South African jazz

Sideman on the Frontlines: Gwigwi Mrwebi and South African Jazz History

UNISAMUSIEKTEORIELEERPLANNE

Mbaqanga

This sample bassline was performed by Joseph Makwela of Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens8. The bass is played with a plectrum and the notes are played staccato. The drum set plays a steady kick drum9 on all four beats in the bar and plays a syncopated snare drum10 pattern that accentuates the staccato notes of the bass

more commonly used mbaqanga basslines used throughout the transcription. To describe mbaqanga derived basslines in terms of their construction is difficult as the basslines’ main focus is feel and groove while harmonically the bass only plays roots and sometimes the third degree of a chord. Mostly the bassline will focus on phrasing similar to those which might be sung by performers of this genre. As I understand it, as much inflection as possible is utilized in these basslines in order to mimic the nuances of the human voice. The first example of this kind of playing is in bars 10-13

The analysis

My attempt to answer the question “What is mbaqanga?” in terms ofits musical influences is that it is a vocal and instrumental genre of music that emerged in the early 1960s from a fusion between kwela, marabi, isicathamiya and jazz coupled with indigenous and traditional melodies of the Zulu-speaking people of South Africa. My attempt to answer the question “What is mbaqanga?” as it relates tomusical performance is that it is a vibrant, punchy genre of music where the drum set, bass guitar and electric guitar or electric organ are the primary instruments. A basic description of a mbaqangasong is where the drum set plays a kick drum and snare drum (rim) on all four beats while the hi-hats play up-beats or in an eighth-note division. The electric bass plays the root on the first beat of the bar while interjecting small melodic phrases within the harmonic rhythm. The electric guitar or electric organ plays the main melodic and cyclical phrase that the song will be based on. The basic harmonic rhythm has a chord changing at four beat intervals and the chord structure is based on a I-IV-V-I chord progression.

Figure 1.1

Contextualizing and Defining Mbaqanga and Ghoema

Bassists of iKapa (the Cape)

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South African Jazz: Mbaqanga

MbaqangaSouth African Music

Like that of itsantecedents, the harmonic base of mbaqanga is the cyclical repetition of four primary chords. Shortmelodies, usually the length of the harmonic cycle, are repeated and alternated with slight variations, andcall-and-response generally occurs between solo and chorus parts. The characteristics that differentiatembaqanga from previous styles are a driving, straight beat, rather than swung rhythms; melodicindependence between instrumental parts, the bass and lead guitars providing particularly strongcontrapuntal lines; and electric rather than acoustic guitars and bass guitar

Mbaqanga

In the early 1940s, he said, many black bands — among them the newly-formed Harlem Swingsters as well as the veteran Jazz Maniacs — started playing in what he termed an African stomp style: We call it African stomp because there was this heavy bealt... There’s more of the beat of Africa in it... the heavy beat of the African, the Zulu traditional...’ The rhythm of this stomp, as he demonstrated it, is immediately recog- nisable as the typical indlamu rhythm:

The term mbaqanga — commonly the Zulu word for a stiff, mielie-based porridge — has designated different kinds of music during the course of the last 40-odd years; but its first musical usage was as a synonym for African Jazz.

he cyclical harmonic structure of marabi, a slow, heavy beat probably derived from the traditional (and basically Zulu) secular dance-style known as indlamu, and forms and instrumentation adapted from American swing. With these was combined a languorous

INARARD ALY TS early south ofrican jazz and vaudeville

The very best players compress enormous inventiveness into that four-bar mbaqangathing. It can also be an eight-bar sequence in which the melody sits only over the third beatof the first bar to the first beat of the second bar. That same bit of melody might happenin a 16-bar sequence, you see.

