History of Jazz and Poetry
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The Origin of Jazz
Jazz has roots in the combination of West African and Western music traditions, including spirituals, blues and ragtime, stemming from West Africa, western Sahel and New England's religious hymns, hillbilly music and European military band music. After originating in African American communities in the early 1900's, jazz styles spread in the 1920's, influencing other musical styles.
The origins of the word jazz are uncertain. The word was originally spelled "jass". Some say that was a common misspelling of the word between groups. For example, the success of the Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1917 with the first jazz recording was immense. The Victor Talking Machine Co. had placed advertising posters in the New York subway cars (the same long thin rectangular posters you see on buses today) and the first letter in the word jass was defaced. Of course, this wouldn't do and the Victor Talking Machine Company (for certain with permission from the ODJB) changed the name to Jazz.
The word "Jazz" and the word "Cool" have also been used interchangeably. Prior to 1916 the word "jass" was supposedly used in general language slang meaning to do something with vigor and energy. As in - "Let's jass it up on the dance floor." Since the 1950's the word "cool" has been used in general language slang meaning something is good, likable or great. In the 1960's Miles Davis recorded in a style that became known as the "Cool" jazz period.
The popular use of the word "jass" as slang, a hit recording, and changing the name from jass to jazz by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band forever secured the word jazz a musical definition term. Jazz is rooted in the blues, the folk music of former enslaved Africans in the U.S. South and their descendants, which is influenced by West African cultural and musical traditions that evolved as black musicians migrated to the cities. Jazz musician Wynton Marsalis states that "Jazz is something Negroes invented…the nobility of the race put into sound…jazz has all the elements, from the spare and penetrating to the complex and enveloping."
The instruments used in marching bands and dance band music at the turn of the century became the basic instruments of jazz; brass, reeds and drums, using the Western 12-tone scale. Small groups of black musicians, mostly self taught, who led funeral processions, in New Orleans played an important role in the articulation and dissemination of early jazz; traveling throughout black communities in the Deep South and to northern cities.
Jazz as a genre is often very hard to explain, but improvisation is a key element of the form. Improvisation has been an essential element in African and African-American music since early forms of the music developed, and is closely related to the use of call and response in West African and African-American cultural expression.
That is why jazz is the perfect accompaniment for the poets who are featured on my show. In as much as Jazz represents the best in musical interpretation, poetry represents the best in lyrical interpretation. Next month we'll take a look at how poetry has developed and from there discover together some of the milestones within both genres of expression.
The origins of the word jazz are uncertain. The word was originally spelled "jass". Some say that was a common misspelling of the word between groups. For example, the success of the Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1917 with the first jazz recording was immense. The Victor Talking Machine Co. had placed advertising posters in the New York subway cars (the same long thin rectangular posters you see on buses today) and the first letter in the word jass was defaced. Of course, this wouldn't do and the Victor Talking Machine Company (for certain with permission from the ODJB) changed the name to Jazz.
The word "Jazz" and the word "Cool" have also been used interchangeably. Prior to 1916 the word "jass" was supposedly used in general language slang meaning to do something with vigor and energy. As in - "Let's jass it up on the dance floor." Since the 1950's the word "cool" has been used in general language slang meaning something is good, likable or great. In the 1960's Miles Davis recorded in a style that became known as the "Cool" jazz period.
The popular use of the word "jass" as slang, a hit recording, and changing the name from jass to jazz by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band forever secured the word jazz a musical definition term. Jazz is rooted in the blues, the folk music of former enslaved Africans in the U.S. South and their descendants, which is influenced by West African cultural and musical traditions that evolved as black musicians migrated to the cities. Jazz musician Wynton Marsalis states that "Jazz is something Negroes invented…the nobility of the race put into sound…jazz has all the elements, from the spare and penetrating to the complex and enveloping."
The instruments used in marching bands and dance band music at the turn of the century became the basic instruments of jazz; brass, reeds and drums, using the Western 12-tone scale. Small groups of black musicians, mostly self taught, who led funeral processions, in New Orleans played an important role in the articulation and dissemination of early jazz; traveling throughout black communities in the Deep South and to northern cities.
Jazz as a genre is often very hard to explain, but improvisation is a key element of the form. Improvisation has been an essential element in African and African-American music since early forms of the music developed, and is closely related to the use of call and response in West African and African-American cultural expression.
That is why jazz is the perfect accompaniment for the poets who are featured on my show. In as much as Jazz represents the best in musical interpretation, poetry represents the best in lyrical interpretation. Next month we'll take a look at how poetry has developed and from there discover together some of the milestones within both genres of expression.
The Harlem Renaissance is a period of time in this country's history where the influence of African-Americans in politics, literature, music, culture and society grew and became a part of mainstream America. This period has its roots in the early 1900's when the migration of middle class African-Americans into a newly built suburb in New York City called Harlem, caused a stir. It was 1904, when several families relocated from a segregated section of New York City known as "Black Bohemia", to the new and sparsely populated Harlem community.
In 1910, a church group and several African-American realtors purchased a large section of 135th Street and Fifth Avenue. Southern blacks, looking for paid labor, moved north to join the throng. Also emerging during that time was a new political movement that arose from the grass roots of the African-American community that began to champion civil rights for blacks. This insurgence of discrimination awareness led to a rich paradigm shift in the culture, education and political thought within the African-American community.
