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)