Soweto via Liverpool
Township Jive
Skokiaan
Stompi Discs
Send £9 to 12 Devonshire Rd, Liverpool L8 3TY, United Kingdom
<http://www.merseyworld.com/skokiaan>
Review by Norm Dixon
Somewhere this Saturday night in cold and miserable northern England, perhaps in a town hall or pub further north in Scotland, the punters will be grooving to Soweto township jive and the music of the great jazz artists of South Africa.
Skokiaan is a Liverpool sextet who came together in 1995 to play the music of urban South Africa. Their music remains true to the brass-laden, percussion-driven swing of the township shebeens. It is made for dancing without sacrificing the inventiveness and improvisation that is intrinsic to jazz.
The band is a tribute to the influence of the generation of South Africa's jazz greats who found themselves in exile in Europe, many in Britain, throughout the cruel reign of apartheid. Many lived to see the demise of apartheid and return home; many did not and died in exile.
The first track on Skokiaan's lively 25-minute CD is alto saxophonist Dudu Pukwana's "Mra Khali". Pukwana was a member of the legendary band Blue Notes, which won the 1963 Johannesburg Cold Castle Jazz Festival band prize. The other Blue Notes were Nick Moyake (tenor saxophone), Mongeni Feza (trumpet), Johnny Dyani (bass), Chris McGregor (piano) and Louis Moholo (drums).
As apartheid became more overbearing, the Blue Notes found it increasingly difficult to perform in South Africa. The Blue Notes left South Africa in 1964 to play in Europe. Moyake returned to South Africa and died soon after.
The Blue Notes moved to London. There they created a sensation in jazz circles and developed a cult following. They incorporated elements of the "free jazz" of US jazz artists like Don Cherry, Cecil Taylor and Albert Ayler while retaining their South African sound.
McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath big band was based on the Blue Notes core and fuelled by Pukwana's compositions. Records by the Blue Notes and the Brotherhood of Breath are hard to find, but if you can find them, snap them up! Pukwana's Earthworks' release In the Townships is easier to track down but no less essential. Sadly, Feza, Pukwana and McGregor did not outlive the racist apartheid system.
Another track, "Skokiaan" (an illicitly brewed drink) was written by August Msarurgwa. There were no less than six hit versions released in 1954, including by Latin swingster Perez Prado and Louis Armstrong. In 1960, it was even recorded by Bill Haley and the Comets! However, the tune is best known in the 1978 version by Herb Alpert and South African exile Hugh Masekela, and a more recent version by the African Jazz Pioneers.
In the late 1950s, Masekela, trombonist Jonas Gwangwa (long-time leader of the ANC's Amandla Cultural Ensemble) and pianist Dollar Brand (better known as Abdullah Ibrahim) were the Father Huddlestone Band (named after the English anti-apartheid cleric whose parish was in the vibrant multiracial community of Sophiatown).
With sax legend Kippie Moeketsi (Johannesburg's leading jazz club is named Kippies in his memory), they became the Jazz Dazzlers and provided the music for the famous 1959 landmark musical King Kong, in which Miriam Makeba was the female lead.
Brand, Masekela and Gwangwa escaped South Africa in 1960. Makeba condemned apartheid before the United Nations in 1963 and remained in exile after Pretoria retaliated by revoking her South African citizenship.
Skokiaan does a version of "Soweto is where it's at" by the great Abdullah Ibrahim, perhaps South Africa's greatest living jazz musician. Ibrahim left South Africa in 1960.
"Mannenburg", first recorded in 1974 with the great sax player Basil Coetzee, remains the signature tune for South African jazz and is a tribute to Cape Town's "coloured townships".
Township Jive honours the talent and sacrifices made by a generation of great South African musicians and is a great example of the music at its best. But don't stop at Skokiaan's renditions: check out the original tunes and artists if you can.