with older, more serious jazzmen. </p>
<p>Hornmen like trumpeter <a href="https://www.allaboutjazz.com/the-man-behind-the-trumpet-dennis-mpale-gallo-records-review-by-seton-hawkins">Dennis Mpale</a> played on Harari; South Africa’s top saxophonist <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/kippie-jeremiah-moeketsi">Kippie Moeketsi</a> used Mabuse and Khaoli on his own crossover recording: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFgJ0GZ0CrY"><em>Tshona</em></a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kippie looked at us very suspiciously at first. After all, we were just <em>laaities</em> – kids – from a pop band. We were quite in awe too. But after we all played, he came over, smiling, to congratulate us … The only way we could prove ourselves was to play jazz – even if on most stages we played pop music.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Harari</em> became a runaway hit, followed by the next LP, <a href="https://matsulimusic.bandcamp.com/album/rufaro-2"><em>Rufaro</em></a> (Happiness). By 1976, <a href="https://mg.co.za/friday/2021-03-20-harari-a-union-of-music-defiant-politics-and-african-pride/">Harari</a> was voted South Africa’s top instrumental group. But in the political turmoil that followed the June 16 <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">Soweto uprising</a>, the band also helped the struggle, smuggling fleeing rebels to neighbouring states as they toured. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z8YV0W61hoE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Harari in 1985.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the <a href="https://mg.co.za/friday/2021-03-20-harari-a-union-of-music-defiant-politics-and-african-pride/">sudden death</a> of Selby Ntuli in 1978, Mabuse became leader of an outfit whose membership now changed often.</p>
<p>By 1980 Harari had garnered more awards, topped more charts, and become the first black band to headline Johannesburg’s <a href="https://www.theheritageportal.co.za/article/colosseum-cinema-fantasy-thirties-modern-apartment-living-johannesburg">Colosseum theatre</a>. But tensions within the outfit were growing. By 1982, Harari had broken up.</p>
<h2>Going solo</h2>
<p>Mabuse became a solo artist, continuing to create impressive chart-toppers such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q71D_K78IE"><em>Burn Out</em></a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi1WdVZ_oj8"><em>Jive Soweto</em></a>. He increasingly used his showbiz travels and identity to hide the work of carrying communications and intelligence in and out of the country for the underground struggle of the banned <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/history/">African National Congress</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429926/original/file-20211103-15-1u83biq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Album cover with the words 'Burn Out' and an image of a man with a short Afro and shades in a leather jacket against a zinc metal background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429926/original/file-20211103-15-1u83biq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429926/original/file-20211103-15-1u83biq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429926/original/file-20211103-15-1u83biq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429926/original/file-20211103-15-1u83biq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429926/original/file-20211103-15-1u83biq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429926/original/file-20211103-15-1u83biq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429926/original/file-20211103-15-1u83biq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A hit in 1987.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gallo Record Company</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the dawn of change in South Africa, his 1989 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_z_Kj7G_iM"><em>Chant of the Marching</em></a> memorialised the heady, tragic events of June 1976.</p>
<p>By then Mabuse was using his earnings more sensibly, supporting older family and <a href="http://www.702.co.za/articles/328596/i-m-very-conscious-about-how-i-spend-i-don-t-buy-fancy-cars-i-buy-bargains">buying his mother a house</a>. </p>
<p>By the 1990s, as apartheid ended, he was active in organising artists and advising on cultural matters, though shunning formal political roles.</p>
<p>Then another ambition – on the back burner since The Beaters made it big – was revived. Mabuse went <a href="https://www.news24.com/channel/sipho-hotstix-mabuse-returns-to-school-20120217">back to high school</a>, passed his exams and <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/entertainment/2020-04-30-music-legend-sipho-hotstix-mabuse-to-go-back-to-school/">signed up</a> for an undergraduate degree in anthropology.</p>
<p>He still performs – in revival shows featuring his pop hits and in jazz contexts. In 2018, he was one of the founding artists of <a href="https://www.newframe.com/music-makes-us-strong/">The Liberation Project</a>, with percussionist Dan Chiorboli, singer Roger Lucey, guitarist and producer Phil Manzanera and a cross-national cast of dozens. </p>
<p>That revisioned resistance music from South African, Italian anti-fascist resistance, Cuban and other struggles, releasing a <a href="https://soundcloud.com/justmusicsouthafrica/sets/the-liberation-project-songs-that-made-us-free">double album</a> and touring the world.</p>
<h2>Elder statesman</h2>
<p>Now an elder statesman of South African music, regularly invited onto industry panels, Mabuse hasn’t given up the political convictions that motivated him back in the 1970s. Music, he knows, still matters off as well as on the stage.</p>
<p>Talking about The Liberation Project back in 2018, he <a href="https://www.newframe.com/new-life-for-seminal-sounds-of-the-beaters-harari/">reflected</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Most of what we’ve done since 1994 has been done badly. There’s poverty, corruption and leaders do not listen. But if we remain fearful, we’ll stay subject to those in power. We have strength in numbers, and in our convictions, and music can remind us and reawaken that.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171038/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Jazz star Sipho ‘Hotstix’ Mabuse has turned 70. In 50 years, his music career has come to help define South African politics and popular culture.
Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/162655
2021-06-14T09:39:21Z
2021-06-14T09:39:21Z
Remembering Pat Mokoka of the Malopoets – seminal South African music
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406101/original/file-20210614-102344-mfadoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The late Pat Mokoka photographed at home in 2019. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ihsaan Haffejee/New Frame</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The lack of archive around the life and music of bass guitarist Patrick Thabo <a href="https://www.newframe.com/malopoets-my-way-or-highway-europe/">“Pat” Mokoka</a> is emblematic of how little South African cultural history has really been preserved. Mokoka, a founder member of the radical, influential 1980s musical outfit the <a href="https://www.newframe.com/malopoets-mining-seam-peoples-music/">Malopoets</a>, died last week. </p>
<p>I did not know Mokoka well. I interviewed him once in 2019 for a <a href="https://www.newframe.com/malopoets-mining-seam-peoples-music/">story</a> tracing the history of the Malopoets, when it appeared possible their first album, the 1979 <em>Rebirth</em>, might be reissued. That album had been “lost”: probably buried by an apartheid-era record industry unwilling to handle its risk-taking fusions, deliberately unpolished sound and radical messages. Although an intact master tape was discovered by independent label <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2020-03-25-the-portfolio-matsuli-music/">Matsuli Music</a>, one of the surviving rights-holders withheld permission for its re-release. Mokoka hoped that mind might change:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I still believe we might hear one of those songs one day. A beautiful, raw African sound … it had our touch; who we are. You’d hear it and say: this is Malopoets (especially in) Duze (Mahlobo)’s deep African touch on the guitar.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The roots of the Malopoets, and of Mokoka – like the roots of so much innovative South African jazz – lay in the Tshwane region, just north of Johannesburg, and <a href="https://herri.org.za/2/percy-mabandu/">malombo music</a>.</p>
<h2>Starting out</h2>
<p>Mokoka studied with legendary Mamelodi guitarist <a href="https://rekord.co.za/231017/sad-farewell-mams-music-legend">Lawrence Hendrick Mampya Moloisi</a>, who died in 2020. Moloisi had taught himself guitar on a self-made oilcan instrument and co-founded <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/black-consciousness-movement-bcm">Black Consciousness</a> performance group <a href="https://mabandu.wordpress.com/2009/03/17/lefifi-tladi-dashiki-as-a-unique-avant-garde-in-safrican-art-of-the-70s/">Dashiki</a> with artist <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/lefifi-tladi">Lefifi Tladi</a> and others in the early 1970s. Integral to the group’s politics was spreading and sharing knowledge, so he taught too. In Moloisi’s classes, Mokoka met pianist <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/trending/don-laka-is-back-20190818">Don Laka</a>: the start of another long friendship.</p>
<p>Mokoka then joined Afrika, the band founded by reedman <a href="http://www.theorbit.co.za/abbey-cindi/">Abbey Cindi</a> which included multi-instrumentalist Pat Sefolosha. At a Durban festival, Afrika encountered the band Third Generation, including drummer Bruce “Madoda” Sosibo and guitarist <a href="https://music.metason.net/artistinfo?name=Duze%20Mahlobo">Duze Mahlobo</a>. Journeys, collaborations and intense political conversations between the KwaZulu-Natal and Pretoria musicians led to the founding of the Malopoets (<em>malopo</em> referencing a practice of spiritual healing) on 7 July 1978. The date was chosen because it was the birth date of US jazzman <a href="https://www.johncoltrane.com/biography">John Coltrane</a>.</p>
<h2>The Malopoets</h2>
<p>In multiple ways, the Malopoets challenged current debates about South Africa’s separatist ideology <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a>. They also prefigured the new visions of tradition heard today in work from musicians as varied as <a href="https://www.newframe.com/sibu-mashiloanes-movies-in-song/">Sibu Mashiloane</a>, <a href="https://www.newframe.com/iphupo-lka-biko-songs-past-present-and-future/">iPhupho L’Ka Biko</a>, <a href="https://pan-african-music.com/en/sibusile-xaba-uyahlupha/">Sibusile Xaba</a> and more.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/utrfJbD9_cQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Malopoets with a track called Fire.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Apartheid sought to divide people by race – and by region and tribe. The Malopoets crashed these divides. Mokoka recalled:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We were two <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pedi">Pedis</a>, two <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zulu">Zulus</a> and a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Shangaan-people">Shangaan</a>. And in those days, that was important – that we were together.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They mashed up genre boundaries with an explicit Africanist orientation, and a sound that deliberately eschewed the smoothness of commercial music. Said Mokoka:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We were listening to <a href="https://theconversation.com/tribute-to-manu-dibango-cameroonian-jazz-pioneer-loved-across-africa-and-the-world-134673">Manu Dibangu</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-art-provocateur-fela-kuti-who-used-sex-and-politics-to-confront-58599">Fela</a> (Kuti), <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/apr/29/osibisa-british-black-rock-band-fela-kuti-stevie-wonder">Osibisa</a>. We thought, no, if we can combine something from malombo (jazz tradition), and poetry, it can sound a bit different. So we made researches. We listened to Pedi music, Zulu music, Shangaan music and that’s where we got new ideas. We thought: if we can work around all these tribes together we can make something that reflects us.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Malopoets’ lyrics reflected the experiences of working people in struggle, of hungry children, absent fathers and harsh conditions in the mines.</p>
<p>The band’s practice was equally challenging. They played solidarity concerts for strikers and protest movements, and adopted a collective working style. </p>
<p>All this came at a personal cost. The band ate little, slept on floors or camped clandestinely in deserted buildings on their travels. Sefolosha, by then in a relationship with a Swiss woman he later married, was harassed wherever they went. Percussionist <a href="https://eugeneskeef.me">Eugene Skeef</a> was hunted for his political activities. The band’s first manager, student organiser <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/benjamin-johnson-langa">Ben Langa</a>, would be murdered by apartheid agents in 1984. Police sabotaged concerts. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405997/original/file-20210612-47555-16rmot0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white drawing of a musical band, on guitar and drums, the blurry edges heaving with motion." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405997/original/file-20210612-47555-16rmot0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405997/original/file-20210612-47555-16rmot0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405997/original/file-20210612-47555-16rmot0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405997/original/file-20210612-47555-16rmot0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405997/original/file-20210612-47555-16rmot0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405997/original/file-20210612-47555-16rmot0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405997/original/file-20210612-47555-16rmot0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Malopoets, from left, Patrick Mokoka, Patrick Sefolosha and Samson Tshabalala.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Illustration courtesy Judy Seidman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Malopoets cut a second album, <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Malopoets-Fire/release/7768023"><em>Fire</em></a>, in 1982, with the first still mysteriously absent. By then some members had already left South Africa for exile, and a new management was trying to soften the radical image.</p>
<p>In 1983, the band left for a European tour, where they faced further attempts from promoters to remould the sound into what overseas audiences stereotyped as “African pop”: electric keyboards, self-consciously exotic attire and more. If they didn’t conform, they were told, they would be sent home.</p>
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<p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-magnificent-mabi-thobejane-master-south-african-drummer-162231">The magnificent Mabi Thobejane, master South African drummer</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Mokoka was part of some of the tours, but also returned to South Africa intermittently, featuring, for example, on the band Ozila’s 1984 hit <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Ozila-Life-Saver-Im-Suffering/release/11748166"><em>I’m Suffering</em></a>. In 1985, torn apart by the pressures and disheartened by Langa’s murder, the Malopoets split. </p>
<p>Some members stayed in Europe, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/25/arts/pop-malopoets-offer-the-sound-of-africa-at-sounds-of-brazil.html">Sefolosha</a> settled in the US, others, including Mokoka, came home. He was back in Europe for a 1989 promotional tour with a new-incarnation Malopoets album <a href="http://www.afrosynth.com/2009/08/malopoets-life-is-for-living-1988.html"><em>Life is for Living</em></a>. But under the multinational Virgin label, a very different ethos prevailed. Mokoka told me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The spirit, the communication couldn’t be the same as it was, because of this thing of (somebody) being ‘the bandleader’ … We had sacrificed our lives and stayed away from our families to be with this band back then … It was very sad, the way it ended.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Those solid bass grooves</h2>
<p>Back in South Africa he continued playing bass. For 25 years he was Don Laka’s regular bassist. He also played with <a href="https://www.discogs.com/artist/1550432-Blondie-And-Pappa">Blondie and Pappa</a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Vusi+Mahlasela&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8">Vusi Mahlasela</a> and many others as well as countless sessions, often uncredited. When we met, it was clear hard economic times were never far away.</p>
<p>In a heartfelt Facebook <a href="https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10158770471378371&id=5372583870">tribute</a>, Laka recalls Mokoka’s final concert with him, on May 30 this year: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Pat played some serious bassline that brought tears to my eyes. Those solid bass grooves … will ring in our ears for decades. Transit well, dear brother: you will be missed.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406093/original/file-20210614-66119-y3eoli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A township street and a blue sky; an elder man stands in the middle of the road and looks back to the camera, a guitar slung over his shoulder." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406093/original/file-20210614-66119-y3eoli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406093/original/file-20210614-66119-y3eoli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406093/original/file-20210614-66119-y3eoli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406093/original/file-20210614-66119-y3eoli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406093/original/file-20210614-66119-y3eoli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406093/original/file-20210614-66119-y3eoli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406093/original/file-20210614-66119-y3eoli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author interviewed Mokoka towards the end of his life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ihsaan Haffejee/New Frame</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We rarely consider how important the sound of the bass is to a band’s identity. Mokoka’s bass voice was one such shaping sound. Yet there are no histories recording those vital chains of community, creativity and inspiration from Dashiki to Afrika to the Malopoets to Mahlasela and Laka, that music students can consult. There is no biography of the hugely influential teacher Moloisi, mentioned by almost every Pretoria musician I have ever interviewed. </p>
<p><em>Robala ka khotso</em> (rest in peace), Patrick Mokoka. May your library of memory and creativity not have burned in vain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162655/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
His bass guitar was a shaping sound of South African jazz and of the band Malopoets, whose huge influence has been poorly documented.
Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/162231
2021-06-07T10:02:10Z
2021-06-07T10:02:10Z
The magnificent Mabi Thobejane, master South African drummer
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404661/original/file-20210606-23-18ew4un.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The late, legendary percussionist Mabi Thobejane pictured in 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">MELT 2000/Forest Jam Southern Africa</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Winter chokes the highveld in Johannesburg, South Africa, and takes from me, from our entire culture, a mighty mountain. <a href="http://www.melt2000.com/thobejane">Gabriel Mabi Segwagwa Thobejane</a>, the diminutive tower of rhythmic power, has left us: a man who did not so much play the drums, but became The Drum. </p>
<p>He <a href="https://sisgwenjazz.wordpress.com">reportedly</a> suffered a stroke at the age of 74 and <a href="http://www.dac.gov.za/content/minister-nathi-mthethwa-passing-internationally-acclaimed-sa-jazz-musician-mabi-gabriel">passed</a> on 3 June 2021. </p>
<p>Even though he was both master and a creator of South Africa’s indigenous sonic archive, Mabi, as we all came to call him, was also a showman and a collaborator. He could and would play in support of almost anyone, from jazz musicians to poets to mainstream artists. He was artistically intimidated by nothing and no one.</p>
<h2>The young Gabriel</h2>
<p>Mabi was raised in the township of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/mamelodi">Mamelodi</a> near the capital city Pretoria, where he absorbed the rural, neo-traditional, urban folk and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/pedi">Sepedi</a> jive drum and dance-song forms that commingled in the streets and backyards.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.melt2000.com/thobejane">young Gabriel</a> had no calling to blow his horn in a church and defied his mother who insisted he become a priest. Her tendency to break up his makeshift drum kits led him to hang about the tanneries and artisanal workshops, collecting materials he fashioned into high-quality hand and mallet drums for which he later became so famous. From early on, Mabi pursued whatever “arrested” (<em>bopha</em>!) him full force without equivocation or compromise. And he was to serve a life sentence in the total reinvention of the highveld’s African percussion.</p>
<p>This single-minded pursuit of a fading musical patrimony from the ancestors ran in the family. Gabriel’s uncle <a href="https://theconversation.com/philip-tabane-the-african-musical-genius-who-played-for-the-spirit-96931">Philip Thabane</a> was already doing so on the electric guitar, forming the <a href="https://herri.org.za/2/percy-mabandu/">Malombo Jazzmen</a> with flautist <a href="http://www.theorbit.co.za/abbey-cindi/">Abbey Cindi</a> and afro-percussionist <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/julian-sebothane-bahula">Julian Bahula</a> in the 1960s. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fdV39OJuTS8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Mabi Thobejane in 1995 in Johannesburg, assembled by Forest Jam Southern Africa.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Philip’s uncompromising indigenous originality led to a break-up. Before the end of the decade Abbey, Julian, guitarist <a href="https://sisgwenjazz.wordpress.com/2016/11/07/in-memoriam-lucky-madumetja-ranku-1941-2016/">Lucky Ranku</a> and mbaqanga vocalist <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/hilda-tloubatla-1942">Hilda Tloubatla</a> had reformed as the Malombo Jazz Makers. For Philip, only one young performer made the grade: Gabriel Thobejane. They went on to gain local success and world fame as the duo <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAs4bvnf8T8">Malombo</a>.</p>
<h2>The power of Malombo</h2>
<p>Given the extent of his contribution and influence, there is pitifully little written about my former bandmate Mabi. In my <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo5867457.html">book</a> <em>In Township Tonight! South Africa’s Black City Music and Theatre</em> I wrote about Malombo:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This duo revolutionised progressive indigenous music in South Africa from 1965 to 1977. Their first recording appeared in 1968, and in 1971, Philip and Gabriel travelled to the United States where they appeared at clubs and concerts around the country for two years, playing with Miles Davis, Max Roach, Pharoah Sanders, McCoy Tyner, and other first rank jazz musicians … In 1973 (they) returned home to perform for and learn from their own people in the Transvaal townships.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Malombo’s 1976 album <a href="https://www.jazzmusicarchives.com/album/malombo/pele-pele-aka-malombo"><em>Pele Pele</em></a> and their 1977 appearance at the New York Newport Jazz Festival continued to build their international reputation. Their recordings, I wrote in the book, could not hope to capture the electricity and spellbinding virtuosity of their live performances. I had the privilege of performing with Malombo as a percussionist at many of their South African appearances at the time. I <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo5867457.html">wrote</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Philip and Gabriel kept up a constant, almost competitive musical dialogue on guitar, kalimba (hand piano), flute, pennywhistle and drums. The intensity of Philip’s guitar solos and melodic poetic recitation, and Gabriel’s percussive power and dynamics with drums, dance, and ankle rattles kept black and white concertgoers alike jumping and shouting on the edges of their seats. Truly innovative creative departures in black South African music tend to create their own trends and offshoots, and this was certainly true of Malombo. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZdH-2pOgIpY?wmode=transparent&start=21" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Mabi Thobejane in Malombo, led by his uncle Philip Tabane.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mainstream bands such as Sipho Mabuse’s <a href="https://mg.co.za/friday/2021-03-20-harari-a-union-of-music-defiant-politics-and-african-pride/">Harari</a> and later <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/arts/music/obituary-ray-phiri-dead-graceland-guitarist-stimela.html">Ray Phiri</a>’s Stimela were influenced by Malombo. As were the “alternative” black consciousness ensembles that often included spoken and sung poetry that appeared in the late 1970s, such as Dashiki, led by the soon-to-be-exiled poet and artist <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/lefifi-tladi">Lefifi Tladi</a>, Thabang Masemola’s <a href="http://electricjive.blogspot.com/2010/05/batsumi-brings-sunshine.html">Batsumi</a>, and the <a href="https://www.newframe.com/malopoets-mining-seam-peoples-music/">Malopoets</a>, precursors of rappers like <a href="https://www.africasacountry.com/2014/06/when-adam-haupt-discovered-prophets-of-da-city">Prophets of Da City</a>.</p>
<h2>A musical comrade</h2>
<p>In some ways Mabi Thobejane’s great initial achievement was his ability to partner with the introverted, crusty Philip Thabane for so long. Quite the opposite, Mabi was unsurpassed as a joyful jester and musical comrade. He loved and accepted his unpredictable fellow musos. I witnessed many a musical showdown between Thabane and Thobejane on stage. After a difficult return tour to the US in 1977, they went their separate ways. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404643/original/file-20210606-28272-dvvls9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404643/original/file-20210606-28272-dvvls9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404643/original/file-20210606-28272-dvvls9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404643/original/file-20210606-28272-dvvls9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404643/original/file-20210606-28272-dvvls9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404643/original/file-20210606-28272-dvvls9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404643/original/file-20210606-28272-dvvls9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404643/original/file-20210606-28272-dvvls9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author (left) performing with Malombo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy David Coplan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the 1990s Mabi had started to find an outlet for the sounds that had stayed with him from the Bronx. He continued being involved in some of the most exciting collaborations – with bassist <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/sipho-gumede">Sipho Gumede</a> and saxophonist <a href="http://www.theorbit.co.za/khaya-mahlangu/">Khaya Mahlangu</a>, guitar master <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-12-14-00-madala-and-mabi-its-a-thing-that-spans-half-a-century/">Madala Kunene</a>, percussionists <a href="http://www.music.org.za/artist.asp?id=56">Amampondo</a>. For a decade he toured and <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/1997-08-08-thobejane-in-a-trance/">haunted</a> the electronic, eclectic studio sessions with UK act <a href="https://twitter.com/JunoReactor?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Juno Reactor</a>, who released the legendary acoustic/electronic percussive remixes of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Crg_pMUBgIs"><em>Conga Fury</em></a>.</p>
<h2>Artist and showman</h2>
<p>Mabi was as much a showman and a performance event as he was a musician. He not only built his own drums, but created his own costumes of beads, antelope and cattle hides and distinctive body paint. Characteristically he would perform stripped to the waist, his face painted half chalk white and half charcoal black, his compact brown torso covered in white spots like a reverse-image leopard. His intention was to conquer his musical world as a drum guerrilla representing himself and his deeper Tshwane origins, without hybridity, without borrowing. And in that guise, what a lender and a collaborator he turned out to be. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-F9uJfVS6zM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A 2004 recording by the record company MELT 2000.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a proper <em>morena oa lefatse</em> (king of the earth), Gabriel Mabi Thobejane revealed the inner character of the people of the land in both musical expression and force of personality. He entered so many of our lives in unique modalities that enriched our worlds forever. I cannot do better, before returning to shocked silence at his passing, than to share a new poem by the musical commentator and scholar <a href="https://sala.org.za/sam-mathe/">Sam Mathe</a>. In <em>For Gabriel Mabi Segwagwa Thobejane</em> Mathe refers to Mabi as <em>segwagwa</em>, the frog, the creature he physically resembled that became Philip Thabane’s musical praise name for him:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Segwagwa</p>
<p>The bullfrog that croaks in the streams </p>
<p>and lagoons inhabited by ancestral spirits </p>
<p>the elusive amphibian that greets springs </p>
<p>with the gravel voice and tone of a groaner </p>
<p>Segwagwa </p>
<p>The showman with deft magical hands </p>
<p>whose rumbles are like a distant thunder </p>
<p>The shaman who plays healing sounds </p>
<p>on baobab drums crafted by the gods </p>
<p>Segwagwa </p>
<p>In the south the cold season is upon us </p>
<p>the rains are gone, rivers have dried up </p>
<p>it is time for you to go into hibernation </p>
<p>farewell grandmaster of the percussion </p>
<p>Till we meet again when the rainclouds gather</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162231/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Coplan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
He did not so much play the drums, as become the drum. His influence was felt through his trailblazing percussive work and his many collaborations.
David Coplan, Professor Emeritus, Social Anthropology, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/160570
2021-05-08T11:09:45Z
2021-05-08T11:09:45Z
Remembering Zim Ngqawana 10 years on, a singular force in South African music
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399459/original/file-20210507-23-14h0f77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Zim Ngqawana (1959-2011) on saxophone leading his Zimology Quartet in New York, 2008.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Zimasile ‘Zim’ Ngqawana, <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2011-05-10-jazz-genius-zim-ngqawana-dies-at-52/">died</a> unexpectedly and too soon – on 10 May 2011 at the age of 51 – leaving bereft a family and a musical community that spanned the globe. </p>
<p>A flautist and saxophonist, composer and teacher, Ngqawana was born in New Brighton township in then Port Elizabeth, South Africa. After a university music education he became known on the jazz and dance theatre scenes. It was Ngqawana who was chosen to present music – a 100-piece ensemble – at the inauguration of president Nelson Mandela in 1994. He released his debut studio album, <em><a href="https://www.discogs.com/San-San-Song/release/1510503">San Song</a></em>, in 1996. He would tour the world with his band Ingoma and work with the likes of <a href="https://wyntonmarsalis.org/about/bio">Wynton Marsalis</a>, <a href="https://abdullahibrahim.co.za/biography/">Abdullah Ibrahim</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/remembering-hugh-masekela-the-horn-player-with-a-shrewd-ear-for-music-of-the-day-86414">Hugh Masekela</a>, in turn mentoring a new generation of South African musicians. He later established a school, the Zimology Institute.</p>
<p>Ngqawana’s <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/zimasile-ngqawana">biography</a> and his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jul/06/zim-ngqawana-obituary">achievements</a> are well known. </p>
<p>Recalling him on the 10th anniversary of his death is to remember how a South African jazz musician’s life and death, in a country that generally treats the arts – and especially jazz – as an inconvenience outside of Heritage Day, could resonate so widely.</p>
<p>Ngqawana’s sound – indebted to <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/xhosa">Xhosa</a> traditional musical, western art music and jazz – fills the silence that destruction leaves. Committed to <a href="http://www.mahala.co.za/culture/i-sing-with-a-sword-in-my-hand/">creativity as healing</a>, Ngqawana’s legacy continues long after his death. </p>
<h2>A long line of saxophonists</h2>
<p>In the mid-1800s, Belgium’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Antoine-Joseph-Sax">Adolphe Saxe</a> invented a strange instrument made of brass but which, because of how it produces sound, is classified as a woodwind instrument: the saxophone. </p>
<p>The hybrid instrument was adopted by jazz, a genre that has always embraced hybridity. For jazz scholar Chris Merz, the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44651147?seq=1">saxophone in South African jazz</a> became prominent from the 1930s, part of the American Swing craze. </p>
<p>The 1950s saw the global decline of big bands and rise of smaller jazz combos. So began the reign of the alto saxophone in South African jazz, despite some growling intrusions from tenor saxophonists like <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/winston-monwabisi-ngozi">Winston Mankunku</a>. This is why South African jazz can speak of <a href="https://digitalcollections.lib.uct.ac.za/collection/islandora-7441">Ntemi Piliso</a>, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/kippie-jeremiah-moeketsi">Kippie Moeketsi</a>, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/benni-gwigwi-mrwebi">Gwigwi Mrwebi</a>, <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2014-08-22-00-barney-rachabane-the-little-giant-of-jazz/">Barney Rachabane</a>, <a href="https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-2000629700">Duke Makasi</a>, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/robert-edward-jansen">Robbie Jansen</a> and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mtutuzeli-dudu-pukwana">Dudu Pukwana</a> to name but a few.</p>
<p>It is also why it can speak of Zim Ngqawana.</p>
<h2>A self-made brand</h2>
<p>We may consider Ngqawana as a ‘self-made’ brand. Through his creations like Zimphonic Suites, Vadzimu, Zimology, Aphorizims, Zimphony Orchestra and the Zimology Institute, he crafted his own public persona in such a way that the culture industry had to follow rather than shape it for him. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gMd_DyhyfyA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Ngqawana’s making of the self was playful, but not superficial. He also resisted the label “jazz”, which he <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44651147?seq=1">considered</a> at once “too limiting and too all-encompassing”. Confronting the controversial view that there is no word for “music” in African languages, he correctly grasped that this is because, historically, music in Africa was part of life’s sacred and profane rituals. It was <em>ingoma</em> (the drums). In his sleeve notes for the 1999 album <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Zim-Ngqawana-Ingoma/release/12314662"><em>Ingoma</em></a> he wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ingoma is a tour de force of committed conscious kultur warriors, blowing a national clarion to draw the concerned listener’s attention to the fire that is engulfing our house as a nation in a state of emergency.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Antiquity and modernity</h2>
<p>The call for commitment of the artist as cultural worker and warrior, and for the recognition that people’s lives could and must improve, suggests why Ngqawana is important for those who insist on the transformation of our society and refuse to relegate African cultural knowledge systems to the dustbin of the past. </p>
<p>He wrote in 2001’s <em><a href="https://www.discogs.com/Zim-Ngqawana-Zimphonic-Suites/release/7732801">Zimphonic Suites</a></em>, that it’s all about “harmony between antiquity and modernity”.</p>
<p>For Ngqawana, this clarion should be heard and acknowledged by all. This explains his visibility on South African TV in the 1990s (especially with the hit <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMd_DyhyfyA">Qula Kwedini</a></em>) and his ubiquity on the airwaves and the live scene and, most importantly, as a teacher. </p>
<h2>Meeting Zim</h2>
<p>I (Lindelwa Dalamba) first met Ngqawana when was invited to Rhodes University, where he had studied. As a student I was privy to a jazz workshop he held. It was an odd, discomforting jam session. </p>
<p>Ngqawana made us play endless rounds of the standard <em>Stella by Starlight</em>, pushing us to the limits of our tolerance of its melody, chord changes and prior interpretations. That’s the point: to push through the given script until you find yourself on the other side. That used to be the point of jazz.</p>
<p>But my most important encounter was when I ran into him at the University of KwaZulu-Natal as a postgraduate student. Avuncular as ever, he declared his pleasure that those he had known as youngsters were continuing to blow the clarion. </p>
<p>When I said I was no longer blowing the saxophone, now determined to be a jazz musicologist, he promptly went to his office and returned with a copy of every single one of his albums, along with a copy of Amiri Baraka’s <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/ablogsupreme/2013/07/26/205541225/black-history-meets-black-music-blues-people-at-50"><em>Blues People: Negro Music in White America</em></a>. This generosity was an assertion of community, possibly the only impulse that has assured jazz’s endurance in this country. The gift is my <em>memento mori</em>: Ngqawana’s mortality, beyond death and vandalism, continues to inspire and to teach.</p>
<h2>The moment of annihilation</h2>
<p>Indeed, in 2010 Ngqawana’s studio was <a href="https://herri.org.za/4/stephanie-vos/">vandalised</a> by scrap metal thieves. To gouge the metal from the grand piano’s legs, it was turned on its side. Windows, the toilet and light fittings were broken. A saxophone was smashed.</p>
<p>At the moment of annihilation, perhaps, our true voice is heard – we scream, sing, respond. In improvising its hesitant future, the artist’s voice is born; informed by all it has ever been and seen. The sound bears witness, exhaled into the impassive air. </p>
<p>“This vandalism,” says Ngqawana in <em>The Exhibition of Vandalizim</em>, a <a href="https://vimeo.com/108982799">documentary</a> created by African Noise Foundation, “shows the extent of what has happened to them … A vandalism of the soul, vandalism of the heart, vandalism of the mind.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/108982799" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">African Noise Foundation’s documentary.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Committed to creativity as healing, Ngqawana left an extensive archive of published and unpublished music. It is important, therefore, that 10 May 2021 also marks the resurrection of the Zimology Institute, the project he initiated as a holding space for his philosophy and music. </p>
<h2>Principles of poetics</h2>
<p>His legacy is also one of poetics, the principles – conscious or intuitive and understood in retrospect – by which the artist articulates their style. In the film, a stubbornly resilient Ngqawana sits in the rubble left by the vandals and plays a percussive solo on the broken cistern. “We are condemned … to move into the unknown,” he says. Moving beyond the palpable pain in seeing his instruments and studio destroyed, he insists that the vandals are victims of the barbarism of colonisation. He makes art of the carnage. In filmmaker and writer Aryan Kaganof’s film <a href="https://vimeo.com/108933925"><em>Legacy</em></a> he stresses Ngqawana’s interest in the conscience.</p>
<p>Conscience and consciousness formed themselves through artistic discourse in the 1970s and 1980s, where culture was an inextricable aspect of, and outlet for, the political in music. Ngqawana always went beyond the political postures and personalities of the day, cutting through to the meaning of human events and their impact on the experience of freedom.</p>
<p>For us, Ngqawana’s enduring lesson is how art is able to contain, in its creation, its negation: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The true purpose of great music should lead us to silence … from sound to silence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Qula Kwedini</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160570/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lindelwa Dalamba receives funding from the National Research Foundation (Thuthuka).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phillippa Yaa de Villiers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Despite devastating setbacks like his studio being vandalised, the saxophonist and teacher believed that music can heal - part of a vision that shaped a future generation of jazz artists.