One of the first organizations founded early in the Civil Rights era was The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), founded in 1909 by black sociologist W.E.B. DuBois, a noted historian, who began to speak out against the white establishment for its institutionalized racism. DuBois encouraged African-Americans to educate themselves and participate in American politics and mainstream culture. As a result of this movement, a number of literary artists and musicians managed to move into mainstream American culture and still maintain a vast influence in all circles of American society.
As a result of the huge migration from the South, several musicians populated the area, making jazz and blues very popular in Harlem. Before the turn of the century, Paul Lawrence Dunbar accomplished national acclaim as a black writer and was a huge influence on many subsequent African-American literary artists. World War I saw the recognition of Claude McKay as a poet and writer, and James Weldon Johnson as a black fiction writer. In the early 1900's, McKay's book of poetry Harlem Shadows (1922) became one of the first works by an African-American author to achieve national acclaim with a reputable mainstream publisher. Jean Toomer followed in 1923, with the publication of Cane, an experimental novel that combined poetry and prose to tell the story of African-Americans in the urban North and rural South. On the political front, Jamaica native Marcus Garvey, kicked off the worldwide Black Nationalist movement.
With these personalities and events as precursors, the Harlem Renaissance got its real boost of activity between 1924 and 1926, when the National Urban League hosted a dinner to honor the growing literary talent of the African-American community. This led to a popular literary magazine, Survey Graphic, producing a Harlem issue in March 1925. Black philosopher and literary scholar Alain Locke edited the issue. Locke later expanded the issue into an anthology titled The New Negro.
In 1926, a white novelist, Carl Van Vechten, published a book on Harlem life titled Nigger Heaven. The book offended some members of the black community but it was influential in developing a wider interest in African-American literature among blacks and whites and drew people from all over to experience Harlem's burgeoning nightlife.
Also in 1926, a group of black writers started their own literary journal called Fire!. Such long lasting influences as Langston Hughes, Wallace Thurman, and Zora Neale Hurston, saw their names in print in this journal and the Harlem Renaissance was well on its way.
Noteworthy poets of the Harlem Renaissance include Langston Hughes, Jessie Fauset, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, James Weldon Johnson, and Arna Bontemps. To visit an excellent web site featuring female African-American poets and writers of the Harlem Renaissance go to Female Harlem Renaissance Poets. http://www.nku.edu/~diesmanj/guides/featuredwriters.html
So what can we learn from the poets of the Harlem Renaissance? A great deal if we just take the time to study. In a free style that borrowed the rhythms of blues and jazz, Hughes wrote about what he considered to be the music that expressed the soul of black people.
Fauset was perhaps the most prolific female writer of the Harlem Renaissance. Cullen, raised primarily in a white neighborhood, was a bit different than the other writers of the Harlem Renaissance, but his influence is no less important. McKay migrated from Jamaica only to be confronted with racism when he hit American shores. His poetry is rich with description on the racist experience.
Johnson was the first African-American accepted to the Florida bar. With a long public life, he is well known for having penned "Lift Every Voice and Sing," which has long been considered the "Negro National Anthem." Bontemps, another influential writer of the Harlem Renaissance, now has a museum in Louisiana named in his honor.
In 1910, a church group and several African-American realtors purchased a large section of 135th Street and Fifth Avenue. Southern blacks, looking for paid labor, moved north to join the throng. Also emerging during that time was a new political movement that arose from the grass roots of the African-American community that began to champion civil rights for blacks. This insurgence of discrimination awareness led to a rich paradigm shift in the culture, education and political thought within the African-American community.
One of the first organizations founded early in the Civil Rights era was The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), founded in 1909 by black sociologist W.E.B. DuBois, a noted historian, who began to speak out against the white establishment for its institutionalized racism. DuBois encouraged African-Americans to educate themselves and participate in American politics and mainstream culture. As a result of this movement, a number of literary artists and musicians managed to move into mainstream American culture and still maintain a vast influence in all circles of American society.
As a result of the huge migration from the South, several musicians populated the area, making jazz and blues very popular in Harlem. Before the turn of the century, Paul Lawrence Dunbar accomplished national acclaim as a black writer and was a huge influence on many subsequent African-American literary artists. World War I saw the recognition of Claude McKay as a poet and writer, and James Weldon Johnson as a black fiction writer. In the early 1900's, McKay's book of poetry Harlem Shadows (1922) became one of the first works by an African-American author to achieve national acclaim with a reputable mainstream publisher. Jean Toomer followed in 1923, with the publication of Cane, an experimental novel that combined poetry and prose to tell the story of African-Americans in the urban North and rural South. On the political front, Jamaica native Marcus Garvey, kicked off the worldwide Black Nationalist movement.
With these personalities and events as precursors, the Harlem Renaissance got its real boost of activity between 1924 and 1926, when the National Urban League hosted a dinner to honor the growing literary talent of the African-American community. This led to a popular literary magazine, Survey Graphic, producing a Harlem issue in March 1925. Black philosopher and literary scholar Alain Locke edited the issue. Locke later expanded the issue into an anthology titled The New Negro.