What separates mbaqanga from previous styles is the straight beat. Previously urbanblack music was rhythmically swung in general

the American swing style combined with the repetitive blues-like marabi style gavebirth to mbaqanga – also referred to as ‘African jazz’ in the 1940s and a style thatReddy incorporated into his clazz style from the 1980s onwards

From the fusion of marabi music and the American element ofswing, developed a style sometimes referred to as “African Jazz”, a term which Ballantineuses interchangeably with “mbaqanga” (Ballantine, 1993:6; Ballantine 2012:7). However,there is some discrepancy about the interchangeable use of these terms. Authors, such asAllen (1993: 26) and Thorpe (2018:36), distinguishes between the two terms, mentioning thatthe former developed before the latter as a description of a style of music that contain elementsof both African music and jazz. According to Allen, mbaqanga was also used to describe acompletely different musical style, which became popular during the 60s, and therefore Allenprefers the term “African jazz” to avoid confusion. She states, however:The most popular and long-lasting name for this style (African jazz), however, wasmbaqanga, which is Zulu for the maize bread which constitutes the staple diet of themajority of South Africans. (Allen 1993:26, 27).Thorpe mentions, the name developed as an expression of “an independent and valuableblack South African urban identity” (Thorpe, 2018:36; Allen, 1993:26, 27). Since marabi wasalready waning in popularity and performance, this new style acted almost as a “regenerationof marabi” (Ballantine 1993:61). Ballantine, similarly, describes the ideological importance ofthis style:The explicit and conscious acceptance of aspects of a social and political philosophy – inthis case New Africanism – into the very constitution of music, was a turning-point in thehistory of black South African jazz (Ballantine 1993:62)

Apart from mbaqanga and marabi, other styles also developed due to the amalgamation oflocal styles and American jazz. One of these is Cape jazz, which Coplan (2013) describes asfollows:I use the term ‘Cape jazz’ knowingly, because the Mother City has its owncharacteristic style, strongly indebted to the American tradition starting with African-American minstrelsy, but mixed with old indigenous rhythms and melodies, mission

Mbaqanga incorporates the instrumentation and musical references of American big band jazzsuch as the use of swing rhythms, multiple brass and/or woodwind instruments (includingarranged parts for brass and woodwind sections), as well as aspects of marabi, mostnoticeably the I-IV-V progression and rhythms from traditional Zulu dances, notably indlamu(see Figure 1.2) (Sepuru, 2019:12; Ballantine, 2012:7, 80). Mbaqanga was also called ‘AfricanJazz’ in colloquial settings, as it contained more identifiable jazz elements than marabi.Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za

As Chapter One pointed out, ‘South African jazz’ derives from the amalgamation oftransnational (mainly American) jazz and indigenous South African musics. Although this stylehas many ‘dialects’, there is some conceptual consensus regarding elements that historicallycame to signify a South African jazz sound. These include marabi (with its distinctive I-IV-Vchord progression), mbaqanga (this was especially felt in the importance of the rhythmicaldrive and interest and repeating harmonic progressions, rather than the other formal attributes

Indlamu, the type of traditional dance music the track is based on (andincidentally one of the styles that influenced mbaqanga), is usually played at a faster tempo.Makhathini recounts that he was trying to capture how it would be to dance with the veryancient forefathers and mothers, thus accounting for the slower tempo (Makhathini, 2020).The track titles ‘Ehlobo’ and ‘Okhalweni’ are Zulu expressions meaning ‘in the summer’ and‘from the waist’ respectively

Sonic signatures in South African jazz: A stylistic analysis of the trio music of Kyle Shepherd, Bokani Dyer and Nduduzo Makhathini

s the name suggests, mbaqanga is viewed as a morecommercially appealing style than African Jazz and has been popularised in South Africa byartists such as Simon ‘Mahlatini’ Nkabinde and internationally by Paul Simon’s heavilymbaqanga influenced Graceland album. The roots of mbaqanga lie in traditional Zulu musicmixed with influences of marabi and kwela. Rhythmically, mbaqanga is, like tsaba tsaba,generally based on a straight-eighth note feel with a driving bass drum on all four downbeatsof the bar. This quarter note bass drum pattern, commonly referred to as “four on the floor”,is complemented by the hands performing various orchestrations of the rhythm below. Thisuniversal rhythm is known as the Charleston in American jazz, the Habanera in Cuban Latinmusic, and the Ghoema in South Africa

Although, mbaqanga became exceptionally popular both locally and internationally, it willnot be a key focus of the analysis presented in this dissertation as, like tsaba tsaba, its musicaltraits reveal it as being more of a hybrid, sub-genre of the original styles of South Africanjazz: marabi, African Jazz and kwela