Lindelwa Dalamba, Music lecturer, University of the Witwatersrand
Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, Poet and lecturer in Creative Writing, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/159343
2021-04-22T04:30:39Z
2021-04-22T04:30:39Z
Like a jackal in wolf’s clothing: the Tasmanian tiger was no wolfish predator — it hunted small prey
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396409/original/file-20210421-17-sohn8m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=81%2C0%2C1441%2C773&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The thylacine (<em>Thylacinus cynocephalus</em>), commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger, is an Aussie icon. It was the largest historical marsupial predator and a powerful example of human-caused extinction. And despite being extinct <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/extinction-of-thylacine">since 1936</a>, it still gets featured in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/10/science/thylacines-tasmanian-tigers-sightings.html">popular media</a>.</p>
<p>Yet much is still unknown about the thylacine, as its extinction left us with almost no direct observational data. Several mysteries remain regarding its specific ecology, including the question of how wolf-like it was. </p>
<p>In a new study published in <a href="https://bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12862-021-01788-8">BMC Ecology & Evolution</a>, my colleagues and I tackle this question. We show the thylacine was indeed similar to canids, a family which includes dogs, wolves and foxes. </p>
<p>But more specifically, it was similar to those canids which evolved to hunt small animals — as opposed to the wolf (<em>Canis lupus</em>) or wild dog/dingo (<em>Canis lupus dingo</em>), which are large-prey specialists. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-tasmanian-tiger-was-hunted-to-extinction-as-a-large-predator-but-it-was-only-half-as-heavy-as-we-thought-144599">The Tasmanian tiger was hunted to extinction as a 'large predator' – but it was only half as heavy as we thought</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Moulded by our environments</h2>
<p>When European colonisers first saw the thylacine, they noted its wolf-like appearance and judged it based on that assumption: like the wolf, it would pose a threat to their livestock.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395987/original/file-20210420-17-4hmty5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395987/original/file-20210420-17-4hmty5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395987/original/file-20210420-17-4hmty5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395987/original/file-20210420-17-4hmty5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395987/original/file-20210420-17-4hmty5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395987/original/file-20210420-17-4hmty5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395987/original/file-20210420-17-4hmty5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395987/original/file-20210420-17-4hmty5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The thylacine and its canid comparatives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thylacine photo by E.J.K. Baker and colourised by D.S. Rovinsky; wolf photo by Neil Herbert; dingo photo by Jarrod Amoore.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This superficially wolf-like appearance has been taken to mean the thylacine is a textbook example of convergent evolution: where two unrelated animals evolve similar traits in response to similar pressures. The similarities are so striking it’s even sometimes called the “marsupial wolf”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Swordfish, extinct dolphin and ichthyosaur." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395989/original/file-20210420-23-6oajrw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395989/original/file-20210420-23-6oajrw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395989/original/file-20210420-23-6oajrw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395989/original/file-20210420-23-6oajrw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395989/original/file-20210420-23-6oajrw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395989/original/file-20210420-23-6oajrw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395989/original/file-20210420-23-6oajrw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Although <em>Eurhinosaurus</em> (bottom) is a reptile and <em>Eurhinodelphis</em> (middle) is a mammal, both are strikingly convergent with the modern swordfish. Thus, we can infer a great deal about their ecology.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">D.S. Rovinsky</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Studying convergent evolution is a promising way for scientists to infer the behaviour and ecology of extinct animals that can’t be directly observed. Ecology is the study of how species interact with their physical surroundings. So, if an extinct animal shares a similar shape with one living today, we can assume they probably filled a similar ecological niche.</p>
<p>Since the thylacine’s ecology is uncertain, comparisons with comparable species are one of the only ways to understand it. And it’s wolf-like appearance at face value has led to the thylacine and its ecology being assumed similar to that of the grey wolf and its closest relatives, such as the dingo.</p>
<p>But what if that was wrong?</p>
<h2>Getting into the right headspace</h2>
<p>We decided to put this assumption of ecological similarity to the test. To do so we needed a wide range of ecologically meaningful animals to compare with the thylacine. After all, even though the thylacine was a marsupial (like a koala) it’s fair to say it wasn’t hanging out in trees munching on eucalyptus! </p>
<p>Using hand-held 3D scanners, we scanned hundreds of skulls from 56 different species of carnivorous mammals, with specimens obtained from more than a dozen museums around the world. This enabled us to build a skull “shapespace” to then see where the thylacine would fit among the others.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395990/original/file-20210420-15-4p63dz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Evolutionary tree of comparative species" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395990/original/file-20210420-15-4p63dz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395990/original/file-20210420-15-4p63dz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395990/original/file-20210420-15-4p63dz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395990/original/file-20210420-15-4p63dz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395990/original/file-20210420-15-4p63dz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395990/original/file-20210420-15-4p63dz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395990/original/file-20210420-15-4p63dz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A broad selection of ecologically-meaningful species, shown on this wheel-shaped evolutionary tree, were selected to compare to the thylacine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">D.S. Rovinsky</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We looked for evidence of convergent evolution by observing which of the other carnivorous mammals’ skulls were shaped most like the thylacine’s. </p>
<h2>A case of mistaken identity</h2>
<p>It turns out the skull shape of the thylacine is significantly convergent with that of some canids, but not with the usual suspects. We found no meaningful level of convergence with either the grey wolf or the dingo, and only a small degree with the red fox. </p>
<p>What we did find, however, was strong support for convergent evolution between the skulls of the thylacine and another rag-tag group of canids: African jackals and South American “foxes” (which aren’t actually foxes). Ecologically, these canids are vastly different from the wolf and dingo. Also, unlike the wolf, they specialise in hunting small prey.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395994/original/file-20210420-15-934ote.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Skulls showing difference between wolf, thylacine and small prey-hunting dogs" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395994/original/file-20210420-15-934ote.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395994/original/file-20210420-15-934ote.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395994/original/file-20210420-15-934ote.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395994/original/file-20210420-15-934ote.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395994/original/file-20210420-15-934ote.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395994/original/file-20210420-15-934ote.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395994/original/file-20210420-15-934ote.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The wolf skull on the left is more different (shown by colour) to the thylacine skull than the skull in the middle, which is the average skull shape of the significantly convergent canids. White areas are more similar to the thylacine skull, while blue and red respectively show constriction or expansion. The difference is especially strong in the facial area, where the biting happens!</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">D.S. Rovinsky</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This brings us back to one of the more powerful uses of studying convergent evolution: the ability to infer the ecology of an extinct animal. Since the thylacine’s skull shape was more similar to that of the African jackals and South American “foxes” than the wolf, it likely shared a similar ecological niche with the former.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395995/original/file-20210420-23-uee4be.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Group of delicate-faced dogs, looking like the thylacine." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395995/original/file-20210420-23-uee4be.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395995/original/file-20210420-23-uee4be.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395995/original/file-20210420-23-uee4be.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395995/original/file-20210420-23-uee4be.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395995/original/file-20210420-23-uee4be.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395995/original/file-20210420-23-uee4be.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395995/original/file-20210420-23-uee4be.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The canids most like the thylacine are all small-prey hunters with relatively delicate faces — not robust big-biters like the wolf or dingo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">D.S. Rovinsky</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Therefore, the thylacine probably also <a href="https://theconversation.com/thylacine-misrepresented-no-jaws-for-alarm-3181">preferred hunting relatively small prey</a> such as pademelons, bettongs, bandicoots and young wallabies.</p>
<p>Interestingly, however, one of the most striking findings was that the thylacine did not actually overlap with any of the other predators, canid or otherwise. While it was <em>similar</em> to some canids, it was not identical. This highlights that even our more precise analysis may paint the thylacine with too broad a brush.</p>
<h2>Judged by appearance</h2>
<p>The thylacine was hunted to extinction for its wolf-like appearance. This reaction, like most based on first glance, was devastatingly wrong. Although the thylacine turns out to not be very wolf-like, it’s still a wonderful example of convergent evolution. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-did-the-tasmanian-tiger-go-extinct-11324">Why did the Tasmanian tiger go extinct?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Then again, it truly was different enough from other carnivorous mammals that we still can’t say we precisely understand its ecological niche. When we lost the thylacine, we lost something truly unique for its time. </p>
<p>Our understanding of the thylacine is, even now, that of a faded and blurry snapshot. Perhaps, with more research in the coming years, we can make it a little more clear.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159343/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alistair Evans receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Monash University, and is an Honorary Research Affiliate with Museums Victoria.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin W. Adams receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Monash University, and is an Honorary Research Affiliate with Museums Victoria.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Douglass S Rovinsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Tasmanian tiger’s superficial appearance was so similar to a wolf’s that European colonisers assumed it was a threat and hunted it to extinction.
Douglass S Rovinsky, Associate research scientist, Monash University
Alistair Evans, Associate Professor, Monash University
Justin W. Adams, Senior Lecturer, Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, Monash University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/154648
2021-02-08T14:17:25Z
2021-02-08T14:17:25Z
The deep humanity of Sibongile Khumalo, South Africa’s iconic vocalist – and mentor
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382725/original/file-20210205-21-63mf3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sibongile Khumalo performing in London in 2009.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brigitte Engl/Redferns</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When icons pass on, the default is to memorialise them based on the merits of what they did, as opposed to the gift of who they were as human beings. </p>
<p>In an unconscious assumption that their work defined who they were, their greatness is measured more by the prestige of their accomplishments and public status and less on how their very existence touched the lives of those around them. </p>
<p>While this may be appropriate and to an extent necessary, I believe that the death of a person augments the scope of memory. Its sting of finality provides an opportunity for deeper reflection where the central focus should become an individual’s character: who they really were in relation to their immediate community. </p>
<p>In this article, I attempt to illustrate the impact Mam’ <a href="https://theconversation.com/sibongile-khumalo-the-transformative-singer-who-built-an-archive-of-south-african-classics-154484">Sibongile Khumalo</a> had not only on me, but the South African art community at large. She was our matriarch and I affectionately called her “Mother”. My close relationship with her places me in a unique position to reflect on who she was, off the stage. </p>
<h2>All about the collective</h2>
<p>We both were singers but we seldom spoke about music and we certainly never shared tips on vocal technique or repertoire and such. Everything I needed to learn from her craft was embedded in her records, which I studied diligently throughout my early scholarly and professional years. </p>
<p>Ours was a relationship anchored in what I’ve come to identify as “personhood”. Nigerian poet and scholar of African philosophy, <a href="https://science.jrank.org/pages/8771/Communitarianism-in-African-Thought-Menkiti-on-Communitarianism.html">Ifeanyi Menkiti</a>, <a href="http://www2.southeastern.edu/Academics/Faculty/mrossano/gradseminar/evo%20of%20ritual/african%20traditional%20thought.pdf">encapsulates</a> this sentiment beautifully: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>As far as African societies are concerned, personhood is something at which individuals could fail, at which they could be competent or ineffective, better or worse.</p>
<p>Hence, the African emphasised the rituals of incorporation and the overarching necessity of learning the social rules by which the community lives, so that what was initially biologically given can come to attain social self-hood, i.e., become a person with all the inbuilt excellencies implied by the term. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is the prism through which I choose to memorialise Sibongile Khumalo. Her legacy defied the universally adopted Western interpretation of personhood characterised by individuality. She was all about the collective.</p>
<h2>A gift beyond music</h2>
<p>Sibongile was the embodiment of African personhood. She always possessed an awareness of those around her. She had a ritualistic approach to everything she did, steeped in traditional practices and ancestry. Hers was a gift beyond music. </p>
<p>One of the traits that stood out the most for me was how she could create an environment where we as young artists could gather in her presence and, in that moment, feel like siblings. Whether at jazz festivals or industry events, we’d congregate around her in the common pursuit of absorbing her wisdom. Who could possibly forget her boisterous laughter that echoed through every room she occupied? </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382948/original/file-20210208-15-6ux5gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two women smiling into a camera, one in glasses and the other, eyes closed in a mustard blouse with leopard print scarf, looking happy and bonded." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382948/original/file-20210208-15-6ux5gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382948/original/file-20210208-15-6ux5gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382948/original/file-20210208-15-6ux5gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382948/original/file-20210208-15-6ux5gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382948/original/file-20210208-15-6ux5gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382948/original/file-20210208-15-6ux5gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382948/original/file-20210208-15-6ux5gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author, left, takes a selfie with Sibongile Khumalo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nomfundo Xaluva</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She was the glue that bound us together as artists navigating the volatile terrain of the music industry. </p>
<p>A staunch disciplinarian, Mam’ Sibongile would correct you without diminishing you. Her reprimand was an act of love. I always walked away from her feeling heard and seen. I remember a rehearsal in 2014 with her, <a href="http://www.gloriabosman.co.za/gloriabosman_about.html">Gloria Bosman</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Mimi-Mtshali-274880455273/?ref=page_internal">Mimi Mtshali</a> for a concert to celebrate the legacy of her parents, <a href="http://www.unizulu.ac.za/unizulu-celebrating-the-legendary-musical-icon-professor-khabi-mngoma/">Khabi</a> and Grace Mngoma. Let’s just say my intonation left much to be desired. She rendered me a look that tacitly implied, “You have work to do.” And rightfully so. I buried myself in practising so that I could arrive vocally fitter at the next rehearsal. </p>
<p>She had a way of allaying insecurities which often plague vocalists to the point of performance paralysis, especially in front of an audience of peers. She understood these dynamics and treated them with such sensitivity that one had no choice but to surrender to her teachings. As the saying goes, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”</p>
<h2>Conviction and transformation</h2>
<p>Sibongile was passionate and serious about the development of young black women beyond the parameters of the stage. </p>
<p>She recognised the contemporary value that young voices can contribute to spaces of influence in the broader arts community. As such, I had the privilege of serving with her on the Southern African Music Rights Organisation <a href="https://www.samrofoundation.org.za">Foundation</a> board. I was the youngest member, inducted at 32. Two years into my four-year term, Sibongile nominated me for vice chair of the board. In that moment, I knew from the look on her face that declining the nomination was not an option. I held the <a href="https://www.samrofoundation.org.za/blog/2020-04-28-winds-of-change-at-the-samro-foundation">position</a> for the remaining two years. </p>
<p>Sibongile would speak at length about the slow progress of transformation in academia and in the music industry. Never one to shy away from difficult conversations, she spoke her mind, inhabiting an undisturbed conviction on matters close to her heart – and people listened. Naturally, there were issues in the industry that brought her great discomfort, but never once did she relinquish her dignity and bright smile.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382729/original/file-20210205-17-1kkej8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Four women on stage, two backing singers - who a woman instructs using a hand gesture and an elder woman foregrounded, singing into a microphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382729/original/file-20210205-17-1kkej8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382729/original/file-20210205-17-1kkej8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382729/original/file-20210205-17-1kkej8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382729/original/file-20210205-17-1kkej8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382729/original/file-20210205-17-1kkej8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382729/original/file-20210205-17-1kkej8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382729/original/file-20210205-17-1kkej8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sibongile Khumalo, right, shares a stage with Abigail Kubeka at a memorial for jazz legend Dorothy Masuka in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Oupa Bopape/Gallo Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Human dignity</h2>
<p>We had some of our richest conversations in the most obscure places, like parking lots, dressing rooms and my favourite space, the basement of her home on a couch next to her black grand piano. Most of the time, I would do the talking and she would sit and listen, not to respond but simply to offer an ear which was more generous and valuable than any form of advice. She always knew that at the end of my venting, I would arrive at my own solution. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sibongile-khumalo-the-transformative-singer-who-built-an-archive-of-south-african-classics-154484">Sibongile Khumalo, the transformative singer who built an archive of South African classics</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>As a <a href="http://www.theorbit.co.za/nomfundo-xaluva/">jazz musician</a>, I understand why Sibongile was so adept in this musical idiom. Jazz in an African context represents the collective voices of freedom, unity and emancipation. It is not a ‘one man music’ but rather an art form premised on communal synergies, driven by a desire to express identity, cohesion, human dignity and respect. It is my fervent belief that it was her personhood that sat at the belly of her artistry. </p>
<p>She was not by any means bigger than her craft, she was more than it. She was indisputably good at what she did but, more importantly, she was <em>good</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154648/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nomfundo Xaluva does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
She was the glue that bound younger artists together, helping them navigate the volatile terrain of the music industry.
Nomfundo Xaluva, Lecturer, South African College of Music, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/154484
2021-02-03T14:40:04Z
2021-02-03T14:40:04Z
Sibongile Khumalo, the transformative singer who built an archive of South African classics
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382425/original/file-20210204-22-1eyn2y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sibongile Khumalo performing in New York, 2007.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hiroyuki Ito/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African singer Sibongile Khumalo (1957-2021) was born into a dynasty of musicians. Her grandfather was a <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-11-02-00-tune-in-to-the-wails-of-maskandi/">maskandi</a> artist. This is a popular form derived from indigenous Zulu music created by migrant labourers, mostly accompanied by an acoustic guitar. Her <a href="https://www.ru.ac.za/media/rhodesuniversity/content/ruhome/documents/Ms_Sibongile_Khumalo-Rhodes_09_Grad_Address.pdf">father</a>, <a href="http://www.unizulu.ac.za/unizulu-celebrating-the-legendary-musical-icon-professor-khabi-mngoma/">Khabi Mngoma</a>, was a classical musician, a community builder in Soweto and, ultimately, a music professor at the University of Zululand. </p>
<p>Undoubtedly, it was her mother, Grace Mngoma, who bestowed her with her warm <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/mezzo-soprano">mezzo-soprano/alto</a> voice. In <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/life-and-work-of-khabi-mngoma/oclc/664566793">numerous</a> <a href="https://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za/handle/10413/8870">sources</a>, including writer and activist <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/eskia-mphahlele">Es’kia Mpahlele</a>’s memoir <em><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/311029/down-second-avenue-by-eskia-mphahlele/">Down Second Avenue</a></em>, Grace is mentioned as an alto soloist in productions of Handel’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Messiah-oratorio-by-Handel"><em>Messiah</em></a> that her husband Khabi organised and hosted in Soweto and Johannesburg as far back as the late 1950s. </p>
<p>Sibongile’s brother Lindumuzi, part of the <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=_fwkCIKoTpgC&pg=PA115&lpg=PA115&dq=Khabi+Mngoma+Ionian+Male+Singers&source=bl&ots=NIKcu2yR3o&sig=ACfU3U0mrbqnR1vwoDe2xbapZEfHYvW7PA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj9l8_UtsHuAhUHTRUIHQk-CL0Q6AEwEnoECBEQAg#v=onepage&q=Khabi%20Mngoma%20Ionian%20Male%20Singers&f=false">Ionian Male Choir</a>, plays the cello; her niece <a href="http://www.theorbit.co.za/sibongile-mngoma/">Sibongile Mngoma</a> is a versatile jazz and opera artist. Her son is a violinist, while her daughter sings. Outside the family circle, Sibongile’s earliest choral encounters were in Emily Motsieloa’s Tiny Tots children’s choir. </p>
<p>Notably, then, hers was a talent also nurtured by women musicians at a time when this was unthinkable in <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> South Africa. I suggest that it is from this female-centred environment that Sibongile particularly looked out and was always encouraging to young female singers charting their way in the world of opera performance.</p>
<p>It is through her activities in choral music and opera that I particularly wish to celebrate her life and contribution.</p>
<h2>Choral traditions</h2>
<p>Her involvement in choral activities did not decline as an adult. The Ford Choirs competition (now the <a href="https://www.oldmutual.co.za/about/sponsorships/music/national-choir-festival">Old Mutual National Choir Festival</a>) is one of the spaces Sibongile illustriously participated in. This is a competition for community choirs established in 1977 and given direction and shape by her father Khabi. Incidentally, her nephew, Bandile Mngoma, is in the marketing team of the competition through his work at Old Mutual. In the early 1980s she sang with the accomplished Soweto-based <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ImilonjiKaNtuChoralSociety/">Imilonji ka Ntu</a> choral society. Her memorable performances include a 1983 win as part of a double quartet/octet.</p>
<p>Through her involvement in community choirs one can surmise that Sibongile’s close familiarity with the broad range of the South African Black choral repertoire led to her inclusion of classics such as John Knox Bokwe’s <em><a href="https://samap.ukzn.ac.za/plea-africa-southern-african">Plea for Africa</a></em>, Joshua Pulumo Mohapeloa’s <em><a href="https://african-composers-edition.co.za/work/u-ea-kae/">U Ea Kae/Where are you going</a></em>, Michael Moerane’s <em><a href="https://african-composers-edition.co.za/work/della/">Della</a></em> and B.P.J. Tyamzashe’s <em><a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/7CElnCUWqK1cD4ikR4zNOn?highlight=spotify:track:1b2HuAveAQPrta1zlOWqWf">Isithandwa Sam/My Beloved</a></em> to her discography. Even Professor Mzilikazi Khumalo’s first composition <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3--4QQooh24">Ma Ngificwa Ukufa/On My Demise</a></em> gets a brief appearance as part of a medley. </p>
<h2><em>UShaka</em> and Mzilikazi Khumalo</h2>
<p>Though no relation, Sibongile’s collaboration with legendary South African composer and academic <a href="https://www.samroscores.org.za/composer/james-stephen-mzilikazi-khumalo/">Mzilikazi Khumalo</a> is worth dwelling on here. It was in his secular cantanta <em><a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/mzilikazi-khumalos-ushaka/oclc/660129889">UShaka</a></em> that her voice gave the nation and the world a glimpse of the possibilities for classical singing in local vernaculars. </p>
<p>This pioneering work premiered in 1996 with a live broadcast on South Africa’s public broadcaster, SABC TV, and was subsequently recorded in 1997. Community choirs provided the chorus, accompanied by the South African National Symphony Orchestra. Sibongile went on to perform in this work in Europe in 2004 and the USA in 2006.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382426/original/file-20210204-12-pgcr8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Wide shot. A woman dressed in purple, her hair covered by a traditional cloth and wearing glasses, sings into a mic as she reads music that she holds. Opposite her is a conductor in a spotlight and between them an ensemble of classical musicians." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382426/original/file-20210204-12-pgcr8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382426/original/file-20210204-12-pgcr8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382426/original/file-20210204-12-pgcr8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382426/original/file-20210204-12-pgcr8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382426/original/file-20210204-12-pgcr8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382426/original/file-20210204-12-pgcr8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382426/original/file-20210204-12-pgcr8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Khumalo performing Philip Miller’s REwind: A Cantata for Voice, Tape and Testimony based on accounts before South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hiroyuki Ito/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The songs of Princess Magogo</h2>
<p>Two related outcomes emerged from <em>UShaka</em>, I suggest. The first was the desire of Prof Khumalo, the composer, to have the songs of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/princess-magogo">Princess Magogo KaDinizulu</a> – Zulu princess, poet and composer – adapted for art singing and delivered by Sibongile. To this end, in 2000, he completed the song cycle <em><a href="https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=C4xMigbLKME&list=OLAK5uy_mQY8b-YtxiXnImDO2_jiehGD4YR1H_Cr8">Haya Mntwan’ Omkhulu/Sing Great Princess</a></em> consisting of eight songs of Princess Magogo. The South African Music Rights <a href="https://www.samro.org.za">Organisation</a> appointed composer <a href="http://www.sacm.uct.ac.za/sacm/staff/fulltime/eProfessors/PeterKlatzow">Peter Klatzow</a> to set the music and provide orchestral accompaniment. </p>
<p>This work was particularly revolutionary and transformative. It overhauled the ways of approaching how vocal music was taught in South Africa’s academies over the years. Gradually, there emerged a body of art songs in local languages, telling local stories and revealing the sheer beauty of vernacular poetry. In 2002 <a href="https://www.facebook.com/operaafricapage/">Opera Africa</a> commissioned Prof Khumalo to compose an opera on the story of Princess Magogo. Sibongile featured as the lead. Her performance drew <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/07/arts/opera-review-varied-cultures-entwine-around-a-zulu-princess.html">critical acclaim</a> locally and abroad.</p>
<h2>Contemporary classics</h2>
<p>While Sibongile performed numerous operatic roles with great flair, it is her pioneering work singing South African compositions that I particularly wish to highlight. Her appearance in composer <a href="https://www.philipmiller.co.za">Philip Miller</a>’s 2007 work <em><a href="https://gaudino.williams.edu/past-programming/rewind-a-cantata-for-voice-tape-and-testimony/">REwind</a>: A Cantata for Voice, Tape & Testimony</em>, the libretto of which is created from testimonies before South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/trc/">Commission</a>, was remarkably poignant and relevant. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/remembering-sibongile-khumalo-south-africas-divine-diva-154303">Remembering Sibongile Khumalo, South Africa's divine diva</a>
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<p>Composer and academic <a href="http://www.ndodanabreen.com">Bongani Ndodana-Breen</a>’s 2013 <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2013-07-19-00-idealistic-credo-based-on-spirit-of-the-charter/"><em>Credo</em></a> is crafted from the idealism of the <a href="https://scnc.ukzn.ac.za/doc/hist/freedomchart/freedomch.html">Freedom Charter</a>. This 1955 document contains the principles of freedom and equality that were a driving force in South Africa’s struggle for freedom, finally realised in 1994 with the advent of democracy. As can be expected, not only did Sibongile deliver with aplomb, she embodied these ideals with her mark of experience having lived through apartheid and championed freedom and democracy throughout her adult life through performance and education.</p>
<h2>A prophetic aura</h2>
<p>Thus, in a markedly feminist, decolonial and profoundly transformative way, Sibongile’s voice and persona hold significance in the history of choral and art music in South Africa, especially in the post-apartheid dispensation. </p>
<p>During the Caltex-Sowetan Nation Building massed choir festivals she was a torch bearer and significantly influenced a generation of young people, especially women, to take up opera and classical singing as a career. Young artists and students emulated her example and added into their repertoires some of the songs from <em>Haya Mntwan’ Omkhulu</em> and the arias from the opera <em>Princess Magogo</em>. </p>
<p>Her performances, her stature and of course her classical vocal training helped democratise South African opera, which had been largely far removed from the realities of Black South Africans.</p>
<p>Perhaps, akin to Princess Magogo, there was a strong sense of a prophetic aura in her work. It is hard to imagine her no longer living amongst us, but the “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/01/arts/music/sibongile-khumalo-dead.html">first lady of song</a>” ran her race superbly. We should not mourn Sibongile Khumalo and pave her journey with tears. She gave all she was tasked to bequeath upon us, with joy, kindness, humour and generosity. Her time to join the ancestors had come. <em>Hamba kahle Nomzwilili</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154484/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thembela Vokwana has received funding from NIHSS, NAC, ANFASA, FULBRIGHT, OMT </span></em></p>
Both choirs and classical music were childhood influences on a stellar career that would leave behind major new recordings in these areas.