In 1926, a white novelist, Carl Van Vechten, published a book on Harlem life titled Nigger Heaven. The book offended some members of the black community but it was influential in developing a wider interest in African-American literature among blacks and whites and drew people from all over to experience Harlem's burgeoning nightlife.
Also in 1926, a group of black writers started their own literary journal called Fire!. Such long lasting influences as Langston Hughes, Wallace Thurman, and Zora Neale Hurston, saw their names in print in this journal and the Harlem Renaissance was well on its way.
Noteworthy poets of the Harlem Renaissance include Langston Hughes, Jessie Fauset, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, James Weldon Johnson, and Arna Bontemps. To visit an excellent web site featuring female African-American poets and writers of the Harlem Renaissance go to Female Harlem Renaissance Poets. http://www.nku.edu/~diesmanj/guides/featuredwriters.html
So what can we learn from the poets of the Harlem Renaissance? A great deal if we just take the time to study. In a free style that borrowed the rhythms of blues and jazz, Hughes wrote about what he considered to be the music that expressed the soul of black people.
Fauset was perhaps the most prolific female writer of the Harlem Renaissance. Cullen, raised primarily in a white neighborhood, was a bit different than the other writers of the Harlem Renaissance, but his influence is no less important. McKay migrated from Jamaica only to be confronted with racism when he hit American shores. His poetry is rich with description on the racist experience.
Johnson was the first African-American accepted to the Florida bar. With a long public life, he is well known for having penned "Lift Every Voice and Sing," which has long been considered the "Negro National Anthem." Bontemps, another influential writer of the Harlem Renaissance, now has a museum in Louisiana named in his honor.
Jazz, Poetry and the Black Culture
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The History of Poetry
Poetry as an art form predates literacy. In preliterate societies, poetry was frequently employed as a means of recording oral history, storytelling (epic poetry), genealogy, law and other forms of expression or knowledge that modern societies might expect to be handled in prose. The Ramayana, a Sanskrit epic which includes poetry, was probably written in the 3rd century BCE in a language described by William Jones as "more perfect than Latin, more copious than Greek and more exquisitely refined than either." Poetry is also often closely identified with liturgy in these societies, as the formal nature of poetry makes it easier to remember priestly incantations or prophecies. The greater part of the world's sacred scriptures are made up of poetry rather than prose.
The use of verse to transmit cultural information continues today. Many English speaking Americans know that "in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue". An alphabet song teaches the names and order of the letters of the alphabet; another jingle states the lengths and names of the months in the Gregorian calendar. Preliterate societies, lacking the means to write down important cultural information, use similar methods to preserve it.
Some writers believe that poetry has its origins in song. Most of the characteristics that distinguish it from other forms of utterance-rhythm, rhyme, compression, intensity of feeling, the use of refrains-appear to have come about from efforts to fit words to musical forms. However, in the European tradition the earliest surviving poems, the Homeric and Hesiodic epics, identify themselves as poems to be recited or chanted to a musical accompaniment rather than as pure song. Another interpretation, developed from 20th-century studies of living Montenegran epic reciters by Milman Parry and others, is that rhythm, refrains, and kennings are essentially paratactic devices that enable the reciter to reconstruct the poem from memory.
In preliterate societies, all these forms of poetry were composed for, and sometimes during, performance. As such, there was a certain degree of fluidity to the exact wording of poems, given this could change from one performance or performer to another. The introduction of writing tended to fix the content of a poem to the version that happened to be written down and survive. Written composition also meant that poets began to compose not for an audience that was sitting in front of them but for an absent reader. Later, the invention of printing tended to accelerate these trends. Poets were now writing more for the eye than for the ear.
The development of literacy gave rise to more personal, shorter poems intended to be sung. These are called lyrics, which derives from the Greek lura or lyre, the instrument that was used to accompany the performance of Greek lyrics from about the seventh century BCE onward. The Greek's practice of singing hymns in large choruses gave rise in the sixth century BCE to dramatic verse, and to the practice of writing poetic plays for performance in their theatres.
In more recent times, the introduction of electronic media and the rise of the poetry reading have led to a resurgence of performance poetry and have resulted in a situation where poetry for the eye and poetry for the ear coexist, sometimes in the same poem. The late 20th-century rise of the singer-songwriter and Rap culture and the increase in popularity of Slam poetry have led to a renewed debate as to the nature of poetry that can be crudely characterized as a split between the academic and popular views. Today, this debate is ongoing with no immediate prospect of a resolution.
Love poems proliferate now, in weblogs and personal pages, as a new way of expression and liberty of hearts.
The use of verse to transmit cultural information continues today. Many English speaking Americans know that "in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue". An alphabet song teaches the names and order of the letters of the alphabet; another jingle states the lengths and names of the months in the Gregorian calendar. Preliterate societies, lacking the means to write down important cultural information, use similar methods to preserve it.