MbaqangaAllen suggests that the term “mbaqanga”, which refers to the staple maize-meal diet of manyof the working-class musicians who played the music to earn a living wage, stems from “theneed to define and express an independent and valuable black South African urban identity”by renaming what had become generally referred to as African Jazz (Allen 1993, 26).Although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably by musicians and musicologists,Allen arguest that the style of mbaqanga developed in the 1960s is markedly different fromAfrican Jazz (Allen 1993, 26). As the name suggests, mbaqanga is viewed as a morecommercially appealing style than African Jazz and has been popularised in South Africa byartists such as Simon ‘Mahlatini’ Nkabinde and internationally by Paul Simon’s heavilymbaqanga influenced Graceland album. The roots of mbaqanga lie in traditional Zulu musicmixed with influences of marabi and kwela. Rhythmically, mbaqanga is, like tsaba tsaba,generally based on a straight-eighth note feel with a driving bass drum on all four downbeatsof the bar. This quarter note bass drum pattern, commonly referred to as “four on the floor”,is complemented by the hands performing various orchestrations of the rhythm below. Thisuniversal rhythm is known as the Charleston in American jazz, the Habanera in Cuban Latinmusic, and the Ghoema in South Africa.Figure 1.2 Charleston/ Habanera/ Ghoema rhythm

Although, mbaqanga became exceptionally popular both locally and internationally, it willnot be a key focus of the analysis presented in this dissertation as, like tsaba tsaba, its musicaltraits reveal it as being more of a hybrid, sub-genre of the original styles of South Africanjazz: marabi, African Jazz and kwela.

In including trombonist Malindi BlythMbityana and Mackay Davashe, a prolific composer in thembaqanga jazz style, acontingent of the Blue Notes

The underlying harmonic structure inmarabitypically uses the major (I), the subdominant major (IV), and the dominant (V) in aperpetually repeating structure suited to dance. In its advanced form inmbaqanga(African jazz), the simple three-chordmarabi harmonic structure was consolidated in alengthened cyclic form in which the (V) root was preceded with the tonic major in itssecond inversion (I 6/4 ). In comparing themarabi harmonic structure and its seminalposition in vernacular jazz improvisatory practice in South Africa to that of the AfricanAmerican blues in its relationship to jazz, Ballantine explained its basis ‘on a cyclicpattern’ as ‘stretch[ing] over four measures, with one measure for each of the followingchords: I – IV - I 6/4 - V’ (Ballantine 1993:26)

The revival in South Africa in the 1980s of the long-forgotten traditions of 1950s big-bandmbaqanga – most notably in the form and repertoires of Ntemi Piliso’s African JazzPioneers – filled the vacuum created by the effective disappearance of the practice duringthe long years of apartheid

use a cyclic structure

recordings by the Blue Note

the popular South African big-band swing styleofmbaqanga orAfrican jazz (Musical Excerpts 2.14 to 2.19).

The underlying harmonic structure inmarabitypically uses the major (I), the subdominant major (IV), and the dominant (V) in aperpetually repeating structure suited to dance. In its advanced form inmbaqanga(African jazz), the simple three-chordmarabi harmonic structure was consolidated in alengthened cyclic form in which the (V) root was preceded with the tonic major in itssecond inversion (I 6/4 ). In comparing themarabi harmonic structure and its seminalposition in vernacular jazz improvisatory practice in South Africa to that of the AfricanAmerican blues in its relationship to jazz, Ballantine explained its basis ‘on a cyclicpattern’ as ‘stretch[ing] over four measures, with one measure for each of the followingchords: I – IV - I 6/4 - V’ (Ballantine 1993:26)

Mackay Davashe, a prolific composer in thembaqanga jazz style, acontingent of the Blue Notes

Chris McGregor’s ‘first real experiences of building things from riffs’ weregleaned from jam sessions with black South African musicians whose improvisationalmusical practices, relying on a stable harmonic cyclicity ofmbaqanga chords (providedby piano or guitar), would proceed as follows:[T]he lead trumpeter or sax player would improvise a melody, and then in the next eight-bar sectionout it would come, voiced and all - that was magic to me. Out of this would emerge the most amazingcomplexity of texture, instrumental colour, melodic interactions, the melodic interactions of three orfour riffs going together, and a soloist in front, improvising. (McGregor 1994:14)