Thembela Vokwana, Lecturer, University of Fort Hare
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/154303
2021-01-29T16:36:54Z
2021-01-29T16:36:54Z
Remembering Sibongile Khumalo, South Africa’s divine diva
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381374/original/file-20210129-20464-1j25nkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sibongile Khumalo in New York in 2014, alongside McCoy Mrubata on tenor saxophone.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2021-01-29-now-she-is-no-more-we-weep-remembering-sibongile-khumalo/">passing</a> of Sibongile Khumalo at the far, far too young age of 63 was a body blow.</p>
<p>Sibongile epitomised ‘the new South Africa’, as it was born and as it matured. She sang in every style – from <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Carmen-opera-by-Bizet"><em>Carmen</em></a> to <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/mzilikazi-khumalos-ushaka/oclc/660129889"><em>UShaka</em></a> – with equal accuracy, generosity and joie de vivre, making everything ‘popular’ to millions of people without ever sacrificing vocal or musical professionalism. </p>
<p>This was one of her greatest gifts, that she made a place for everyone with her voice, a golden, melting voice that made all, young and old, rich and poor, professors and farmers, feel ‘at home’. </p>
<p>To paraphrase the closing text of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-d5C7DQzWU">Alto Rhapsody</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If there is on your psaltery, Father of love, one voice our ears can hear, then refresh our hearts! Open our clouded gaze to the thousand springs next to us who thirst in the wilderness.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a world of great voices, hers was a truly great South African voice. In its tonal beauty and through the wide repertoire to which she applied it, Sibongile’s voice represented everyone.</p>
<h2>From choral to classical to jazz</h2>
<p>Sibongile found a place for classical music junkies with a glorious, tremulous <a href="https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=0iZXbKy4ipw&list=OLAK5uy_mQY8b-YtxiXnImDO2_jiehGD4YR1H_Cr8">rendition</a> of Brahms’s <em>Alto Rhapsody</em>.</p>
<p>She made a place for indigenous choral music, with which she was well acquainted since childhood through many choirs and choral competitions and above all through her father, music professor Khabi Mngoma, and his inimitable <a href="https://bit.ly/3ciONaF">Ionian Male Choir</a>. Her unique solo renderings of choral songs, in beautiful arrangements, include John Knox Bokwe’s <em><a href="https://samap.ukzn.ac.za/plea-africa-southern-african">Plea for Africa</a></em>, Joshua Pulumo Mohapeloa’s <em><a href="https://african-composers-edition.co.za/work/u-ea-kae/">U Ea Kae</a></em>, B.P.J. Tyamzashe’s <em><a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/7CElnCUWqK1cD4ikR4zNOn?highlight=spotify:track:1b2HuAveAQPrta1zlOWqWf">Isithandwa Sam</a></em>, and Michael Moerane’s gauntly tragic <em><a href="https://african-composers-edition.co.za/work/della/">Della</a></em>.</p>
<p>She made a place for herself with overwhelming success even in the highly populated area of jazz singing and in a land of great female jazz singers, with numbers such as Strike Vilakazi’s <em><a href="https://africancream.bandcamp.com/track/meadowlands-2">Meadowlands</a></em>, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/todd-tozama-matshikiza">Todd Matshikiza</a>’s <em>Back O The Moon</em>, and <a href="https://www.newframe.com/landmarks-in-sa-jazz-yakhalinkomo-and-jolinkomo/">Winston Mankunku’s <em>Yakhal’inkomo</em></a> – which she sings in her own distinctive style and fuses into a unique vocal medley, on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FOi59ojtms">this recording</a>.</p>
<p>Above all, Sibongile did more than any other professional singer of her time to bring African traditional music into the public ear and the popular imagination, onto radio, television and recordings, and into the concert hall. </p>
<p>Again, with the help of magnificent arrangers and composers, she performed and recorded the songs of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/princess-magogo">Princess Constance Magogo KaDinuzulu</a>, which can be heard on tracks 5-12 of one of her most ‘classic’ albums, <a href="https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=C4xMigbLKME&list=OLAK5uy_mQY8b-YtxiXnImDO2_jiehGD4YR1H_Cr8"><em>Sibongile Khumalo</em></a>.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9FOi59ojtms?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Khumalo famously performing the song <em>Yakhal’inkomo</em></span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Her life</h2>
<p>Sibongile Khumalo (née Mngoma) was born in Soweto in 1957, the daughter of Khabi and Grace Mngoma. Her father was Professor of Music at the University of Zululand and one of the great conductors and vocal coaches of his generation. He gave Sibongile her first voice lessons. </p>
<p>She qualified at the universities of Zululand and the Witwatersrand in both music and personnel management. She went on to have a distinguished career as a singer as well as an arts advocate and member of numerous national arts committees. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-debates-about-jazz-festivals-should-be-about-more-than-genre-purism-47599">Why debates about jazz festivals should be about more than genre purism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>She sang at Nelson Mandela’s inauguration as South Africa’s president in 1994 and in 2008 she was <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/sibongile-khumalo-1957-%E2%80%93">awarded</a> the Silver Order of Ikhamanga by the president. </p>
<p>Sibongile performed internationally with a number of orchestras and jazz bands. </p>
<p>Among her most memorable albums are <em>Ancient Evenings</em> (1996), <em>Live at the Market Theatre</em> (1998), <em>Sibongile Khumalo</em> (2005) and <em>Sibongile’s Greatest Hits</em> (2006), <em>Sibongile Khumalo Live</em> (2009) and <em>Breath of Life</em> (2016).</p>
<h2>Her voice</h2>
<p>Sibongile’s voice was officially mezzo but she commanded an enormous range, both in pitch and expression. She could become a soprano and a contralto, at will, and explore profound vocal contrasts. </p>
<p>No other professional singer, for example, has captured the husky, throaty low register of Zulu <em>umakweyana</em> and <a href="https://iamtranscriptions.org/iam-sheet-music/musical-bows/ugubhu-2/"><em>ugubhu</em></a> bow singers. Perhaps the reason for this is that she heard Princess Magogo herself perform, at her homestead in Nongoma, when she was about 13. As she described it in the sleeve notes of <em>Sibongile Khumalo</em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My dad made me sit at her feet to listen to her play ugubhu and sing. At the time it did not make sense, but I had to obey. I thought he was being very unkind to me because all the other children were out in the yard playing. It must have been destiny. In my professional years the music came back and it began to make sense. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>She also described how South African playwright and film producer Duma Ndlovu, who had been in exile for many years, challenged her to include this material in her repertoire and she took the bait. </p>
<p>She approached the South African Music Rights Organisation to have the music commissioned and they approached <a href="https://samro.org.za/news/articles/prof-mzilikazi-khumalo-honoured-wits-university">Professor Mzilikazi Khumalo</a>, who arranged eight songs from Magogo’s very extensive repertoire, and <a href="http://www.sacm.uct.ac.za/sacm/staff/fulltime/eProfessors/PeterKlatzow">Professor Peter Klatzow</a>, who first created a piano accompaniment and later orchestrated the song cycle.</p>
<p>Sibongile made everyone love her – no mean feat in the world of singers, especially opera singers. She was a prima donna, although not in temperament, and was most certainly South Africa’s ‘diva’.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154303/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christine Lucia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
She was a vocalist who sang in every style – from Carmen to UShaka – with equal mastery, popularising classical forms and epitomising ‘the new South Africa’.
Christine Lucia, Extraordinary Professor, Stellenbosch University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/135633
2021-01-23T15:12:43Z
2021-01-23T15:12:43Z
Jonas Gwangwa embodied South Africa’s struggle for a national culture
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326055/original/file-20200407-96658-th1gf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moeletsi Mabe/The Times/Gallo Images/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Music is not a zero sum game with only one ‘best’. But if you seek to name one musician whose life embodies the South African people’s struggle for a national culture, it must be trombonist, composer and cultural activist <a href="https://theconversation.com/jonas-gwangwas-music-and-life-embody-the-resistance-against-apartheid-118792">Jonas Mosa Gwangwa</a>, who was born on 19 October 1937 in Orlando East, Johannesburg, and died on 23 January 2021 in Johannesburg aged 83.</p>
<p>Through 65 years on stage, Gwangwa’s playing <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-appreciation-of-south-africas-jazz-stalwart-jonas-gwangwa-91670">contributed</a> to every genre of South African jazz. Overseas, he was hailed as player, producer and composer. Yet he chose to step away from mainstream success for ten years, leading the <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/amandla-cultural-ensemble-1978?page=2#!slider">Amandla Cultural Ensemble</a> of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/african-national-congress-anc">African National Congress</a> (ANC) to win hearts for the anti-apartheid <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272460272_Jonas_Gwangwa_Musician_And_Cultural_Activist">struggle</a> everywhere and present a vision of what post-apartheid national culture could be. </p>
<p>He battled painful injury (accidents shattered the same femur three times), was hunted for his life by the regime’s forces and experienced both the heyday of South African liberation culture and the far more ambivalent times since. </p>
<p>Throughout, he cherished a half-century-plus, love affair with his wife Violet, and brought his family – scattered across half the globe – home intact to a free South Africa. Violet’s death, only a few short weeks before his, had left him and the rest of the family devastated. </p>
<h2>The little bebopper</h2>
<p>Gwangwa started his career in the 1950s in the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/father-trevor-huddleston">Father Huddleston</a> Band at St Peter’s College in Johannesburg. When instruments were allocated he hoped for a clarinet, but was shy to object to the offered trombone. </p>
<p>There was music in the family, lessons at school, and from American jazzmen on the bioscope screen at the Odin Cinema in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/apr/11/story-cities-19-johannesburg-south-africa-apartheid-purge-sophiatown">Sophiatown</a>. From <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dizzy-Gillespie">Dizzy Gillespie</a>, the schoolboy Gwangwa borrowed his lifetime trademark: a jaunty black beret. He became, in his own words “this little bebopper”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326501/original/file-20200408-118674-140prm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326501/original/file-20200408-118674-140prm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326501/original/file-20200408-118674-140prm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326501/original/file-20200408-118674-140prm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326501/original/file-20200408-118674-140prm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326501/original/file-20200408-118674-140prm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326501/original/file-20200408-118674-140prm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326501/original/file-20200408-118674-140prm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jonas Gwangwa on stage in Johannesburg in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Veli Nhlapo/Sowetan/Gallo Images/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Politics shaped Gwangwa too. The 1954 <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/bantu-education-and-racist-compartmentalizing-education">Bantu Education</a> Act ended Father Huddleston’s St Peters, but not before the band had played at the <a href="http://scnc.ukzn.ac.za/doc/HIST/freedomchart/freedomch.html">adoption</a> of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-legacy-of-south-africas-freedom-charter-60-years-later-43647">Freedom Charter</a> in Kliptown. He said </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Everybody shared a perspective – you didn’t even classify it as ‘being political’ … nobody separated the music from the politics.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Because <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/22/arts/music-an-essential-element-in-the-voice-of-jazz.html">trombone</a> was a scarce sound in African jazz bands, Gwangwa’s tricky <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/bebop">bebop</a> chops caught the ears of the elite <a href="http://samap.ukzn.ac.za/audio-people/jazz-dazzlers">Jazz</a> <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/benni-gwigwi-mrwebi">Dazzlers</a>. His vision expanded with the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/04/26/525696698/the-legacy-of-the-jazz-epistles-south-africas-short-lived-but-historic-group">Jazz Epistles</a>, whose <em><a href="https://www.discogs.com/The-Jazz-Epistles-Jazz-Epistle-Verse-1/release/1934732">Jazz Epistles: Verse One</a></em> became the first modern jazz album from a black South African <a href="https://www.wbgo.org/post/jazz-epistles-holy-moment-revisited-abdullah-ibrahim-checkout#stream/0">band</a>.</p>
<p>That was the first of several firsts. Gwangwa was co-copyist for the first all-black South African stage musical, <em><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/king-kong-musical-1959-1961">King Kong</a></em>, travelling with the show to London and starting a lifelong love affair with the stage musical format: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Words, action, and music! I became fascinated with just how you … put all those pieces together.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Seven curtain calls</h2>
<p>London contacts helped Gwangwa secure a place at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. There, sharing a flat with <a href="https://theconversation.com/remembering-hugh-masekela-the-horn-player-with-a-shrewd-ear-for-music-of-the-day-86414">Hugh Masekela</a>, his meagre allowance went as often on gig tickets as food, as he imbibed mainstream classics and the new ‘<a href="https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-free-jazz">free jazz</a>’. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326566/original/file-20200408-152974-6rzbrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326566/original/file-20200408-152974-6rzbrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326566/original/file-20200408-152974-6rzbrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326566/original/file-20200408-152974-6rzbrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326566/original/file-20200408-152974-6rzbrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326566/original/file-20200408-152974-6rzbrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326566/original/file-20200408-152974-6rzbrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Continental Records</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Equally active in politics, he helped organise South African students in America, and served as first eye on the text drafted by old schoolfriend, poet <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-tribute-to-keorapetse-kgositsile-south-africas-poet-laureate-89700">Keorapetse Kgositsile</a>, of Miriam Makeba’s 1963 anti-apartheid <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2008-11-10/miriam-makebas-historic-speech-remembered">address</a> to the UN.</p>
<p>He worked with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/nov/11/miriam-makeba-obituary">Makeba</a> and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/harry-belafonte-and-the-social-power-of-song">Harry Belafonte</a>, most famously as arranger, adapter and conductor for the 1965 Grammy-winning Best Folk Album <em><a href="http://www.miriammakeba.co.za/releases/An-Evening-With-Belafonte-Makeba-1965">An Evening with Harry Belafonte and Miriam Makeba</a></em>: another first. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326564/original/file-20200408-16182-jlrgyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326564/original/file-20200408-16182-jlrgyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326564/original/file-20200408-16182-jlrgyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326564/original/file-20200408-16182-jlrgyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326564/original/file-20200408-16182-jlrgyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326564/original/file-20200408-16182-jlrgyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326564/original/file-20200408-16182-jlrgyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326564/original/file-20200408-16182-jlrgyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">RCA Victor</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then came residencies, film scores, multiple recordings across genres, musical direction, and tours; with the Union of South Africa, and with <a href="http://www.herbalpert.com">Herb Alpert</a>, when the trombonist won seven curtain calls for a barnstorming solo on his own <em>Foreign Natives</em>. Despite its painful interruption midstream by the reckless driver who first crushed his leg, Gwangwa’s American jazz star was rising.</p>
<p>But he had loyalties bigger than the stage. </p>
<h2>This is a liberation movement!</h2>
<p>In 1980, Gwangwa answered the call from ANC President <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/oliver-reginald-kaizana-tambo">OR Tambo</a> to scour the <a href="http://ukzn-dspace.ukzn.ac.za/handle/10413/4828">military camps of Angola</a> for young talent to establish the campaigning Amandla Cultural Ensemble. The call was too politically important to ignore, and the opportunity to create an entire stage show excited Gwangwa so much that “sometimes … I couldn’t sleep”.</p>
<p>He spent most of the next decade between Amandla (rehearsing in Angola and touring the world) and Botswana (with his family and <a href="https://learnandteachmagazine.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/the-jonas-gwangwa-story/">contributing</a> to the local cultural scene with the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/medu-art-ensemble">Medu Arts Ensemble</a>). In both settings he was an innovator. Botswana musicians say he helped build their professionalism and shifted their focus towards indigenous inspirations. In Amandla, he consciously re-visioned traditions, casting female performers in previously all-male traditional dance roles: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Why not? … this is a liberation movement! </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some cynical analysts suggest Amandla’s winning musical arrangements and dramatic stage interludes simply prettied-up struggle culture for overseas audiences; they miss the point. Gwangwa’s love for the struggle was genuine and deep, never cosmetic – and he couldn’t have written an unattractive tune if he tried.</p>
<p>Gwangwa believed that political theatre deserved exactly the same high aesthetic standards as any other stage performance, and according to the memories of other Amandla performers, he enforced these relentlessly at rehearsal. Audiences everywhere responded to that combination of passion and professionalism. </p>
<p>Amandla’s impact put the Gwangwa family home on the SADF hit list for the <a href="http://sabctrc.saha.org.za/glossary/gaborone_raid.htm?tab=report">1985 raid on Botswana</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326582/original/file-20200408-179754-ld65lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326582/original/file-20200408-179754-ld65lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326582/original/file-20200408-179754-ld65lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326582/original/file-20200408-179754-ld65lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326582/original/file-20200408-179754-ld65lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326582/original/file-20200408-179754-ld65lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326582/original/file-20200408-179754-ld65lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326582/original/file-20200408-179754-ld65lv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MCA Records</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was razed (fortunately the occupants were elsewhere) and the regime’s hunt did not cease. Roots were pulled up again, for London, then America. During that uneasy, unsettled time, Gwangwa scored another first: an Oscar nomination (and more) for his <em><a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/cry-freedom-1987">Cry Freedom</a></em> film score, co-composed with George Fenton.</p>
<h2>For the people</h2>
<p>Finally <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/lifestyle/2011-09-17-what-ive-learnt-jonas-gwangwa/">home again</a> in 1991, some recognition arrived: <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/order-ikhamanga-0?page=14#!slider">Orders of Ikhamanga</a> for both him and Amandla; commissions for various official and pan-African causes; honorary degrees and more. </p>
<p>Yet he still constantly struggled to earn from tours, shows and recordings, encountered record label problems over material deemed “political” – and ‘state composer’ was not who he wanted to be. Although he was committed to the new South Africa and happy to contribute, he really “wanted to be on the ground with the guys,” he told me in 2019 from his sickbed, “doing something important”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/jonas-gwangwas-music-and-life-embody-the-resistance-against-apartheid-118792">Jonas Gwangwa's music and life embody the resistance against apartheid</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>He was saddened by globalised, commoditised official perspectives on the arts, and by the sidelining of everything Amandla had tried to build. His music had always explicitly been his weapon, and </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are still within an era of struggle.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326504/original/file-20200408-98792-kxfdht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326504/original/file-20200408-98792-kxfdht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326504/original/file-20200408-98792-kxfdht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326504/original/file-20200408-98792-kxfdht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326504/original/file-20200408-98792-kxfdht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326504/original/file-20200408-98792-kxfdht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326504/original/file-20200408-98792-kxfdht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326504/original/file-20200408-98792-kxfdht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gwangwa in 2007 in Johannesburg.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lefty Shivambu/Gallo Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In June 2019, Gwangwa was struck by a serious illness that left him bedridden. He struggled valiantly towards recovery and was never bitter. </p>
<p>Interviewing him for his forthcoming biography, I asked him what he was proudest of. “Amandla. Because it involved all the things in music that excited me the most, and gave me the opportunity to bring them together … for the most important reason possible: it was for the people.” <em>Hamba Kahle umkhonto</em> (spear). </p>
<p><em>Ansell is the editor of a planned authorised biography of Jonas Gwanga.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135633/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell has been assisting the Gwangwa family in editing a biography of Jonas Gwangwa which has not yet been finalised for publication.</span></em></p>
The revered trombonist, composer and cultural activist never wished to be ‘the state composer’ but remained political until the end, in service of the people.
Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/143101
2020-07-22T13:59:40Z
2020-07-22T13:59:40Z
Gilbert Matthews – a pioneer and a visionary of South African jazz
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348704/original/file-20200721-21-1hf6jxi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gilbert Matthews during an interview a few years before his death.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Aryan Kaganof</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa has done little to acknowledge the passing of a jazz great and titan of drums, Gilbert Matthews. For Bra Gil, who brought credit to South Africa from a host of international jazz stages, the official silence remains deafening.</p>
<p>Matthews was a visionary of the South African jazz scene. Although his beginnings were on the conventional Cape Town club jazz circuit, his talent took him across the world – he was, for a time, Ray Charles’ regular drummer – and the music he was exposed to sparked innovation when he returned home. </p>
<p>South African musicians working in the 1970s credit him as inspiring the country’s jazz fusion explorations of that era through the band Spirits Rejoice, which he founded and which was, in turn, the forerunner of groundbreaking ensembles such as <a href="http://www.music.org.za/artist.asp?id=170">Sakhile</a>.</p>
<p>Matthews was born in Graaff-Reinet in the Cape in 1943. Veteran trumpeter John Ntshibilikwana, his relative, <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Jazz_people_of_Cape_Town.html?id=s7g4AQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">recalled</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Because of the poverty there, it was virtually impossible for people to acquire instruments. If you wished to play guitar, you had to take an oil tin and make a guitar out of it. That is how Gilbert started – with a paraffin-tin guitar!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Despite these straitened circumstances, his guitar-playing was good enough for him to begin gigging professionally, eventually securing work at the first (there have been several successors) Tiffany’s Club in Cape Town. There he taught himself to play drums and switched instruments. His playing caught the ear of the city’s jazz elite and in the late 1960s he featured on Ibrahim Khalil Shihab (Chris Schilder’s) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiF-ibx7Xls"><em>Spring</em></a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348631/original/file-20200721-33-zp6l38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348631/original/file-20200721-33-zp6l38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348631/original/file-20200721-33-zp6l38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348631/original/file-20200721-33-zp6l38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348631/original/file-20200721-33-zp6l38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348631/original/file-20200721-33-zp6l38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=706&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348631/original/file-20200721-33-zp6l38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=706&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348631/original/file-20200721-33-zp6l38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=706&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the <em>Spring</em> years, the 1960s.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After those sessions, Matthews travelled to the US via London. He was mentored by both Max Roach and Elvin Jones, secured an 18-month engagement as <a href="https://raycharles.com">Ray Charles’</a> regular drummer and worked with <a href="https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2017/07/05/the-vast-voice-of-sarah-vaughan">Sarah Vaughan</a>.</p>
<h2>A return home</h2>
<p>But home called. By the mid-1970s he was back in Johannesburg, gigging with the then-Dollar Brand (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2001/dec/08/jazz">Abdullah Ibrahim</a>), <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/kippie-jeremiah-moeketsi">Kippie Moeketsi</a> and more. He worked in the house band of the <a href="https://esat.sun.ac.za/index.php/The_Black_Mikado"><em>Black Mikado</em></a> musical staged at Diepkloof Hall and as a session musician on various tours, including what he found to be a particularly dispiriting series of hotel gigs in Swaziland.</p>
<p>On his return, he began making South African jazz history, calling his <em>Black Mikado</em> band-mates and others together to form <a href="http://electricjive.blogspot.com/2011/08/another-spirits-rejoice-lp-is-found.html">Spirits Rejoice</a>, named in honour of an Albert Ayler recording. <a href="http://samap.ukzn.ac.za/audio-people/spirits-rejoice">Spirits</a> aimed to create the kind of imaginative, exploratory jazz and fusion music that Earth Wind and Fire, Weather Report and others were pioneering in the US.</p>
<p>Spirits Rejoice was not only a <a href="https://bit.ly/2ZKlQ0x">band</a>, but a symposium and university for a whole generation of South African modern jazz players. Its first incarnation included Bheki Mseleku, Robbie Jansen, Duku Makasi, George Tjefumani, Thabo Mashishi, Sipho Gumede and Russell Herman; later incarnations included Mervyn Afrika, Khaya Mahlangu, Paul Petersen, Themba Mehlomakhulu, singer Felicia Marion and later the whole vocal lineup of Joy. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348632/original/file-20200721-19-15m4cu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348632/original/file-20200721-19-15m4cu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348632/original/file-20200721-19-15m4cu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348632/original/file-20200721-19-15m4cu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348632/original/file-20200721-19-15m4cu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348632/original/file-20200721-19-15m4cu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348632/original/file-20200721-19-15m4cu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348632/original/file-20200721-19-15m4cu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spirits Rejoice on the African Spaces album.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Atlantic</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For the much younger Mahlangu, it was the innovative approach of Spirits that inspired him – “It was a beautiful learning experience” – with Gumede, to want “to do stuff like that – but in a more African context”.</p>
<p>The band released two albums, <em>African Spaces</em> in 1977 and the self-titled <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TuhQ9nfZOU"><em>Spirits Rejoice</em></a> in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_yEAhRhnSA">1978</a> and won, according to pianist Mervyn Afrika, nine Sarie Awards, the highest honours open to South African popular musicians. According to the late Ezra Ngcukana, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>They were a very high-powered band. They made history.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But despite these accolades and some residencies – including at Cape Town’s Sherwood Hotel, Beverly Lounge and Landrost Hotel, as well as legendary jazz spot, Manenberg’s Club Montreal – respect and the freedom to innovate further were scarce as the 1970s came to a close.</p>
<h2>Back to foreign shores</h2>
<p>In 1979, Matthews <a href="https://bit.ly/2CR1eL6">left for Sweden</a>. There, he married and established an extremely distinguished career that let him stretch his innovative vision out further. He worked regularly with the group of saxophonist Christer Boustedt and, after the reedman’s death, re-established it as The Contemporary Bebop Quintet. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348705/original/file-20200721-21-cl5ifr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348705/original/file-20200721-21-cl5ifr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348705/original/file-20200721-21-cl5ifr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348705/original/file-20200721-21-cl5ifr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348705/original/file-20200721-21-cl5ifr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348705/original/file-20200721-21-cl5ifr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348705/original/file-20200721-21-cl5ifr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348705/original/file-20200721-21-cl5ifr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Matthews on tour in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Aryan Kaganof</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He also worked with Chris McGregor’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNhMHnPfRvo">Brotherhood of Breath</a>, regularly with Archie Shepp, and with Mischa Mengelberg, Roscoe Mitchell, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJimdUq8COE">John Tchicai</a>, Albert Mangelsdorff and Charlie Mariano among others. He was the drummer on the SA Exiles Thunderbolt recording, and on bassist Johnny Dyani’s revolutionary <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJzFFIITao4"><em>Born Under The Heat</em></a>. He did get to see the hopes of that music being realised, when he visited South Africa in 1991, at the dawn of change. </p>
<p>Matthews was playing and <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/gilbert-matthews-mn0001182760/credits">recording</a> in Europe, always in distinguished company, well into the 21st Century. But in recent years ill-health gradually imprisoned him away from the stage.</p>
<p>There can be no better way to end than with Matthews’ <a href="https://bit.ly/32Cegad">own description</a> of the soaring improvisatory fusions that Spirits Rejoice pioneered: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s like a game… We play anything that is in our heads and later rearrange it into a meaningful tune. At first, it sounds like some mad musicians just making noise with their instruments. Then, later, we remove the noise, and all we are left with is music.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For the South African cultural landscape, Matthews and Spirits Rejoice did indeed make history. Now, indeed, all we are left with is the music. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Ansell is the author of <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Soweto_Blues.html?id=_fwkCIKoTpgC&redir_esc=y">Soweto Blues</a>: Jazz, Politics and Popular Music in South Africa. Read her updates on South African jazz over <a href="https://sisgwenjazz.wordpress.com">here</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143101/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
His talent took him across the world - he was Ray Charles’ regular drummer - and the music he was exposed to sparked innovation when he returned home.
Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/142668
2020-07-14T15:39:07Z
2020-07-14T15:39:07Z
Journalism of Drum’s heyday remains cause for celebration - 70 years later
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347320/original/file-20200714-38-1x8kss9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African lawyer and part-time fashion model, Thando Hopa, at an exhibition of Drum magazine front pages in
Johannesburg. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gianluigi Gueracia/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Drum becomes an online-only magazine this month, almost 70 years after it was first launched as an African print publication. </p>
<p>The magazine is now a celebrity-focused human interest magazine. But it played a very different role in the 1950s and 1960s, when it is widely considered to have created new possibilities for identity for black South Africans. It was also crucial to the development of South African literature.</p>
<p>“The Drum boys”, a group of young writers employed by the magazine in its early years, served an emerging urban black readership in the first decade of apartheid, which came into force in 1948. Their lively chronicles of urban adventures made them popular characters, as well as contributing to Drum’s commercial success. </p>
<p>The magazine grew to be the largest circulation publication for black readers in South Africa, and expanded to include East and West African editions. </p>
<p>The “Drum era” of the 1950s has been romanticised as “the fabulous decade” through posters, photographs, film and exhibitions. The Drum look has found its way into fashion (T-shirts printed with Drum covers), décor and television, commercials and game shows such as Strictly Come Dancing.</p>
<p>Despite the nostalgia, many South Africans are not familiar with the journalism of early Drum. But magazines, as media academic Tim Holmes notes, are crucial to the construction of identities because of their intense focus on readers and reader communities.</p>
<p>Such journalism, despite its lightweight appearance, tells us complex stories about culture. Magazines also provide a space for creative forms of journalism.</p>
<p>Through their use of storytelling, personal narrative, local lingo and vivid scenes of everyday life, the Drum writers engaged in an ongoing construction of cosmopolitan identity for Johannesburg city dwellers. Literature scholar Michael Titlestad has called this process “improvisation”, comparing the writing in Drum with the improvisation in local jazz that took place in the 1950s.</p>
<h2>The beginning</h2>
<p>While countries throughout Africa were heading to independence in the 1950s, in South Africa the National Party was introducing draconian apartheid laws. There was also increased migration to cities. Africans could not own property, but were able to obtain freehold rights in certain areas, such as <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/sophiatown">Sophiatown</a>, on the outskirts of Johannesburg.</p>
<p>Sophiatown was a place where people could mingle across the colour bar. Its shebeens (informal taverns), music, celebrities and gangsters were the source of many Drum stories. </p>
<p>The African Drum was launched in 1951. After a lacklustre three months, the owner, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/mar/03/guardianobituaries">Jim Bailey</a>, brought a friend out from England, Anthony Sampson, to edit the magazine. They did some informal research and were told that black readers wanted sport, jazz, celebrities and “hot dames”.</p>
<p>“Tell us what’s happening right here, man, on the Reef!”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/henry-mr-drum-nxumalo">Henry Nxumalo</a>, an ex-serviceman with some experience as a journalist, was highly influential in developing Drum’s style as the magazine sought to attract black readers. Writers came from diverse backgrounds. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/todd-tozama-matshikiza">Todd Matshikiza</a> was a musician (and went on to compose the musical King Kong). Can Themba, a teacher, won a fiction contest held by the magazine in 1952. Arthur Maimane was a schoolboy from St Peter’s Secondary School in Sophiatown with a passion for American crime writing. A young German, <a href="https://www.jurgenschadeberg.com/">Jürgen Schadeberg</a>, took the pictures, later joined by Bob Gosani and Peter Magubane. </p>
<p>As the magazine’s circulation grew, now iconic names in South African literature joined. These included Casey Motsisi, Bloke Modisane, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/eskia-mphahlele">Es’kia Mphahlele</a>, <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/lifestyle/2010-09-12-obituary-lewis-nkosi---author-critic/">Lewis Nkosi and Nat Nakasa</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347328/original/file-20200714-18-1ow3w1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347328/original/file-20200714-18-1ow3w1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347328/original/file-20200714-18-1ow3w1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347328/original/file-20200714-18-1ow3w1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347328/original/file-20200714-18-1ow3w1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347328/original/file-20200714-18-1ow3w1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347328/original/file-20200714-18-1ow3w1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Drum journalist and novelist Lewis Nkosi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Poklekowski/ullstein bild via Getty Imag</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mostly without journalism training, the Drum writers began experimenting with tales of everyday life in the black townships. Nxumalo and Matshikiza, as the earliest writers on Drum, were influential in creating inventiveness in both reporting and writing.</p>
<p>Matshikiza developed a lively style to write about jazz, which was dubbed “Matshikese”. He was described as hammering on his typewriter like a musician playing a keyboard.</p>
<p>Maimane wrote serialised fiction in the mode of American hard-boiled detective stories. Others recounted first-person adventures in the shebeens and clubs, wrote confessional stories on behalf of characters they interviewed, or offered their own opinions.</p>
<p>In their stories, they used the styles of fiction writing more than news reporting, as many of the Drum writers also wrote short stories and novels. As John Matshikiza, Todd’s son, noted years later in the preface to a collection of Drum articles:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The startling thing is that there is no real dividing line between the two styles of writing: the journalistic and the fictional.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Investigative journalism</h2>
<p>At first, circulation was slow to pick up. Then Nxumalo pitched a story about the abuse of labourers on the farms of Bethal. Nxumalo and photographer Schadeberg posed as a visiting journalist and his servant to gain access to the farms. The magazine published an eight-page article outlining the abuses, bylined “Mr Drum”. </p>
<p>The edition sold out, and public response reached Parliament.</p>
<p>After this, Drum carried regular investigations, mostly driven by Nxumalo. He got himself arrested so that he could write about prison conditions and took a job at a farm where a worker had been killed. “Mr Drum” became a celebrity, and his feats of investigative journalism have rarely been matched in South Africa.</p>
<p>Drum sales hit 73,657 in 1955, making it the largest circulation magazine in Africa in any language. The devil-may-care spirit of the Drum writers, however, was difficult to sustain as the apartheid structures bore down on them. </p>
<p>By 1956, Sophiatown’s black residents <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/sophiatown">were being removed</a>, to make way for an exclusively white suburb, in line with the apartheid policies that prohibited the mixing of “races”.</p>
<p>In December 1956, Nxumalo was stabbed to death while out on an investigation. His death deeply affected his fellow writers.</p>
<p>The increasing repression of the 1960s destroyed the journalists of the “Drum school”. Most went into exile. Drum was banned and stopped publishing for some years. The title was eventually revived, and sold in 1984 to Nasionale Pers, an Afrikaans media company with close ties to the apartheid government. </p>
<h2>The 1980s</h2>
<p>In the 1980s, many of the early Drum writers were unbanned, releasing their writing back into South Africa’s public domain. Mike Nicol, who wrote <a href="https://www.fantasticfiction.com/n/mike-nicol/good-looking-corpse.htm">a book</a> on 1950s Drum, describes the impact of this moment as history shifting beneath one’s feet, revealing a “lost country”. There was surge of interest by literature scholars. Michael Chapman, in the 1980s, argued that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the stories in Drum mark the substantial beginning, in South Africa, of the modern black short story.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Lewis Nkosi, on the other hand, regretted the short-lived potential of the Drum generation and the production of what he called “journalism of an insubstantial kind”. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347331/original/file-20200714-139820-kdy4qn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347331/original/file-20200714-139820-kdy4qn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347331/original/file-20200714-139820-kdy4qn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347331/original/file-20200714-139820-kdy4qn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347331/original/file-20200714-139820-kdy4qn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347331/original/file-20200714-139820-kdy4qn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347331/original/file-20200714-139820-kdy4qn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">E'skia Mphahlele.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mphahlele felt that Drum did not deal seriously with social issues. Others argued that Drum was not explicitly committed to the liberation struggle.</p>
<p>Many scholars argue that the Drum writers, in detailing everyday experience, showed quite powerfully the violent impact of the apartheid system on black South Africans. Nkosi noted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>No newspaper report … could ever convey significantly the deep sense of entrapment that the black people experience under apartheid rule.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Their inventive style of using fictional tactics to tell non-fiction stories pre-dated the New Journalism of America – touted by Tom Wolfe as a brand new approach to journalism – by a decade.</p>
<p><em>This edited extract is adapted from <a href="https://ialjs.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/article1_cowling.pdf">Echoes of an African Drum: The Lost Literary Journalism of 1950s South Africa</a>, in Literary Journalism Studies.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142668/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lesley Cowling does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The magazine grew to be the largest circulation publication for black readers in South Africa, and expanded to include East and West African editions.