Some writers believe that poetry has its origins in song. Most of the characteristics that distinguish it from other forms of utterance-rhythm, rhyme, compression, intensity of feeling, the use of refrains-appear to have come about from efforts to fit words to musical forms. However, in the European tradition the earliest surviving poems, the Homeric and Hesiodic epics, identify themselves as poems to be recited or chanted to a musical accompaniment rather than as pure song. Another interpretation, developed from 20th-century studies of living Montenegran epic reciters by Milman Parry and others, is that rhythm, refrains, and kennings are essentially paratactic devices that enable the reciter to reconstruct the poem from memory.
In preliterate societies, all these forms of poetry were composed for, and sometimes during, performance. As such, there was a certain degree of fluidity to the exact wording of poems, given this could change from one performance or performer to another. The introduction of writing tended to fix the content of a poem to the version that happened to be written down and survive. Written composition also meant that poets began to compose not for an audience that was sitting in front of them but for an absent reader. Later, the invention of printing tended to accelerate these trends. Poets were now writing more for the eye than for the ear.
The development of literacy gave rise to more personal, shorter poems intended to be sung. These are called lyrics, which derives from the Greek lura or lyre, the instrument that was used to accompany the performance of Greek lyrics from about the seventh century BCE onward. The Greek's practice of singing hymns in large choruses gave rise in the sixth century BCE to dramatic verse, and to the practice of writing poetic plays for performance in their theatres.
In more recent times, the introduction of electronic media and the rise of the poetry reading have led to a resurgence of performance poetry and have resulted in a situation where poetry for the eye and poetry for the ear coexist, sometimes in the same poem. The late 20th-century rise of the singer-songwriter and Rap culture and the increase in popularity of Slam poetry have led to a renewed debate as to the nature of poetry that can be crudely characterized as a split between the academic and popular views. Today, this debate is ongoing with no immediate prospect of a resolution.
Love poems proliferate now, in weblogs and personal pages, as a new way of expression and liberty of hearts.
Courtesy of Poetry,org
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One cannot write or talk about an art form without serious analysis of the numerous socio-political conditions responsible for its creation and development. The development of jazz and its effect upon popular music in the United States and the rest of the world are the direct result of the African slave trade and the African Diaspora in the United States. This unique musical art form initiated by African/Americans during the later part of the 19th century is probably the most influential musical phenomenon produced on the North American Continent. The social conditions which spawned this dynamic art form is rooted in the human rights abuses and oppressive conditions experienced by Africans captured and uprooted from their traditional cultures then transported in the most barbaric and inhumane conditions to an alien environment as slaves. It is these dynamics coupled over the years with exposure to and assimilation of European arts and cultural forms that gave rise to new modes of musical expression which began to develop within the slave and Creole communities in and around New Orleans as well as other areas of the United States with large African /American populations. These were the early embryonic beginnings and early development stages of what was to become known as Jazz. South African Jazz has had many elements contributing to its evolution and development. The most prominent and significant being the rich eclectic cultural diversity of the country's inhabitants and the influence of African/American musical culture upon it over the years. These two variants coupled with an environment of legislated racism, gross human rights violations, created the unique artistic forge and mould responsible for the evolution of South African Jazz.
The first informal contact the inhabitants of Cape Town had with African Americans was during the American Civil War, when the Confederate warship the "Alabama" came into the port of Cape Town in 1862 to replenish its supplies. The "Alabama" patrolled the South Atlantic where it would lie in wait for Union Ships to come around the Cape from the Far East on its way to the east coast ports of Philadelphia, New York, New Port and Boston. It would then attack, plunder and sink them. The "Alabama" was one of the most notorious and feared Southern commerce raiders on patrol in the South Atlantic sending some fifty eight Union vessels to the bottom of the ocean during her two year patrol. Confederate captain Raphael Semmes commanded this British built steam powered schooner. A mixed crew of British mercenary and Southern white sailors manned the ship. On board there were also a small contingent of African-American slaves who served as cleaners, mess stewards and also provided some sort of musical entertainment for the crew. When the Alabama docked in Cape Town the local population flocked to the waterfront to look at her. It was then that the African-Americans dressed in their minstrel outfits gave impromptu musical recitals at the dockside where the "Alabama" was moored. When the inhabitants of Cape Town enquired from the white crew who the black entertainers were, the reply was "These are just our "Coons"! Or more succinctly put, "Just Our Niggers! The Alabama was finally tracked down and sunk off Cherbourg, France by the Union Warship the U.S.S. Kearsarge on the 19th of June 1864.
On June 19th 1890 South Africans had their first formal contact with black-Americans and Black-American music when the minstrel troupe of Orpheus Myron McAdoo's "Virginia Jubilee Singers" from Hampton Virginia presented a series of concerts in Cape Town. Orpheus McAdoo was born in 1858 in Greensborough, North Carolina. As a young man he attended the Hampton Institute in Hampton Virginia, where he studied and graduated as a teacher in 1876. Before turning to music as a professional career in 1886 he taught school in Pulaski and Accomac Counties in the state of Virginia for ten years. In 1886 he toured Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the Far East after joining five members of the original Fisk Jubilee singers. Upon his return to the U.S. a year or two later McAdoo formed his own company by recruiting some ex students and graduates from Hampton amongst who were his future wife Mattie Allen and his brother Eugene. With his newly formed troupe consisting of six women and four men, they set sail on a European tour in 1888. Two years later we find them arriving in South Africa. Their appearance was to have a significant impact upon the music scene as it later influenced the creation and formation of the "Kaapse Klopse" or "Coon Carnival."