An important aspect of the close musical relationships between South Africanmbaqanga,Caribbeancalypso and West Africanhighlife as a coalescence of postcolonial Africanand diasporic cultural experiences is the rhythmic element of all three dance-music styles.I have transcribed a duple-meter rhythm strain of the three genres (Musical Transcription9) in order to illustrate this musical relationship. In West Africa, particularly in 1950sGhana and Nigeria, the popularity ofhighlife resulted in hybrid musical experimentswhich gave birth to highly influential styles such as Yorubahighlife, with its use ofindigenous performance and instruments, and also influenced the development of WestAfrican popular musical genres likepal mw ine,ashiko,maringa ,jújù,makossa , andafro-beat, among others (Sadie 2001:490, vol. 11)

Harmonically, bothhighlife (Musical Excerpt 7.3) andmbaqanga (MusicalExcerpt 7.4) use a cyclic structure based on I – IV – (I6/4 or I) – V roots of the Europeandiatonic major scale.

u and me

Sonia

hebeen

Sekela Khulum

Ngena Ngena (To Mov

ra.

Majietas

Grazin' in the Gra

Country Cooking

MBAGANGA

The Music of Africa

mbaqanga(MusicalExcerpt7.4)useacyclicstructurebasedonI–IV–(I6/4orI)–V

mbaqangarecordingsbytheBlueNotes

big-bandmbaqanga–mostnotablyintheformandrepertoiresofNtemiPiliso’sAfricanJazzPioneers

‘stretch[ing]overfourmeasures,withonemeasureforeachofthefollowingchords:I–IV-I6/4-V’(Ballantine1993:26).

Theunderlyingharmonicstructureinmarabitypicallyusesthemajor(I),thesubdominantmajor(IV),andthedominant(V)inaperpetuallyrepeatingstructuresuitedtodance.Initsadvancedforminmbaqanga(Africanjazz),thesimplethree-chordmarabiharmonicstructurewasconsolidatedinalengthenedcyclicforminwhichthe(V)rootwasprecededwiththetonicmajorinitssecondinversion(I6/4).

MackayDavashe,aprolificcomposerinthembaqangajazzstyle

Thethree-chordharmonicsystemofmarabiisderivedfromtheharmonicrootmovementoftheEuropeandiatonicmajorscale.Theunderlyingharmonicstructureinmarabitypicallyusesthemajor(I),thesubdominantmajor(IV),andthedominant(V)inaperpetuallyrepeatingstructuresuitedtodance.Initsadvancedforminmbaqanga(Africanjazz),thesimplethree-chordmarabiharmonicstructurewasconsolidatedinalengthenedcyclicforminwhichthe(V)rootwasprecededwiththetonicmajorinitssecondinversion(I6/4).IncomparingthemarabiharmonicstructureanditsseminalpositioninvernacularjazzimprovisatorypracticeinSouthAfricatothatoftheAfricanAmericanbluesinitsrelationshiptojazz,Ballantineexplaineditsbasis‘onacyclicpattern’as‘stretch[ing]overfourmeasures,withonemeasureforeachofthefollowingchords:I–IV-I6/4-V’(Ballantine1993:26).Thisextendedfeatureofmarabiwasarguablywhatdistinguisheditsreappearance–afterithadabsorbedAmericanswinginfluence-fromitsearlierpopularformintheproletariantsaba-tsabaurbandance-musicstyle.

popularSouthAfricanbig-bandswingstyleofmbaqangaorAfricanjazz(MusicalExcerpts2.14to2.19)

like tsaba tsaba, its musical traits reveal it as being more of ahybrid, sub-genre of the original styles of South African jazz: marabi, African Jazz and kwela.