Lesley Cowling, Associate Professor in the Department of Journalism, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/136069
2020-04-23T13:52:17Z
2020-04-23T13:52:17Z
How South Africa’s jazz musicians are making the digital leap
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328706/original/file-20200417-152567-hc1awt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nduduzo Makhathini in 2016.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lerato Maduna/Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The performing arts is one of the sectors hit hard by COVID-19, with tens of thousands of gigs cancelled across the world. </p>
<p>While pop and electronic music has evolved with online platforms like YouTube as their natural habitat, jazz has remained more strongly tied to live performance, using social media and online videos mainly as publicity rather than as a primary point of dissemination.</p>
<p>South African born vocalist, trumpeteer and musical director Mandisi Dyantyis was perhaps the first to turn to the virtual concert as a substitute for the band’s cancelled performance at Cape Town International Jazz Festival. On 26 March, the band <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj5IgsBZuAo">livestreamed</a> the set they would have performed at the festival, charging R100 per household to access the gig. </p>
<p>But this was before lockdown, when musicians could still get together to <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2020-04-02-old-artistic-forms-find-new-mediums-in-uncertain-times/">perform in a room</a> with good recording equipment and a stable internet connection. These are technologies musicians don’t necessarily have in their homes.</p>
<p>Since the lockdown in South Africa several jazz musicians have begun to harness online platforms in novel ways. </p>
<h2>Lockdown performances</h2>
<p>Shane Cooper, the bassist and electronic music producer performing under the alias Card on Spokes, initiated the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWI6pNMu2vI">Quarantine Collabs</a> on YouTube. </p>
<p>Thanks to his electronic work, Cooper has an equipped home studio to record, the technical know-how to produce and edit his music and already has a presence on virtual platforms to release his music. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328712/original/file-20200417-152607-1j1nd7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328712/original/file-20200417-152607-1j1nd7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328712/original/file-20200417-152607-1j1nd7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328712/original/file-20200417-152607-1j1nd7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328712/original/file-20200417-152607-1j1nd7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328712/original/file-20200417-152607-1j1nd7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328712/original/file-20200417-152607-1j1nd7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328712/original/file-20200417-152607-1j1nd7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nduduzo Makhathini performing live in South Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Chris Vos</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For the Quarantine Collabs, which features musicians like Bokani Dyer and dancers he recruited through a call on social media, Cooper asks his collaborators to send him a prompt (such as words, colours, tempo) to which he composes and records a musical response. He sends the music to the collaborator to record their own response in turn, and finally mixes and edits the results into a one-minute video posted on YouTube and Instagram. The Collabs are made possible, in part, by everyday technologies like mobile phones. </p>
<p>Another jazz musician to turn to digital platforms is Nduduzo Makhathini, who has done a virtual album launch of <em>Modes of Communication: Letters from the Underworld</em>, his first record <a href="http://www.bluenote.com/nduduzo-makhathini-blue-note-debut-modes-of-communication-letters-from-the-underworlds-out-now/">released</a> on the Blue Note label.</p>
<p>For Makhathini, lockdown coincided with an entire roster of events scheduled in Europe and the US to promote the new album. Social media, which was formerly considered “alternative” spaces of dissemination, have now become central. Makhathini’s launch harnessed these newly central platforms, and took form as an Instagram real-time video conversation with the British saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings and a Facebook Live broadcast of a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watchparty/2955652834473373/?entry_source=PERMALINK&hash=ASsB4AGYWxGCvShZzAjlefWnBX0t2JQr0Po2MuNjShZirA&__xts__%5b0%5d=68.ARD_iKKSmoWdQ8AkeU8RZoQ2XjaRo7vjzMFSFndZXwFhOhmjqvRB4Xle6gWjwXXESUd1_0bXVYwiPefrrRsG_apWeZn5stP1Cbm2ZoGhQGBcBX83Oml8-5z6oDrtZyubSgv56ytX0p59B1SI9B9XTKA9ALRLQ4mbK3g82hkr5AyYtoR0oaNyc6NhPDcMhE7lPNacZHuJmJN78zw_pA9YBYp3UxDn1FepfaovQQzGGQGRGhqpEsY4sSNsiEuZfx-kLMRvMJX91IRTGFxvDRKEJOPDUnpL65ZWuF_InpOA52eEBHZhO5UmMFUImaVme8SgxkX8EZVUSkibDSn1x-EW8px9gRPEsKQI9AFYI9cmhRxruuRm_maPWNhqwo9Dpg&__tn__=-R">performance</a> by Makhathini and his wife, the vocalist Omagugu Makhathini from their home. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328713/original/file-20200417-152607-8l1rxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328713/original/file-20200417-152607-8l1rxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328713/original/file-20200417-152607-8l1rxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328713/original/file-20200417-152607-8l1rxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328713/original/file-20200417-152607-8l1rxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328713/original/file-20200417-152607-8l1rxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328713/original/file-20200417-152607-8l1rxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328713/original/file-20200417-152607-8l1rxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shane Cooper live.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Chris Vos</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At one point, more than 100 people joined on Instagram, and Makhathini’s Facebook video has clocked more than 7 000 views. Clearly the benefits of going online is the possibility to reach bigger audiences than physical events.</p>
<p>The problem for performing musicians, however, is also pressingly an economic one. </p>
<h2>No simple solutions</h2>
<p>The solution is not a simple matter of moving activities online. In these days of free online content and minimal royalties paid by music subscription services like Spotify and Apple Music (at least for those who don’t hit above 1 million plays), artists mostly use online platforms for publicity rather than as a means of generating an income. </p>
<p>Yet there’s a delicate balance between getting the music out there (which risks adding to the expectation that music is free) and placing a value on artistic work. </p>
<p>Lockdown has the potential to dramatically change the jazz landscape, with artists who do not have an online presence disappearing from the map. Now the pressure is on to adapt quickly. Some might turn to online teaching or performing, but need to generate content, learn to film and edit, find dissemination platforms and manage to reach paying patrons first. Some promising opportunities are on the cards, like creating virtual jazz clubs similar to the <a href="https://citizen.co.za/lifestyle/your-life-entertainment-your-life/entertainment-music/2261436/party-home-alone-with-lockdown-house-party-on-channel-o/">virtual house parties</a> deejays have been hosting. But these will take time.</p>
<p>More immediately, the best way to support artists is to buy albums digitally. Streaming only pays a few cents per play, but it does help. Create playlists of your favourite independent artists and play them as often as you can – even if you’re not actively listening. Listeners pay a fixed subscription regardless of their usage, but artists will receive more royalties. It would simultaneously boost their algorithms, which heightens the artist’s visibility in turn.</p>
<p>Makhathini takes heart in <a href="https://wyntonmarsalis.org/news/entry/where-does-creativity-come-from-wynton-marsalis-interview-on-freakonomics">Wynton Marsalis’s </a>dictum that: “The death of the artist is when he stops creating.” Judging by the initiatives of many musicians the past few days, artists are alive and more innovative than before. The concern, however, is how long they will be supported to do creative work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136069/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Vos is a post-doctoral fellow and project leader of the Interdisciplinary Forum for Popular Music (ifPOP), funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She is affiliated with Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation at Stellenbosch University. </span></em></p>
Since the lockdown in South Africa several jazz musicians have begun to harness online platforms in novel ways.
Stephanie Vos, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Stellenbosch University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/125163
2019-10-14T12:03:59Z
2019-10-14T12:03:59Z
What lost photos of Blue Notes say about South Africa’s jazz history
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296670/original/file-20191011-96226-1ehb39z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mongezi Feza on trumpet at the concert in 1964 that is the source of the rare new photos of The Blue Notes</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Norman Owen-Smith</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1964 a young South African student and photography enthusiast, Norman Owen-Smith, took his Leica camera along to a jazz concert at the then University of Natal Pietermaritzburg’s Great Hall and captured a series of black and white images of the band, the Blue Notes.</p>
<p>Through the intervention of jazz scholars, these photos have been printed, restored and exhibited, years after the band became iconic.</p>
<p>The story of the Blue Notes is inextricable from apartheid’s exiling of the musical – specifically jazz – imagination. Owen-Smith’s photos are a rare and unexpected contribution to a hungry archive for jazz lovers all over the world.</p>
<p>The Blue Notes embody the beauty of South African jazz in the 1960s, and the dynamics of its struggles during and against apartheid. The ensemble began in 1959 after a meeting between two of South Africa’s most revered jazz artists, both of whom died in exile. One was pianist and alto saxophonist Mtutuzeli ‘Dudu’ Pukwana, the other pianist Chris McGregor. By 1964 the other four members were cemented: Louis Moholo-Moholo on drums – the only surviving member – and Nikele ‘Nick’ Moyake on tenor saxophone, Mongezi Feza on trumpet and Johnny Mbizo Dyani on double bass.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296672/original/file-20191011-96252-1a1l18r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296672/original/file-20191011-96252-1a1l18r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296672/original/file-20191011-96252-1a1l18r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296672/original/file-20191011-96252-1a1l18r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296672/original/file-20191011-96252-1a1l18r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296672/original/file-20191011-96252-1a1l18r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296672/original/file-20191011-96252-1a1l18r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Blue Notes in full swing in Pietermaritzburg on the eve of them leaving the country.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Norman Owen-Smith</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Owen-Smith’s joyful, simple photographs allow the ordinary to be extraordinary, showing musical fraternity, passionate performance and a racially mixed band at the height of apartheid, after the clampdown that followed the Sharpeville massacre of 1960. They capture a moment in the band’s history when they were still young – in their teens and twenties – and just before they went into exile.</p>
<p>They are a notable addition to a very thin archive. It includes an excerpt from a documentary on jazz in Britain that shows a snippet of the Blue Notes’ performance at the 1964 Antibes Jazz Festival, posted on YouTube by McGregor’s younger brother. The archival footage is owned by French TV, but even scholars of South African jazz based in France have not been able to find it. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aTXq6OH7XbU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The rare video excerpt of the band on YouTube.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is the only video excerpt of the Blue Notes I have come across – even though, as I noted in my <a href="https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.697434">doctoral dissertation</a>, they are one of the more thoroughly covered jazz ensembles of the apartheid era. </p>
<p>Other elements of the archive consist of an online data base about the band built by British journalist Mike Fowler. Its source text remains Maxine McGregor’s biography Chris McGregor and the Brotherhood of Breath: My Life with a South African Jazz Pioneer. </p>
<p>Another component is an album called Township Bop that was released in 2002. The compilation was made up of previously unheard material which the band had recorded at the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s Transcription Centre in 1964. </p>
<p>And in 2013, radio station SAfm presented a two-part documentary. In addition, a number of artists have performed and even recorded tributes to the band. </p>
<p>All these contributions – now including Owen-Smith’s photos – mark a change of fortune for a group of musicians who played mostly on the live scene. Their recordings tended to go missing for long stretches, as with their 1964 live recording in Durban, Legacy: Live in South Afrika 1964, which was released in 1995. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296678/original/file-20191011-96226-10kc2cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296678/original/file-20191011-96226-10kc2cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296678/original/file-20191011-96226-10kc2cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296678/original/file-20191011-96226-10kc2cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296678/original/file-20191011-96226-10kc2cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296678/original/file-20191011-96226-10kc2cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296678/original/file-20191011-96226-10kc2cx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Co-founder of the Blue Notes, pianist Chris McGregor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Norman Owen-Smith</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Memory and healing</h2>
<p>From the late 1950s, many jazz musicians left the country; others were subjected to the alienating practices of the apartheid music industry, which often would book or record them only if they complied with their demands – what to play, who to play with and how to play it; many stopped playing altogether. These are the provocations of hurt that recur, as if on a loop, each time we engage with South African jazz history. Indeed, some of these commercial imperatives remain – not just in South Africa and not just related to jazz. Musicians’ lives remain precarious. </p>
<p>Healing, then, surely entails bringing these musicians back. </p>
<p>But how, and to where? Louis Moholo-Moholo is back home in Langa, in Cape Town, and is still playing. But what of Moyake, who died in South Africa? And Dyani, who is buried in South Africa? And Feza, who left the country at the age of 19? McGregor visited the country shortly before his death, but not Pukwana. Healing the open wound caused by exile’s rupture requires physical and creative return.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296682/original/file-20191011-96262-1kcf4po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296682/original/file-20191011-96262-1kcf4po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296682/original/file-20191011-96262-1kcf4po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296682/original/file-20191011-96262-1kcf4po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296682/original/file-20191011-96262-1kcf4po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296682/original/file-20191011-96262-1kcf4po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296682/original/file-20191011-96262-1kcf4po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Legendary drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo is the sole surviving member of the band.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Norman Owen-Smith</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tribute performances, recordings and documentaries are one way, if they do not pander to nostalgia. Teaching and research suggest another way, but only if neither succumb to a process of canonisation that sanitises the complex story of the Blue Notes. After all, exile did not rupture a smooth narrative that, whiggishly, was tending toward some apotheosis of South African jazz. Its effects were far more drastic. </p>
<p>Exile sundered a finely knit network of journalists like Todd Matshikiza, poets like Keorapetse Kgositsile, writers like Es’kia Mphahlele, and artists like Dumile Feni, from the dramatists, broadcasters, audiences and photographers who together made up mid-twentieth century South African jazz cultures. Returning the exiled musical imagination means renewing these connections: not perfectly, but imaginatively. </p>
<h2>Pictures from history</h2>
<p>In the absence of a rich sonic archive, jazz’s visual history is important. </p>
<p>Owen-Smith’s photographs join a body of documentary photography dating back decades.</p>
<p>In Lars Rasmussen’s <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/cape-town-jazz-1959-1963/">Cape Town Jazz 1959-1963</a>, Hardy Stockmann’s photographs predominantly depict a non-racial and convivial atmosphere of backstage fraternising, laughter, eating, drinking and smoking, of jam sessions and performances in Cape Town’s legendary jazz clubs, halls and other locations. </p>
<p>The jazz historian Christopher Ballantine describes <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Beyond_the_Blues.html?id=EfGyWqgkikYC&redir_esc=y">Basil Breakey’s photographs</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Here, in these stark images of loneliness, anguish, resilience, and despair, are many of the most famous members of that fabulously talented young generation that lived through the deepening gloom of the 1960s. Typically, their eyes are closed, or hidden by shades; when they play, the intensity is palpable, but no one appears to be listening; so in the end (the images seem to suggest) they sit alone, their instruments fallen silent.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Jazz scholar Jonathan Eato counters Breakey’s dark representation and Ballantine’s bleak reading. In <a href="http://electricjive.blogspot.com/2013/11/keeping-time-order-yours-now.html">Keeping Time</a>, he writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the musicians in Ian Bruce Huntley’s photographs offer people a brighter world that is touched by colour … the shades hiding the eyes of musicians do so as a consequence of music sounding under gloriously clear skies. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296683/original/file-20191011-96257-1dmtvjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296683/original/file-20191011-96257-1dmtvjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296683/original/file-20191011-96257-1dmtvjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296683/original/file-20191011-96257-1dmtvjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296683/original/file-20191011-96257-1dmtvjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296683/original/file-20191011-96257-1dmtvjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296683/original/file-20191011-96257-1dmtvjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ordinary is extraordinary in the photos, which show music transcending apartheid.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Norman Owen-Smith</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Owen-Smith’s photographs enter these debates in interesting ways. As an historical musicologist, what strikes me is that whereas the photographers I have mentioned aim to capture the jazz ethos of an era, he captures an event in one place: a once-off concert. In so doing, Owen-Smith invites us to consider how photography can help answer Christopher Small’s ever relevant question about “musicking”: What does it mean when this performance … takes place at this time, in this place, with these participants?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125163/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lindelwa Dalamba receives funding from the National Research Foundation (Thuthuka) Grant (#106960). Funding for this project was provided by the Arts Research Africa (ARA) Wits School of Arts Public Humanities Grant, and by NEST: Narrative Enquiry for Social Transformation.</span></em></p>
A rare set of photographs of South Africa’s most famous jazz ensemble, the Blue Notes, has added valuable insights to the music archive
Lindelwa Dalamba, Music lecturer, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/118792
2019-06-18T13:47:39Z
2019-06-18T13:47:39Z
Jonas Gwangwa’s music and life embody the resistance against apartheid
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279964/original/file-20190618-118543-1vjuhx7.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jonas Gwangwa in 2010.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Karmann/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When South African President Cyril Ramaphosa recently sent <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-wishes-jonas-gwangwa-full-recovery-5-jun-2019-0000">good wishes</a> to hospitalised trombonist/composer Jonas Gwangwa, it represented far more than a routine official courtesy. Even before he became president, Ramaphosa relished the South African jazz that spoke for and of the country’s liberation struggle. So it was no surprise that during inauguration speech in 2018 he famously <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-12-20-cyril-ramaphosas-2018-thuma-mina-moments/">invoked</a> a Hugh Masekela song, <em>Thuma Mina</em>, isiZulu for “send me”. And there are few musicians whose opus embodies the political spirit of South African liberation more vividly than the 81-year-old Gwangwa.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kzDGhMO3LSc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Hugh Masekela’s ‘Thuma Mina’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Resistance was the sub-text of Gwangwa’s early musical endeavours. The Jazz Epistles, the first outfit to foreground his voice as composer and player, was also the first black ensemble in South Africa to record an LP. Black bands had previously been confined to the territory of the single, for the country’s equivalent of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/race-record">“race records”</a> market. Race records were made exclusively by and for African Americans, especially from the 1920s to the 1940s. </p>
<p>The Jazz Epistles’ repertoire asserted many characteristics that apartheid cultural policy suppressed: non-tribalism, originality and urban sophistication. But it also spoke of musicians’ conditions of production, in the Kippie Moeketsi track <em>Scullery Department</em>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mhdW0wLh9QQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Jazz Epistles track ‘Scullery Department’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This song was a dedication to themselves and their peers: good enough to play for elite white patrons, but forced to take their interval meal on the steps of the back kitchen.</p>
<h2>Dinner apartheid</h2>
<p>That meal-break apartheid was only one aspect of much broader repression. Gwangwa was born in 1937 in Orlando East, the first township of Soweto, formally founded six years earlier. As Gwangwa grew up, Orlando exposed him to both the oppressions suffered by every black community – police raids, arbitrary arrests, pass laws and impoverished amenities – but also to an intensely political cultural milieus. </p>
<p>Orlando writers, visiting journalist Anthony Sampson noted in his essay <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/DC/asjul59.9/asjul59.9.pdf">Orlando Revisited</a>, were very clear about their African nationalist identity: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>‘We don’t just want to be writers,’ said Zeke [Ezekiel Mphahlele], ‘we want to be non-white writers’ – using the word in the proud way of people who are used to being non-every thing – non-Europeans, non-voters, non-travellers, non-drinkers, non-starters.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As Gwangwa began to work regularly in music, he was exposed to the routine brutality of the police. He recalled:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sometimes those <em>boere</em> boys just get so mean and take [your pass] from you… Otherwise they would make you perform in the middle of the night. In the middle of the street you’d be tap-dancing at 3 am.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The vivid memories of that and more –- the segregated audiences for the musical King Kong; the privilege of white producers and promoters –- travelled with Gwangwa into exile first in London and then at the Manhattan School of Music. </p>
<p>When he arranged singer Miriam Makeba’s Grammy-winning 1965 <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Belafonte-Makeba-An-Evening-With-BelafonteMakeba/release/2544923">duo album</a> with American artist Harry Belafonte, he was not simply supporting a fellow South African; he was participating in the politics of the project. He became impatient with the sometimes shallow understanding of the music’s American patrons: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Because it was those back-to-Africa days, so you had to explain that it takes more than an Afro and a dashiki to be an African, you know? You have to think it and feel it.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>ANC talent</h2>
<p>So when in the early 1980s then ANC President OR Tambo called him to Angola to help develop the raw performance talent with which the ANC training camps teemed into a touring performance show for the movement, he did not hesitate. He brought everything he had learned about production and stagecraft in the States to bear on the project: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I knew I could create a show that would have universal appeal: the musical structure is very simple, the rhythm will get you, the dances are attractive…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Initially, the thought was to have a presentation of struggle songs; but Gwangwa and his team created a full musical. Theatrical interludes sandwiched the songs; the script was updated when political events (or musical fashions) in South Africa overtook it. </p>
<p>After a camp vehicle accident seriously injured his leg, Gwangwa began to spend more time in Botswana with his other band, Shakawe. There were politics there too: the politics of nonracialism and African regional solidarity, reflected in the mixed personnel of players, the outreach activities of Shakawe’s umbrella parent, the Medu Arts Ensemble, and repertoire. That spoke of both current regional events, political themes, and the rich wellspring of Setswana tradition in songs such as the wedding anthem <em>Kgomo di Tsile</em>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BKiuQGTmh_4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Kgomo di Tsile.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>South African military raids and death squads in the mid-1980s had forced Gwangwa away once more, to London. It was appropriate that Gwangwa was George Fenton’s collaborator on the soundtrack to the Steve Biko movie, <em>Cry Freedom</em>, which went on to be nominated for an Oscar and to win an Ivor Novello and other awards.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7QUGWhxD8cw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Cry Freedom.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Exile</h2>
<p>The politics of Gwangwa’s music have stayed constant over the years, and are also apparent in the eight albums he has released in South Africa since returning from 30 years of exile. Reflecting on that, he <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/lifestyle/2011-09-17-what-ive-learnt-jonas-gwangwa/">told</a> journalist Nechama Brodie: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Miriam Makeba organised me a Guinea passport. When that expired I got a Zambian travel document, then a Tanzanian one, then a Ghanaian passport. At airports you get immigration queues for ‘locals’ and for ‘others’. I had always been one of the others. Then, one day, I got my South African passport. And it was valid for 10 years. It was like: wow, you know, yeah. Hallelujah!</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OA4gAy8_jTA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Jonas Gwangwa’s ‘Freedom for some’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But his lyrics have never been uncritical praise singing. As he regularly sang:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Freedom for some is freedom for none.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Perhaps that, as much as <em>Thuma Mina</em>, could also be a leitmotif for the Ramaphosa presidency?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118792/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The politics of Jonas Gwangwa’s music have stayed constant over the years, and are also apparent in the eight albums he has released in South Africa since returning from 30 years of exile.
Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/103469
2018-09-24T10:07:53Z
2018-09-24T10:07:53Z
Jazz isn’t dead: it’s just moved to new venues
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237108/original/file-20180919-158228-1y01ijl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African rising jazz star, Thabang Tabane.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lidudumalingani Mqombothi</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When, a few weeks back, Johannesburg’s largest jazz venue, The Orbit, <a href="http://www.jhblive.com/News-in-Johannesburg/news-and-alerts/the-orbit-needs-your-help/109544">posted</a> a crowd-funding appeal to stay afloat it prompted the usual flurry of concern that the genre might be on its deathbed. </p>
<p>That’s nothing new. Nearly half a century ago rock musician and musical maverick Frank Zappa’s <a href="https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3d7diu">“Be-Bop Tango”</a> (1973) first asserted that jazz wasn’t dead, but just smelled funny. Zappa’s track alluded to debates about the impact of the then revolutionary jazz style of <a href="https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/what-is-bebop-jazz/">bebop</a> after World War II.</p>
<p>But the question also threaded through commentary on <a href="https://study.com/academy/lesson/cool-jazz-history-characteristics-musicians.html">“cool” jazz</a>, on the demise of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/sep/08/british-traditional-jazz-chris-barber-band-humphrey-lyttleton-acker-bilk">British “trad” jazz</a> under the assault of pop groups such as the Beatles, on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110306162117/http://allmusic.com/explore/style/smooth-jazz-d4447">“smooth” jazz</a>, on Wynton Marsalis’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/1999/jun/23/artsfeatures1">jazz neoclassicism</a> and much more. Now that hip-hop has become the <a href="https://www.awal.com/blog/takeaways-from-nielsens-2017-end-music-report">unchallenged behemoth</a> of the US music industry, it’s being heard again. </p>
<p>But the music industry now occupies a new, digital landscape, and the “Is jazz dead?” debate has several – not just one – aspects. The statistics tell us less than half of the story.</p>
<h2>Health of a genre</h2>
<p>First, the demise or rise of an individual venue tells us very little about the health of a genre. Even when The Orbit was flourishing in 2015, its owners were <a href="http://www.financialmail.co.za/life/music/2015/06/11/orbit-jazz-club-a-place-for-all-to-play">voluble</a> about the difficulties of maintaining a big, double-decker space that needed to fill every night to cover its costs. </p>
<p>In a country such as South Africa only a tiny minority of a population far smaller than that of the US have disposable income to spend on high-priced clubs. Jazz is only one music niche among many (the <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/in-south-africa-gospel-music-reigns-supreme/2996581.html">biggest by far</a> is gospel), so devising the right business plan is a conundrum many venues have failed to solve.</p>
<p>Second, assessments of the health of any genre depend on how you define that genre. Worldwide, what is defined as jazz by commercial analysts may not coincide with the definitions of consumers. A case in point is the landslide success of what the analysts may define as crossover artists, such as pianist <a href="http://www.robertglasper.com/">Robert Glasper</a>, or hip-hop artists such as the award-winning <a href="http://www.kendricklamar.com/">Kendrick Lamar</a>, whose sound is shaped by the inputs of multiple jazz musicians, including saxophonist <a href="https://www.kamasiwashington.com/">Kamasi Washington</a> (and as of March 2018 veteran pianist <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/herbie-hancock-mn0000957296">Herbie Hancock</a>) – but the jazz that fans hear in this music is not recorded in the statistics.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2XRLVZbV69I?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Rapper Kendrick Lamar got help from his jazz friends.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Third, international comparisons based on the fortunes of, say pop singer <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/ed-sheeran-mn0002639628">Ed Sheeran’s</a> multimillion <a href="http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-top-40-biggest-albums-of-2017-on-the-official-chart__21316/">selling</a> “÷” (pronounced “divide”) as compared to any jazz album fail to compare like with like. The business model for the music of pop artists such as Sheeran is based on fast, high-volume sales shortly after release. It was the fastest selling album ever by a solo male artist – 672,000 in its first week of release in March 2017. It sold 2.7 million in 2017.</p>
<p>John Coltrane’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Both-Directions-At-Once-Album/dp/B07D4ZWCHX">“Both Directions at Once”</a>, which was released earlier this year half a century after the saxophonist’s death, will sell far fewer copies immediately. But it will likely continue selling, in some format or on some platform or other, for a further 50 years or more. </p>
<p>Fourth, the technology and value chain of the music industry have transformed over the past decade. Intermediaries have been removed from the supply chain. Digital downloads and more recently streaming have sidelined the major record labels as sources of music. What they sell, and the official figures they provide, are a fraction of the music that is consumed. </p>
<p>It’s easier for smaller music niches to thrive. Compact, low-cost recording technology allows for self-publishing independent of labels, and those products can reach global buyers online. The detail of most of this activity, however – and of what’s happening in the growing arena of jazz vinyl – is far below the radar of those collecting data on industry trends. South Africa has been a fast <a href="https://www.pwc.co.za/en/assets/pdf/entertainment-and-media-outlook-2017.pdf">follower in this movement</a>, with the shift to streaming proceeding apace. </p>
<p>South African jazz artists are now self-publishing their music at an increasing and unprecedented rate. The music is original and often contemptuous of commercial genre marketing categories.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237280/original/file-20180920-129871-1n0txzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237280/original/file-20180920-129871-1n0txzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237280/original/file-20180920-129871-1n0txzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237280/original/file-20180920-129871-1n0txzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237280/original/file-20180920-129871-1n0txzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237280/original/file-20180920-129871-1n0txzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237280/original/file-20180920-129871-1n0txzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">South African experimental composer, Gabi Motuba.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Delwyn Verasamy/Mail & Guardian</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Music writer</h2>
<p>Over the past few months alone, my work as a music writer has brought me flurry of new releases. These have included a piano trio <a href="https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/bokanidyertrio">outing</a> from Bokani Dyer, an Argentinian/South African <a href="https://arielz.bandcamp.com/releases">collaboration</a> from bassist Ariel Zamonsky, a vocal/string quartet <a href="https://urbanlifestylesa.co.za/2018/08/14/its-personal-with-gabi-motuba/">song series</a> from avant-garde composer Gabi Motuba, <a href="https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/claudecozens6">explorations</a> of rhythm patterns from Norway-based Cape Town drummer Claude Cozens, the <a href="https://thabangtabane.bandcamp.com/album/matjale">debut</a> of young Thabang Tabane, who plays the indigenous South African <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/malombo-jazz-mn0001009208">malombo style of jazz</a>, and the <a href="http://www.sibumash.com/">third album</a> from Durban-based pianist Sibu Masiloane. That isn’t, by any means, everything that has been released during the period.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-47Ef5KQZiU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘We Will Be Home’ by Tumi Mogorosi and Gabi Motuba.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All these artists find audiences when they play, and those audiences are overwhelmingly young. As well as at comfortable metropolitan jazz clubs, there are now events at more informal, less expensive venues. In addition, audiences are growing for events around the discourses of jazz, such as the current series of Johannesburg discussions on jazz photography themed around the <a href="http://www.transafricaradio.net/index.php/2018/09/10/expression-the-couch-sessions-with-siphiwe-mhlambi/">exhibition</a> of photographer Siphiwe Mhlambi.</p>
<p>For a musician anywhere, surviving and prospering within the genre called jazz has never been easy, and it still isn’t. But the story is not summed up by the figures cited in international media commentaries.</p>
<p>Jazz author <a href="https://stuartnicholson.uk/">Stuart Nicholson’s</a> 2005 <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Dead-Has-Moved-Address/dp/0415975832">book</a> on the US scene posed the question differently: Is jazz dead? Or has it moved to a new address? To which the answers are: no, yes – and one of those addresses is definitely South Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103469/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
For a musician anywhere, surviving and prospering within the genre called jazz has never been easy, and it still isn’t.
Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/94682
2018-04-11T14:12:57Z
2018-04-11T14:12:57Z
Can jazz be ‘woke’ or is it ‘just compressed air through a metal tube’?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213880/original/file-20180409-114076-7fd0ft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vijay Iyer</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lena Adasheva</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Jazz is not just music,” the late singer Nina Simone is <a href="http://www.azquotes.com/quote/528143">quoted</a> as saying. “It’s a way of life, a way of being, a way of thinking.” </p>
<p>So it is unsurprising that the genre has been “woke” since before wokeness was <a href="http://www.okayplayer.com/culture/woke-william-melvin-kelley.html">coined</a> – that was probably by Harlem author William Melvin Kelley in his 1962 essay, entitled “If You’re Woke You Dig It”.</p>
<p>But what is woke today? The Oxford English Dictionary <a href="http://www.okayplayer.com/culture/woke-added-to-oxford-english-dictionary.html">explained</a> the term like this in its quarterly update in June 2017:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Originally: well-informed, up-to-date. Now chiefly: alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice; frequently in stay woke.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At this year’s <a href="http://www.capetownjazzfest.com/">Cape Town International Jazz Festival</a> (CTIJF), a group of veteran South African players foregrounded historic and current wokeness in the <a href="http://www.capetownjazzfest.com/artists-2018-pg3">Liberation Project</a>, revisiting and revisioning songs of protest. It’s a foretaste of an international collaborative album (co-produced by English musician <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/phil-manzanera-mn0000845668/biography">Phil Manzanera</a>) that will <a href="http://www.theliberationproject.co.za/dan-chiorboli/">launch</a> in May 2018. As reedman and one vocalist of the Cape Town concert, <a href="http://www.hotstix.co.za/">Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuse</a>, explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Music has always been at the forefront and the arts still need to ask ‘Who are we?’ and speak truth to power… Much of what we have done since (the end of apartheid in) 1994 has been done badly… the ballot is there, and yet we still allow children to die in poverty and people to amass fortunes at our expense.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Musical form and process</h2>
<p>Ideas of change formed a current that energised much of the two-day jazz event. The current was complex, and extended beyond content to musical form and process. As American pianist <a href="https://vijay-iyer.com/">Vijay Iyer</a> noted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>How does music ‘say’ anything? I think there’s a distinction between music that is political (pinning things down with words; striking a stance) and music that does politics – that performs the idea of community and action.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He told his festival master class about drawing on multiple rhythmic sources to interrogate identity in the early 2000s, because:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… for people who look like me, the period after September 11 was very intense: basically I was seen as the enemy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bassist <a href="http://www.milesmosley.com/">Miles Mosley</a> said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We need music that can help people tackle the intricacies of social experience. I don’t feel (that) as a pressure. It’s not easy; it’s daunting, but it’s a responsibility. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>South African guitarist <a href="http://www.theorbit.co.za/keenan-ahrends/">Keenan Ahrends</a> concurred: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>You have a prominent role, a stage to speak from, listeners. You have power and responsibility because of that. What you do could be positive or negative – the whole pop ‘money, b*tches and hoes’ thing. I prefer to express positivity and freedom.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One artist, New Orleans bandleader <a href="http://www.tromboneshorty.com/">Trombone Shorty</a>, proposed a different purpose for his sound: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Politics? Not in my music. For me, music is about fun.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213901/original/file-20180409-114121-tht9l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213901/original/file-20180409-114121-tht9l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213901/original/file-20180409-114121-tht9l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213901/original/file-20180409-114121-tht9l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213901/original/file-20180409-114121-tht9l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213901/original/file-20180409-114121-tht9l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213901/original/file-20180409-114121-tht9l7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nicholas Payton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Skip Bolen/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But his implicit assertion that there are contrary pulls between enjoyment and ideas is not universally shared. Fellow New Orleans player, trumpeter <a href="http://www.nicholaspayton.com/">Nicholas Payton</a>, argues:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You can create music on a high intellectual level that people can still shake their booties to. I want that dance sensibility in my music – there’s no contradiction between the two. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The songs of the Liberation Project build their audience appeal on an inherent rhythmic groove – this, after all, was music that people marched and toyi-toyi-ed to during the struggle against apartheid.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Xmt3k8JDzsg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A member of the Liberation Project, Sipho Mabuse’s protest song ‘Chant of the marching’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And Iyer has researched extensively – and enacted in the trio album <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/accelerando-mw0002299025">“Accelerando”</a> – the identity between music and movement: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Not only dance or march, but the movement of breath, and the timescale in the body that is memory.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>On-stage collaboration</h2>
<p>The politics of on-stage collaboration matter. Says Ahrends: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you look at the guitar in rock bands, for example, it’s always stepping up to the front and dominating. I try not to play that kind of patriarchal role. My question on stage has to be: ‘How can I contribute?’ </p>
</blockquote>
<p>For Iyer:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I like to get to the point in our groups where I’m not leading. My eyes are often closed… with the trio, we’re spread out on stage and don’t really look at one another.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Explorations of form and sound are essentially political. They challenge the status quo in society by interrogating categories and barriers, but they challenge the status quo in the discourse of the genre too. </p>
<p>While Mosley hopes his music will “lift people forward in a positive movement”, he equally aims to,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>liberate my instrument. For 500 years, the upright bass has moved the music forward, but its sound has been shackled by its acoustic properties. I’ve tried to unshackle that… to revolutionise the upright bass.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Gender and jazz</h2>
<p>While the jazz festival public debate preceding the concerts, on gender and jazz, interrogated the question of who was doing the playing as well as how, that was less discussed by musicians at the event. </p>
<p>The Liberation Project works with bassist Aus Tebza Sedumedi, in Ahrends’ South African band there’s regular bassist Romy Brauteseth, and the digital slices of Payton’s stage sound came courtesy of the dexterous DJ Lady Fingaz. The creativity of fellow South African, vocalist/trombonist <a href="http://www.theorbit.co.za/page-d-exemple/siya-makuzeni/">Siya Makuzeni</a>, powered the performance of the Louis Moholo-Moholo group. But all-male ensembles dominated the sit-down space of the festival’s Rosie’s stage, seen by some as the primary site of the event’s jazz. </p>
<p>For Iyer, that raises questions, even as he values the working relationships built up over years that shape his current sextet:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s all-male. Gender can’t be ignored and it’s something I do think about. There should be women in collaborations and it’s problematic when there are not.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213883/original/file-20180409-114080-ybuvw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213883/original/file-20180409-114080-ybuvw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213883/original/file-20180409-114080-ybuvw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213883/original/file-20180409-114080-ybuvw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213883/original/file-20180409-114080-ybuvw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213883/original/file-20180409-114080-ybuvw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213883/original/file-20180409-114080-ybuvw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Vijay Iyer Sextet at the Cape Town International Festival.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Charles Leonard</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Songs at the strike</h2>
<p>Back in February 2017 progressive English folk singer Billy Bragg <a href="http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/ent-columns-blogs/back-to-rockville/article138948568.html">told</a> the Folk Alliance conference about the songs he heard around the 1984 UK miners’ strike:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The miners lost. The Clash didn’t change the world. They didn’t even give me the courage of my convictions. Being in that audience did. Seeing a hundred thousand kids just like me standing up against racism: that gave me the courage of my convictions to go back to work Monday morning and stand up for what I bloody well believed in.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At the Cape Town festival Mabuse explained it like this: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s the consciousness of the music-makers that determines what the music does.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Or, as Payton put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There are always choices about how you express yourself. The trumpet without the mind of the person behind it is just… blowing compressed air through a metal tube.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94682/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Explorations of form and sound in jazz are essentially political. They challenge the status quo in society by interrogating categories and barriers.
Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/91670
2018-04-09T14:54:29Z
2018-04-09T14:54:29Z
An appreciation of South Africa’s jazz stalwart Jonas Gwangwa
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212255/original/file-20180327-109175-tz2jim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C338%2C1985%2C1730&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jonas Gwangwa performing in Germany in 2010.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Music galore marked the passing early in 2018 of two South African titans of culture, Poet Laureate <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-tribute-to-keorapetse-kgositsile-south-africas-poet-laureate-89700">Keorapetse Kgositsile</a> and trumpeter <a href="https://theconversation.com/remembering-hugh-masekela-the-horn-player-with-a-shrewd-ear-for-music-of-the-day-86414">Hugh Masekela</a>. Notable at their memorial events were powerfully moving tributes by two veterans still living: <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/biography-caiphus-semenya">Caiphus Semenya</a> and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/jonas-mosa-gwangwa">Jonas Gwangwa</a>. They have shared stages and the perils of exile with both. </p>
<p>Semenya and Gwangwa’s histories raise a persistent question – why, given the scale of their achievements, are they not more famous? The answer may be rooted in the prominence of live performance over composition: everybody remembers the man or woman on stage. Fewer enquire about who wrote – let alone arranged – the song.</p>
<p>So the 80-year-old Jonas Mosa Gwangwa can command instant warmth and recognition on stage, singing or playing trombone. That music has won him friends and fans around the world. The democratic South African government acknowledged his role in, as they termed it, “singing down apartheid” with the Order of Ikhamanga (Gold) in 2010. But even the <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/jonas-gwangwa">citation</a> for that award omitted much about the scope of his work as composer, arranger and director of stage shows.</p>
<p>Gwangwa was born in Orlando East, outside Johannesburg in 1937. As a student, he became a founder-member of the influential Huddleston Jazz Band alongside Masekela. And, like his contemporary, he also moonlighted wherever there was band work – for example, in trumpeter Elijah Nwanyane’s Rhythm Kings. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Jonas Gwangwa often performed in Elijah’s Rhythm Kings.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When American pianist <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1984/04/05/obituaries/john-mehegan-jazz-pianist-wrote-4-volume-textbook.html">John Mehegan</a> visited South Africa in the late 1950s, Gwangwa was one of the improvisers with whom he chose to work.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Jonas Gwangwa performed with John Mehegan.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Those and other collaborations led, in turn, to the 1960 release of the <a href="http://revive-music.com/2011/06/21/the-jazz-epistles-jazz-epistle-verse-1/">“Jazz Epistles, Verse One”</a>. It was the first LP released by black modern jazz players in South Africa. It also featured <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/kippie-jeremiah-moeketsi">Kippie Moeketsi</a>, Masekela, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/abdullah-ibrahim">Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim)</a> and more. As Gwangwa told me in my book <em><a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/soweto-blues-9780826416629/">Soweto Blues</a></em> (2004):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kippie got interested in both Hugh and I because we were attempting all those Charlie Parker things, and Kippie said: ‘Oh, so you like this music? Come here, let me teach you…’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was during the making of the Jazz Epistles album that Gwangwa began to compose: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I sat at the piano, messing around until I came up with this tune <em>Carol’s Drive</em>… a style was being formulated, of course, only I was not aware of this… I was thinking that I could improvise so why can’t I compose?</p>
</blockquote>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Jazz Epistles with the Gwangwa composition, ‘Carol’s Drive’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>His music writing skills grew when he was engaged as a copyist and pit player for the famous musical <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/king-kong-musical-1959-1961">“King Kong”</a>. When the production toured abroad in 1961, Gwangwa was one of many cast members who chose not to return to apartheid South Africa after the show’s run concluded. He ended up with Masekela at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. </p>
<p>Gwangwa played a pivotal role in selling South African music to initially uninterested US audiences. He was arranger and orchestra director on Harry Belafonte and Miriam Makeba’s 1965 Grammy winning album <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/an-evening-with-belafonte-makeba-mw0000453025">“An Evening with Makeba and Belafonte”</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Train Song’ from ‘An Evening with Makeba and Belafonte’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over the following decade, he also had his own projects, touring with Masekela and Semenya in the band, Union of South Africa, alongside American jazz band, <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-crusaders-mn0000136075">The Crusaders</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Union of South Africa.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Gwangwa also released infectious Afro-pop with his band African Explosion.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Gwangwa’s band African Explosion.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Politically meaningful</h2>
<p>But, increasingly, the necessity to do something more politically meaningful with his music was becoming. As Gwangwa told me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I figured that before I became an Americanised African, I have to go home and… grab a little kryptonite.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the early 1980s he was summoned by the president of the then banned <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/organisations/african-national-congress-anc">African National Congress (ANC)</a>, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/oliver-reginald-kaizana-tambo">Oliver Tambo</a> to assist with a group of young musicians in the ANC training camps in Angola who wanted to perform. The result was a musical, called <em>Amandla!</em>. With its slick, disciplined stagecraft, varied programming, comedy, dance routines and original as well as traditional and struggle songs,<a href="http://www.peripherycenter.org/music/music-anti-apartheid-south-africa"> <em>Amandla!</em></a> was light years away from simplistic agit-prop.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The track ‘Sasol’ from the original musical ‘Amandla!’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The script-line was kept sharply up to date:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I always added or changed something to tally with whatever’s happening inside the country.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Between tours, Gwangwa spent as much time as he could in the ANC’s military camps, rehearsing, scouting new talent and sharing the risks. After a vehicle accident in Angola shattered his leg, he spent more time in Botswana, working with the Gaborone-based Medu Arts Ensemble. It was there that much of his best loved <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/pure-sounds-of-africa/987954418">material</a> was developed.</p>
<p>The physical perils of exile manifested tragically on 14 June 1985 when the South African Defence Force <a href="http://sabctrc.saha.org.za/glossary/gaborone_raid.htm?tab=report">raided Gaborone</a>, killing more than a dozen people, many connected with Medu. For weeks afterwards, unmarked vehicles with South African number plates spied on Gaborone. One hunted Gwangwa through the streets until he evaded it in the narrow alleys of an informal settlement.</p>
<h2>Shortlisted for an Oscar</h2>
<p>In 1987, Gwangwa worked with UK composer George Fenton on the soundtrack for the movie <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092804/">“Cry Freedom”</a>, based on the friendship between newspaper editor Donald Woods and civil rights activist, Steve Biko. The <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cry-Freedom-Original-Picture-Soundtrack/dp/B000002O5E">music</a> was shortlisted for an Oscar and multiple other international awards, winning both an Ivor Novello and a Black Emmy award. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The title track from the soundtrack of ‘Cry Freedom’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although Gwangwa continued to perform – he played at both the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/british-anti-apartheid-movement-hosts-concert-mandela">1988 Nelson Mandela Birthday Concert</a> and the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01b78f7">1990 Mandela release concerts in London</a> – that exposure opened additional doors to composing opportunities. Back home, by the mid-1990s his name was both a regular feature on music festival programmes, and a regular pop-up on film in composers’ credits. Since his return home, he has released eight albums.</p>
<p>Although composing now dominates his time, Gwangwa is still a powerfully compelling live artist. It may be a cliché, but one that is sometimes true: Gwangwa’s music at two memorial services for Kgositsile earlier this year – reprising songs that Medu veterans remember well from Botswana – really did not leave a dry eye in the house.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Gwangwa at a memorial service for Keorapetse Kgositsile.</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91670/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
South African jazz veteran Jonas Gwangwa has been getting recognition for the pivotal role he played in ‘singing down apartheid.’
Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/86414
2017-10-29T11:12:40Z
2017-10-29T11:12:40Z
Remembering Hugh Masekela: the horn player with a shrewd ear for music of the day
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192191/original/file-20171027-13340-27cnqe.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hugh Masekela performing during the 16th Cape Town International Jazz Festival.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Esa Alexander/The Times</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Trumpeter, flugelhorn-player, singer, composer and activist Hugh Ramapolo Masekela <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/tshisa-live/tshisa-live/2018-01-23-breaking-legendary-musician-hugh-masekela-has-died-report/">has passed away</a> after a long battle with prostate cancer.</p>
<p>When he cancelled his appearance last year at the Johannesburg Joy of Jazz Festival, taking time out to deal with <a href="https://www.enca.com/media/video/hugh-masekela-cancels-future-shows-as-he-battles-cancer?playlist=112">his serious health issues</a>, fans were forced to return to his recorded opus for reminders of his unique work. Listening through that half-century of disks, the nature and scope of the trumpeter’s achievement becomes clear.</p>
<p>Masekela had two early horn heroes. </p>
<p>The first was part-mythical: the life of jazz great <a href="http://www.redhotjazz.com/bix.html">Bix Biederbecke</a> filtered through Kirk Douglas’s acting and Harry James’s trumpet, in the 1950 movie <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/young_man_with_a_horn/">“Young Man With A Horn”</a>. Masekela saw the film as a schoolboy at the Harlem Bioscope in Johannesburg’s Sophiatown. The erstwhile chorister resolved “then and there to become a trumpet player”.</p>
<p>The second horn hero, unsurprisingly, was <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/miles-davis-mn0000423829/biography">Miles Davis</a>. And while Masekela’s accessible, storytelling style and lyrical instrumental tone are very different, he shared one important characteristic with the American: his life and music were marked by constant reinvention. As Davis reportedly said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I don’t want to be yesterday’s guy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Much has already been written about Masekela’s life and its landmarks: playing in the Huddleston Jazz Band in the 1950s on a horn donated by Louis Armstrong; performing in the musical <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/king-kong-musical-1959-1961">“King Kong”</a> in the 1960s and at the Guildhall and then Manhattan schools of music with singer <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/miriam-makeba">Miriam Makeba</a>; US pop successes in the 1970s and then touring Paul Simon’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/apr/19/paul-simon-graceland-acclaim-outrage">“Graceland”</a> in the 80s and 90s. </p>
<p>What is less discussed is the <a href="http://electricjive.blogspot.co.za/search?q=Masekela">music</a>, and the innovative imagination he has periodically applied to draw it fresh from the flames.</p>
<h2>Breaking new ground</h2>
<p>The Huddleston band, plus time as sideman and in stage shows, were the traditional career path for a young musician. But then Masekela broke his first new ground. With fellow originals, including saxophonist <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/kippie-jeremiah-moeketsi">Kippie Moeketsi</a>, pianist <a href="https://abdullahibrahim.co.za/">Abdullah Ibrahim</a> and trombonist <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/jonas-mosa-gwangwa">Jonas Gwangwa</a>, as <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/04/26/525696698/the-legacy-of-the-jazz-epistles-south-africas-short-lived-but-historic-group">The Jazz Epistles</a> they cut the first LP of modern African jazz in South Africa.</p>
<p><a href="http://tonymcgregor-tonysplace.blogspot.co.za/2008/02/jazz-epistle-verse-1.html">“Jazz Epistle: Verse One”</a> (1960) featured band compositions marked by challenging improvisation – “a cross between mbaqanga and bebop”. <a href="http://www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/south-african-sound-mbaqanga">Mbaqanga</a> is form of South African township jive and <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-bebop-2039578">bebop</a> an American jazz style developed in the 1940s.</p>
<p>Masekela had also joined the pit band and worked as a copyist for South Africa’s first black musical, “King Kong”. </p>
<p>This exposure attracted attention to his talent from potential patrons at home and abroad. Pushed by the horrors of the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/sharpeville-massacre-21-march-1960">Sharpeville massacre</a> when the South African police shot and killed 69 people on 21 March 1960, and pulled by donated air-tickets and scholarships, Masekela left for London, and then New York.</p>
<p>In the next two decades, Masekela’s re-visioning of his music took many forms. He found America hard, but with wife Miriam Makeba (the marriage lasted from 1964 - 1966), the production skills of Gwangwa, and the support of American singer <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/harry-belafonte-mn0000952794/biography">Harry Belafonte</a> he proactively introduced audiences to South African music and the destruction of apartheid. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192192/original/file-20171027-13331-1wspb5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192192/original/file-20171027-13331-1wspb5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192192/original/file-20171027-13331-1wspb5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192192/original/file-20171027-13331-1wspb5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192192/original/file-20171027-13331-1wspb5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192192/original/file-20171027-13331-1wspb5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192192/original/file-20171027-13331-1wspb5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A young Hugh Masekela in the 1950s blowing his horn.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Johncom</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the ironically titled 1966 live <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/americanization-of-ooga-booga-mw0001304086">“Americanisation of Ooga Booga”</a>, he demonstrated the creative possibilities of “township bop”. Masekela did this by mashing up repertoire and playing styles from the South Africa he had left and the America he had landed in. </p>
<p>But he was also looking in other directions: in collaborations with other African musicians; towards fusion (with <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-crusaders-mn0000136075/biography">The Crusaders</a>), rock (with <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-byrds-mn0000631774/biography">The Byrds</a>) and even pop at the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jun/16/masekela-shankar-play-monterey">Monterey Pop</a>, festival. </p>
<p>That list captures only a fraction of his projects in the 1960s. Some bore instant fruit: his 1968 single, <a href="http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=8369">“Grazin’ In the Grass”</a>, topped the Billboard Hot 100 list and sold four million copies; the previous year’s “Up Up and Away” became an instant standard.</p>
<p>In 1971, he teamed up with Gwangwa and Caiphus Semenya for another pan-African vision: <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/hugh-masekela-the-union-of-south-africa-mw0000625550">The Union of South Africa</a>. In 1972 he explored a stronger jazz orientation on <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/home-is-where-the-music-is-mw0000789812">“Home is Where The Music Is”</a> with, among others, sax player <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/dudu-pukwana-mn0000210863/biography">Dudu Pukwana</a>, bassist <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/eddie-gomez-mn0000794244">Eddie Gomez</a>, keyboardist <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/larry-willis-mn0000114935/biography">Larry Willis</a> and Semenya.</p>
<h2>Sixties counterculture</h2>
<p>But as the title of “Grazin’ In the Grass” suggests, Masekela was also bewitched by other aspects of Sixties counterculture. He dated his addiction back to the alcohol-focused social climate of his early playing years in South Africa, but by the early Seventies he admitted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I had destroyed my life with drugs and alcohol and could not get a gig or a band together. No recording company was interested in me…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That depression inspired the song that achieved genuinely iconic status back home in South Africa: the 1974 reflection on migrant labour, <a href="http://www.mahala.co.za/art/curse-of-the-coal-train/">“Stimela/Coal Train”</a>.</p>
<p>Foreign critics have handed that status to other Masekela songs, such as “Soweto Blues”, “Gold” or the much later “Bring Him Back Home”. Yet powerful though those are, it is Stimela, with its slow-burning steam-piston rhythm that captured the hearts of South Africans in struggle back home, and still does today. And of course the lyrics:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There’s a train that comes from Namibia and Malawi /there’s a train that comes from Zambia and Zimbabwe/ from Angola and Mozambique…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Masekela said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For me songs come like a tidal wave … At this low point, for some reason, the tidal wave that whooshed in on me came all the way from the other side of the Atlantic: from Africa; from home.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Shortly afterwards, Masekela headed off to Ghana, hooked up with <a href="https://soulsafari.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/masekela-introducing-hedzoleh-soundz/">Hedzoleh Soundz</a>, and was soon back in the charts. “Stimela” received its first outing on the album <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/hugh-masekela-i-am-not-afraid">“I Am Not Afraid”</a>, with West African and American co-players including pianist <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/15/arts/music/joe-sample-crusaders-pianist-dies-at-75.html">Joe Sample</a>. </p>
<p>By the mid ‘80s, the hornman was back in southern Africa, recording <a href="http://afrosynth.blogspot.co.za/2009/08/hugh-masekela-techno-bush-1984-jive.html">“Technobush”</a> at the mobile <a href="http://shifty.co.za/the-shifty-story/">Shifty Studio</a> in Botswana, and performing for the Medu Arts Ensemble with a Botswanan/South African band, <a href="http://afrosynth.blogspot.co.za/2009/08/hugh-masekela-with-kalahari-tomorrow.html">Kalahari</a>. His music shifted again: roots mbaqanga came strongly to the fore to speak simply and directly to people now openly battling the apartheid regime just across the border.</p>
<h2>Returning home</h2>
<p>After liberation and his return home, Masekela once more chose fresh directions. In 1997 he banished his addictions and began to showcase the virtuoso player he could have been 30 years earlier without the distractions of the West Coast. He fronted big European jazz bands, and benchmarked a long musical friendship with Larry Willis with the magisterial <a href="http://revive-music.com/2012/05/10/hugh-masekela-larry-willis-friends/">Friends</a>.</p>
<p>But his shrewd ear for the music of today, rather than yesterday, also took him into younger company. He collaborated with current stars – including singer <a href="http://www.thandiswa.com/">Thandiswa Mazwai</a> – often encouraging them to take centre stage. Just before the recurrence of his cancer, he was <a href="http://www.channel24.co.za/The-Juice/News/eye-surgery-forces-hugh-masekela-to-postpone-collab-with-riky-rick-20170915">planning</a> a festival collaboration with rapper Riky Rick. </p>
<p>To cap the transformation, the individualistic rebel of the 60s and 70s became an elder statesman of social activism. In 2001, he established a <a href="http://www.artlink.co.za/news_article.htm?contentID=26912">foundation</a> to help other musicians escape addiction. Once more he foregrounded the music of continental Africa, to campaign against xenophobia. And the return of his own illness became the cue to <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/10/07/hugh-masekela-encourages-men-to-get-checked-for-prostate-cancer">exhort</a> other men to get checked for prostate cancer. </p>
<p>Other South African musicians have succeeded overseas; many have made one mid-career image switch – but few have shown us, in only one person but more than 30 albums, so many of the faces and possibilities of South African jazz.</p>
<p><em>Hugh Masekela, musician, activist. Born: 4 April 1939; Died: 23 January 2018</em></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Masekela Playlist:</strong></p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Blues for Hughie’ from the album, Jazz Epistle Verse One.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Unhlanhla (Lucky Boy)’ from The Americanization of Ooga Booga.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The major Masekela hit, ‘Grazin in the Grass’.</span></figcaption>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Hugh Masekela with ‘Up Up & Away’.</span></figcaption>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Shebeen’ from The Union of South Africa.</span></figcaption>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TOJMClzQ294?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘The Big Apple’ from Home is Where The Music Is.</span></figcaption>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Stimela’, a South African classic.</span></figcaption>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Motlalepula’ from Technobush.</span></figcaption>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Hugh Masekela and Larry Willis live.</span></figcaption>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘African Sunset’ with Thandiswa Mazwai.</span></figcaption>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Masekela in conversation with the rapper Riky Rick.</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86414/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela made an impact across the world during his decades-long musical career.
Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.