The first informal contact the inhabitants of Cape Town had with African Americans was during the American Civil War, when the Confederate warship the "Alabama" came into the port of Cape Town in 1862 to replenish its supplies. The "Alabama" patrolled the South Atlantic where it would lie in wait for Union Ships to come around the Cape from the Far East on its way to the east coast ports of Philadelphia, New York, New Port and Boston. It would then attack, plunder and sink them. The "Alabama" was one of the most notorious and feared Southern commerce raiders on patrol in the South Atlantic sending some fifty eight Union vessels to the bottom of the ocean during her two year patrol. Confederate captain Raphael Semmes commanded this British built steam powered schooner. A mixed crew of British mercenary and Southern white sailors manned the ship. On board there were also a small contingent of African-American slaves who served as cleaners, mess stewards and also provided some sort of musical entertainment for the crew. When the Alabama docked in Cape Town the local population flocked to the waterfront to look at her. It was then that the African-Americans dressed in their minstrel outfits gave impromptu musical recitals at the dockside where the "Alabama" was moored. When the inhabitants of Cape Town enquired from the white crew who the black entertainers were, the reply was "These are just our "Coons"! Or more succinctly put, "Just Our Niggers! The Alabama was finally tracked down and sunk off Cherbourg, France by the Union Warship the U.S.S. Kearsarge on the 19th of June 1864.
On June 19th 1890 South Africans had their first formal contact with black-Americans and Black-American music when the minstrel troupe of Orpheus Myron McAdoo's "Virginia Jubilee Singers" from Hampton Virginia presented a series of concerts in Cape Town. Orpheus McAdoo was born in 1858 in Greensborough, North Carolina. As a young man he attended the Hampton Institute in Hampton Virginia, where he studied and graduated as a teacher in 1876. Before turning to music as a professional career in 1886 he taught school in Pulaski and Accomac Counties in the state of Virginia for ten years. In 1886 he toured Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the Far East after joining five members of the original Fisk Jubilee singers. Upon his return to the U.S. a year or two later McAdoo formed his own company by recruiting some ex students and graduates from Hampton amongst who were his future wife Mattie Allen and his brother Eugene. With his newly formed troupe consisting of six women and four men, they set sail on a European tour in 1888. Two years later we find them arriving in South Africa. Their appearance was to have a significant impact upon the music scene as it later influenced the creation and formation of the "Kaapse Klopse" or "Coon Carnival."
Since it's inception at the turn of the century the minstrel street carnival became an integral part of Cape Town's performing arts culture during the New Year celebrations. To use the derogatory term of the racist American, south of that time," Coon" or "Nigger" being the equivalent of the South African derogatory term of "Kaffir," "Boesman," " Cooley" or "Hotnot". If we look back to the Alabama's visit to Cape Town we can now clearly see how the derogatory racist American term "Coon' came to be known and adopted in Cape Town. Given South Africa's colonial past of class consciousness, racism, divide and rule tactics, leaves little doubt for any speculation as to the name "Coon" and its tenure, popularity and longevity amongst the working class coloured population of Cape Town. The "Coon carnival's" popularity however decreased as more and more young people became politicized as the struggle for liberation intensified during the late 1970's and into the 1980's. McAdoo's Minstrels stayed and toured throughout South Africa for eighteen months visiting places such as Grahamstown, King Williams Town and Alice where they visited and performed at Lovedale College, a South African equivalent of Tuskegee University.
Musical history also indicates that their impact and influence upon the performing arts culture of the Eastern Cape and Kwa Zulu Natal was quite significant as it influenced the rich Xhosa and Zulu iscatamiya choral traditions in existence there. It is somehow ironic that this genre of Creole/African/American minstrel-spiritual music which became one of the key developmental elements of jazz in New Orleans in 1895 should also become a contributing factor and play a crucial role in the development of South African Jazz. The introduction of Jazz into South Africa took place shortly after the 1st World War, around 1918 and this introduction was again via Cape Town. The first Jazz recording was only made in 1917, and this by the all white New Orleans Band called "The Original New Orleans Dixieland Jass Band". Some of these early recordings were brought to Cape Town by American merchant seaman. Local white and coloured bands (the Creole mixed racial population group resident in the Cape Town area) and even some visiting American musicians were instrumental in popularizing early New Orleans style jazz at the Cape after the 1st World War. To the white musicians who played it and the white audiences who danced to it in America and elsewhere in the British and European Imperial colonies it became known as Dixieland. Given the dreary social life and appalling conditions in the black South African townships, it is easy to understand why the introduction of the radio, gramophone and recordings of New Orleans Jazz served as the biggest catalyst for the developing styles of early township music and black professional musicianship in the 1920's. It was in Queenstown in the province of the Eastern Cape that Jazz first developed and started to take on its South African character. Of all black people in South Africa at that time, the Xhosa nation were the most educated as the result of the early establishment of the British Missionary school system. Formal education, exposure to European hymnody and western classical music gave rise to a black upper class and a group of very sophisticated musicians and composers who embraced this new black American art form called Jazz.