This rhythm is typically played with brushes on the snare drum. The first of the three notes is omitted on the snare drum as it is played by the bass drum in the four-note note “four-on-the-floor” pattern. This creates the feel of the groove as a heavyemphasis is placed on the eighth note after beat two and beat four of the bar. An additional snare accent is consistently placed on the last sixteenth note before beat two and beat four of the bar to set up the anticipations before beat three and beat one of each bar. The bass guitar generally phrases around this same three-note rhythmic pattern and plays an important role in defining many of the stylistic features of the music. This will be elaboratedon in the following chapter.

Rhythmically, mbaqanga is, like tsaba tsaba, generally based on a straight-eighth note feel with a driving bass drum on all four downbeats of the bar. This quarter note bass drum pattern, commonly referred to as “four on the floor”, is complemented bythe hands performingvarious orchestrationsof the rhythm below. This universal rhythm is known as the Charleston in American jazz, the Habanerain Cuban Latin music, and the Ghoema in South Africa.Figure 1.2 Charleston/Habanera/Ghoema rhythm

Paul Simon’s heavily mbaqanga influenced Gracelandalbum

Indlamu, the type of traditional dance music the track is based on (and incidentally one of the styles that influenced mbaqanga), is usually played at a faster tempo. Makhathini recounts that he was trying to capture how it would be to dance with the very ancient forefathers and mothers, thus accounting for the slower tempo (Makhathini, 2020). The track titles ‘Ehlobo’ and ‘Okhalweni’ are Zulu expressions meaning ‘in the summer’ and ‘from the waist’ respectively.

As Chapter One pointed out, ‘South African jazz’ derives from the amalgamation of transnational (mainly American) jazz and indigenous South African musics. Although this stylehas many ‘dialects’, there is some conceptual consensus regarding elements that historically came to signify a South African jazz sound. These include marabi (with its distinctive I-IV-V chord progression), mbaqanga (this was especially felt in the importance of the rhythmical drive and interest and repeating harmonic progressions, rather than the other formal attributes Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za85 of mbaqanga itself), ghoema or indlamu, amongst others. One of the ways in which Shepherd, Dyer and Makhathini connect with the South African lineage of jazz, and a sense of place therefore registers in th eir work, is through the incorporation of these elements in certain songs or tracks

Mbaqangaincorporates the instrumentation and musical references of American big band jazzsuch as the use of swing rhythms, multiple brass and/or woodwind instruments (including arranged parts for brass and woodwind sections), as well as aspects of marabi, most noticeably the I-IV-V progression and rhythms from traditional Zulu dances, notablyindlamu(see Figure 1.2) (Sepuru, 2019:12; Ballantine, 2012:7, 80). Mbaqanga was also called ‘African Jazz’ in colloquial settings, as it contained more identifiable jazz elements than marabi.Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za11 Figure 1.2 Indlamu rhythm(Ballantine, 2012:80)In an interview with Ballantine in 1986 (2013:38), the South African jazz pianist Chris McGregor described the dynamics of playing mbaqanga:These (performances) were also my first experiences of building things from riffs. You’d get the mbaqanga chords going, the lead trumpeter or sax player would improvise a melody, and then, in the next eight-bar sequence, out it would come, voiced and all. [...] Out of this would emerge the most amazing complexity of texture, instrumental colour, melodic interactions, the rhythmic interactions of three or four riffs going together, and a soloist in front, improvising. [...] With mbaqanga music, because you’ve simplified the thing and made it circular, you are always confronted with the result: a circuit works itself out, and then you invent very much on formal implications. In contrast, in quite a lot of American jazz you say something and then leave it and do something else. (Ballantine, 2013:37, 39)In other words, the cyclicity of mbaqanga, specifically the repetition of a short harmonic progression, encourages musicians to turn to rhythmic, textural, timbral and melodic interplay among the ensemble members to create interest. Several important elements of mbaqanga survived and characterize South African jazz practices today, such as the use of a rhythmic pattern as a key driver in composition. This has become the basis for South African jazz practice.