In the 1920's Queenstown became known as "Little Jazz Town" because of the many New Orleans style bands that were resident there. The most popular bands there in the 20's and 30's were Meekly Matshikiza's "Blue Rhythm Syncopators" and William Mbali's "Big Four" who entertained both whites and upper class blacks. Some of the earliest preserved examples of South African Jazz were recorded by Gumede's Swing Band on Gallotone GE 942 in the late 1920's. It was during the late 20's that Boet Gashe an itinerant organist from Queenstown popularized the three chord system the forerunner to the Marabi and Mbaqanga styles that were later to be perfected in the township shebeen environments of Johannesburg and Marabastad situated on the outskirts of Pretoria. Sophiatown the legendary ghetto of Johannesburg became the experimental ground for this vibrant new township music that was to under go further innovation during the 1930's into the 50's. The music of the townships served as an important platform and vehicle for developing singers and instrumentalists. Larger 15 piece bands such as the "Jazz Maniacs" were formed by popular Doornfontein shebeen pianist turned saxophonist, Solomon "Zulu Boy" Cele. Cele who was listening to the African/American bands of Fletcher Henderson, Count Basie and Duke Ellington saw the enormous potential of developing marabi into a big band style. This band was to feature and develop some of the legendary township Jazz players. They included saxophonists Mackay Davashe, Zakes Nkosi, Ntemi Pilliso and Wilson "King Fish" Silgee. The Jazz Maniacs are significant because they carried the spirit of marabi to the dance halls and provided inspiration for a new breed of emergent Jazz musicians such as Dollar Brand now known as Abdullah Ibrahim, Hugh Masekela, Kiepie Moeketsie, Jonas Gwangwa, Sol Klaaste, Early Mabuse and Gwigwi Mwerebi. Some of the legendary Sophiatown vocal groups and singers associated with the "Jazz Maniacs" are the Manhattan Brothers, The Quad Sisters, The Woody Wood Peckers and a group that was to launch four great individual singers, The Skylarks, consisting of Miriam Makeba, Abigail Khubeka, Letta Mbulu and Mary Rabotaba. The demise of marabi big bands can be directly attributed to encroaching legislated racism, forced removals and regulations forbidding blacks to appear at venues where liquor was served. As the dance halls in Sophiatown and other areas around the country were destroyed, black musicians were shut out of the inner cities or had to play behind a curtain when playing with some of their white counterparts at whites only clubs, Jazz was gradually being deprived of its multi racial audience.
The 1950's are remembered as the days of passive resistance against the Nationalist government's institutionalized racism, but it is also remembered as a great age of Jazz development in South Africa. A new strain of Jazz began to emerge which contained a greater American influence. This new strain was the result of the Bebop revolution in the U.S. Young emergent musicians such as Dollar Brand, Chris McGregor, Johnny Gertse, Sammy Moritz, Makaya Ntoshoko, Mra "Christopher Columbus" Ngcukana, Jonas Gwangwa, Jimmy Adams, Early Mabuza, "Cups and Saucers" Nkanuka, Hugh Masekela, Kippie Moeketsie, Henry February, Anthony and Richard Schilder, Harold Japhta and this writer included took to this new exciting Jazz form from America like ducks to water. The real milestone occurred when one of my future mentors to be, visiting American pianist and Jazz educator John Mehegan came to South Africa in the late 50's on an American State Department sponsored tour. After the tour he assembled a local group to record an album for Gallo Records entitled "Jazz in Africa". Beside Mehegan on piano the group consisted of Hugh Masekela on Trumpet, Jonas Gwangwa on Trombone, Kiepie Moeketsie on Alto Saxophone, Gene Latimore on Drums and Claude Shange on Bass. When Mehegan departed for the U.S. Dollar Brand added Johnny Gertse on Bass and Makaya Ntoshoko on Drums, creating a new rhythm section to which he added Masekela, Gwangwa and Moeketsie, calling this new band "The Jazz Epistles" One of the most dynamic and creative bands of the late 50's. The band recorded two albums "The Jazz Epistles Vol. 1 and Vol. 2" played a few gigs around the country and disbanded when Masekela and Gwangwa left to study in the U.S. in 1960. That unfortunately was the end of the line for that kind of American Jazz in South Africa.
Many of the musicians who played it left the country because of the increasingly repressive political situation, this writer included. With the advent of the Avant Garde in the 60's the "Blue Notes" led by Eastern Cape born pianist Chris McGregor together with saxophonist Dudu Pukwane, trumpeter Mongezi Feza, bassist Johnny Mbizo Dyani and drummer Louis Tebogo Moholo took up the banner and propelled the music in a new direction. They also had to leave the country but made a huge impact upon the European and British jazz scene with their fiery brand of South African Avant Garde Jazz. It is only Louis Tebogo Moholo that is alive today. The rest of them all died in exile before they could experience the freedom of democracy in the land of their birth. Many stayed and continued to produce creative music in a political environment that became increasingly oppressive and brutal. In the province of the Western Cape in the city of Cape Town musicians such as Basil "Mannenberg" Coetzee, Robbie Jansen, Paul Abrahams, Chris Schilder, Gilbert Matthews, and many others to numerous to mention gave their commitment, time and creativity to the struggle for democracy. They used South African Jazz as a platform and became deeply involved in the struggle for democracy on a creative level using their music as a clarion call for liberation at United Democratic Front political rallies in the townships. Today in a democratic South Africa jazz is thriving in an environment of freedom and racial reconciliation.
At present there exists an up and coming core of extremely masterful young musicians, both black and white. Some of them are graduates from tertiary institutions here in South Africa with vibrant jazz education programs and some come from community jazz education programs. Gloria Bosman, Judith Sephuma, Melanie Scholtz, Zim Ngqawana, Kevin Gibson, Andile Yenana, Lulu Gontsana, Mark Fransman , Eddie Jooste, Buddy Wells, Paul Hamner, Keshivan Naidoo, Dominic Peters , Andre Petersen, Victor Masondo, Marcus Wyatt, Herbie Tshoali, Themba Mkize and the late Moses Taiwa Molelekwa. These are just a few of some of the new innovative core of younger South African musicians who are responsible for taking the music into a new creative direction. Their vision and innovative approaches is creating a significant impact upon the South African jazz scene by the development of new concepts and ideas within the South African jazz genre. This bodes extremely well for the development of jazz in South African which like in Nazi Germany some sixty odd years ago had been suppressed and stifled during the turbulent apartheid era.
Hotep Idris Galeta has a Masters Degree in African- American Music and Performance from Rhodes University in South Africa, and is currently associatedwith the University of Fort Hare as the Director of the Miriam Makeba Center of Performing Arts. From 1985 until 1991 Mr. Galeta was on the faculty of the University of Hartford's Hartt School of Music Jazz Studies program who's Chairperson was the late Jackie McLean. This article was written circa 1998.
Musical history also indicates that their impact and influence upon the performing arts culture of the Eastern Cape and Kwa Zulu Natal was quite significant as it influenced the rich Xhosa and Zulu iscatamiya choral traditions in existence there. It is somehow ironic that this genre of Creole/African/American minstrel-spiritual music which became one of the key developmental elements of jazz in New Orleans in 1895 should also become a contributing factor and play a crucial role in the development of South African Jazz. The introduction of Jazz into South Africa took place shortly after the 1st World War, around 1918 and this introduction was again via Cape Town. The first Jazz recording was only made in 1917, and this by the all white New Orleans Band called "The Original New Orleans Dixieland Jass Band". Some of these early recordings were brought to Cape Town by American merchant seaman. Local white and coloured bands (the Creole mixed racial population group resident in the Cape Town area) and even some visiting American musicians were instrumental in popularizing early New Orleans style jazz at the Cape after the 1st World War. To the white musicians who played it and the white audiences who danced to it in America and elsewhere in the British and European Imperial colonies it became known as Dixieland. Given the dreary social life and appalling conditions in the black South African townships, it is easy to understand why the introduction of the radio, gramophone and recordings of New Orleans Jazz served as the biggest catalyst for the developing styles of early township music and black professional musicianship in the 1920's. It was in Queenstown in the province of the Eastern Cape that Jazz first developed and started to take on its South African character. Of all black people in South Africa at that time, the Xhosa nation were the most educated as the result of the early establishment of the British Missionary school system. Formal education, exposure to European hymnody and western classical music gave rise to a black upper class and a group of very sophisticated musicians and composers who embraced this new black American art form called Jazz.
In the 1920's Queenstown became known as "Little Jazz Town" because of the many New Orleans style bands that were resident there. The most popular bands there in the 20's and 30's were Meekly Matshikiza's "Blue Rhythm Syncopators" and William Mbali's "Big Four" who entertained both whites and upper class blacks. Some of the earliest preserved examples of South African Jazz were recorded by Gumede's Swing Band on Gallotone GE 942 in the late 1920's. It was during the late 20's that Boet Gashe an itinerant organist from Queenstown popularized the three chord system the forerunner to the Marabi and Mbaqanga styles that were later to be perfected in the township shebeen environments of Johannesburg and Marabastad situated on the outskirts of Pretoria. Sophiatown the legendary ghetto of Johannesburg became the experimental ground for this vibrant new township music that was to under go further innovation during the 1930's into the 50's. The music of the townships served as an important platform and vehicle for developing singers and instrumentalists. Larger 15 piece bands such as the "Jazz Maniacs" were formed by popular Doornfontein shebeen pianist turned saxophonist, Solomon "Zulu Boy" Cele. Cele who was listening to the African/American bands of Fletcher Henderson, Count Basie and Duke Ellington saw the enormous potential of developing marabi into a big band style. This band was to feature and develop some of the legendary township Jazz players. They included saxophonists Mackay Davashe, Zakes Nkosi, Ntemi Pilliso and Wilson "King Fish" Silgee. The Jazz Maniacs are significant because they carried the spirit of marabi to the dance halls and provided inspiration for a new breed of emergent Jazz musicians such as Dollar Brand now known as Abdullah Ibrahim, Hugh Masekela, Kiepie Moeketsie, Jonas Gwangwa, Sol Klaaste, Early Mabuse and Gwigwi Mwerebi. Some of the legendary Sophiatown vocal groups and singers associated with the "Jazz Maniacs" are the Manhattan Brothers, The Quad Sisters, The Woody Wood Peckers and a group that was to launch four great individual singers, The Skylarks, consisting of Miriam Makeba, Abigail Khubeka, Letta Mbulu and Mary Rabotaba. The demise of marabi big bands can be directly attributed to encroaching legislated racism, forced removals and regulations forbidding blacks to appear at venues where liquor was served. As the dance halls in Sophiatown and other areas around the country were destroyed, black musicians were shut out of the inner cities or had to play behind a curtain when playing with some of their white counterparts at whites only clubs, Jazz was gradually being deprived of its multi racial audience.