Apart from mbaqanga and marabi, other styles also developed due to the amalgamation of local styles and American jazz. One of these is Cape jazz, which Coplan (2013) describes as follows: I use the term ‘Cape jazz’ knowingly, because the Mother City has its own characteristic style, strongly indebted to the American tradition starting with African-American minstrelsy, but mixed with old indigenous rhythms and melodies, mission Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za12 hymnody, ‘Malaysian’ choral music, and Afrikaans Coloured ghoema parade band music. (Coplan, 2013:56)Cape jazz also bears influences from moppies (up- beat Malay choirs) and langarm, as well as music played by bands from the Muslim community (Ansell, 2005:70). A telling characteristic of Cape jazz is the ghoema beat (see Figure 1.3), which Johannes (2010:35) describes as:a low pitch on every beat within the bar of music which gives the music its driving quality with the higher pitch playing a syncopated pattern to complement the singing and prevailing syncopation of ghoema music (Johannes, 2010:35).Figure 1.3Ghoema beat(from Johannes, 2010:35)This influence is more noticeable in the music of Cape Townian musicians such as Abdullah Ibrahim or Robbie Jansen, although it is also regarded as an important element of jazz in South Africa. Marabi, mbaqangaand ghoema rhythms are markers in the broad style known as South African jazz

From the fusion of marabi music and the American element of swing, developed a style sometimes referred to as “African Jazz” , a term which Ballantine uses interchangeably with “mbaqanga” (Ballantine, 1993:6; Ballantine 2012:7). However, there is some discrepancy about the interchangeable use of these terms. Authors, such as All en (1993: 26) and Thorpe (2018:36), distinguishes between the two terms, mentioning that the former developed before the latter as a description of a style of music that contain elements of both African music and jazz . According to Allen, mbaqanga was also used to describe a completely different musical style, which became popular during the 60s, and therefore Allen prefers the term “African jazz” to avoid confusion. She states, however: The most popular and long-lasting name for this style (African jazz), however, was mbaqanga, which is Zulu for the maize bread which constitutes the staple diet of the majority of South Africans. (Allen 1993:26, 27).Thorpe mentions, the name developed as an expression of “an independent and valuable black South African urban identity” (Thorpe, 2018:36; Allen, 1993:26, 27). Since marabi was already waning in popularity and performance, this new style acted almost as a “regeneration of marabi” (Ballantine 1993:61). Ballantine, similarly, describes the ideological importance of this style:The explicit and conscious acceptance of aspects of a social and political philosophy – in this case New Africanism – into the very constitution of music, was a turning-point in the history of black South African jazz (Ballantine 1993:62)

the American swing style combined with the repetitive blues-like marabistyle gave birth tombaqanga–also referred to as ‘African jazz’in the 1940sand a style that Reddy incorporated into his clazz style from the 1980sonwards.

What separates mbaqangafrom previous styles is the straight beat. Previously urban black music was rhythmically swung in general.

The very best players compress enormous inventiveness into that four-bar mbaqangathing. It can also be an eight-bar sequence in which the melody sits only over the third beat of the first bar to the first beat of the second bar. That same bit of melody might happen in a 16-bar sequence, you see. You’d get people working all the options with fascinating results. There were people, like those in the band led by “Cups and Saucers,” 3 working with a really great sensitivity to this kind of structuring, and very cleverly, too.

With these was combined a languorous

The term mbaqanga — commonly the Zulu word for a stiff, mielie-based porridge

In the early 1940s, he said, many black bands — among them the newly-formed Harlem Swingsters as well as the veteran Jazz Maniacs — started playing in what he termed an African stomp style: We call it African stomp because there was this heavy bealt... There’s more of the beat of Africa in it... the heavy beat of the African, the Zulu traditional...’ The rhythm of this stomp, as he demonstrated it, is immediately recog- nisable as the typical indlamu rhythm: J-ca,% But

Like that of its antecedents, the harmonic base of mbaqanga is the cyclical repetition of four primary chords. Short melodies, usually the length of the harmonic cycle, are repeated and alternated with slight variations, and call-and-response generally occurs between solo and chorus parts. The characteristics that differentiate mbaqanga from previous styles are a driving, straight beat, rather than swung rhythms; melodic independence between instrumental parts, the bass and lead guitars providing particularly strong contrapuntal lines; and electric rather than acoustic guitars and bass guitar

Mbaqanga

South African Jazz

Sound of Soweto

Mbaqanga Music Guide: Brief History of Mbaqanga

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