The 1950's are remembered as the days of passive resistance against the Nationalist government's institutionalized racism, but it is also remembered as a great age of Jazz development in South Africa. A new strain of Jazz began to emerge which contained a greater American influence. This new strain was the result of the Bebop revolution in the U.S. Young emergent musicians such as Dollar Brand, Chris McGregor, Johnny Gertse, Sammy Moritz, Makaya Ntoshoko, Mra "Christopher Columbus" Ngcukana, Jonas Gwangwa, Jimmy Adams, Early Mabuza, "Cups and Saucers" Nkanuka, Hugh Masekela, Kippie Moeketsie, Henry February, Anthony and Richard Schilder, Harold Japhta and this writer included took to this new exciting Jazz form from America like ducks to water. The real milestone occurred when one of my future mentors to be, visiting American pianist and Jazz educator John Mehegan came to South Africa in the late 50's on an American State Department sponsored tour. After the tour he assembled a local group to record an album for Gallo Records entitled "Jazz in Africa". Beside Mehegan on piano the group consisted of Hugh Masekela on Trumpet, Jonas Gwangwa on Trombone, Kiepie Moeketsie on Alto Saxophone, Gene Latimore on Drums and Claude Shange on Bass. When Mehegan departed for the U.S. Dollar Brand added Johnny Gertse on Bass and Makaya Ntoshoko on Drums, creating a new rhythm section to which he added Masekela, Gwangwa and Moeketsie, calling this new band "The Jazz Epistles" One of the most dynamic and creative bands of the late 50's. The band recorded two albums "The Jazz Epistles Vol. 1 and Vol. 2" played a few gigs around the country and disbanded when Masekela and Gwangwa left to study in the U.S. in 1960. That unfortunately was the end of the line for that kind of American Jazz in South Africa.
Many of the musicians who played it left the country because of the increasingly repressive political situation, this writer included. With the advent of the Avant Garde in the 60's the "Blue Notes" led by Eastern Cape born pianist Chris McGregor together with saxophonist Dudu Pukwane, trumpeter Mongezi Feza, bassist Johnny Mbizo Dyani and drummer Louis Tebogo Moholo took up the banner and propelled the music in a new direction. They also had to leave the country but made a huge impact upon the European and British jazz scene with their fiery brand of South African Avant Garde Jazz. It is only Louis Tebogo Moholo that is alive today. The rest of them all died in exile before they could experience the freedom of democracy in the land of their birth. Many stayed and continued to produce creative music in a political environment that became increasingly oppressive and brutal. In the province of the Western Cape in the city of Cape Town musicians such as Basil "Mannenberg" Coetzee, Robbie Jansen, Paul Abrahams, Chris Schilder, Gilbert Matthews, and many others to numerous to mention gave their commitment, time and creativity to the struggle for democracy. They used South African Jazz as a platform and became deeply involved in the struggle for democracy on a creative level using their music as a clarion call for liberation at United Democratic Front political rallies in the townships. Today in a democratic South Africa jazz is thriving in an environment of freedom and racial reconciliation.
At present there exists an up and coming core of extremely masterful young musicians, both black and white. Some of them are graduates from tertiary institutions here in South Africa with vibrant jazz education programs and some come from community jazz education programs. Gloria Bosman, Judith Sephuma, Melanie Scholtz, Zim Ngqawana, Kevin Gibson, Andile Yenana, Lulu Gontsana, Mark Fransman , Eddie Jooste, Buddy Wells, Paul Hamner, Keshivan Naidoo, Dominic Peters , Andre Petersen, Victor Masondo, Marcus Wyatt, Herbie Tshoali, Themba Mkize and the late Moses Taiwa Molelekwa. These are just a few of some of the new innovative core of younger South African musicians who are responsible for taking the music into a new creative direction. Their vision and innovative approaches is creating a significant impact upon the South African jazz scene by the development of new concepts and ideas within the South African jazz genre. This bodes extremely well for the development of jazz in South African which like in Nazi Germany some sixty odd years ago had been suppressed and stifled during the turbulent apartheid era.
Hotep Idris Galeta has a Masters Degree in African- American Music and Performance from Rhodes University in South Africa, and is currently associatedwith the University of Fort Hare as the Director of the Miriam Makeba Center of Performing Arts. From 1985 until 1991 Mr. Galeta was on the faculty of the University of Hartford's Hartt School of Music Jazz Studies program who's Chairperson was the late Jackie McLean. This article was written circa 1998.
The History of South African Jazz
by
Hotep Idris Galeta
by
Hotep Idris Galeta
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