Thu, 23 Apr 2026 18:19:51 +0200 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/ en-EN djgoya@ymail.com djgoya@ymail.com https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/ https://img.hearthis.at/8/0/3/_/uploads/3822516/image_user/w1400_h1400_q70_ptrue_v2_----cropped_1695555475308.jpg no no https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-the-last-journey-in-deep-melody/ 13007478 no no Tue, 28 Oct 2025 17:01:25 +0100 2025-10-28T17:01:25+01:00 3:17:25 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-lamentations-2025-deep-in-melancholy/
To another decade of Melancholic Jazzy House... Enjoy!]]>
To another decade of Melancholic Jazzy House... Enjoy!]]> 12448071 no no Tue, 15 Jul 2025 21:20:32 +0200 2025-07-15T21:20:32+02:00 3:02:35 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-soulful-hedonism-the-house-music-pedagogues-philosophy/
The journey begins in 1997, with a track that feels prophetic: Chris Brann’s “Journey to the Centre.” This isn’t just the first step it’s the thesis statement. Atmospheric and meditative, it lays the philosophical groundwork for what’s to come: house music not just as sound, but as soul science.

Enjoy!!]]>
The journey begins in 1997, with a track that feels prophetic: Chris Brann’s “Journey to the Centre.” This isn’t just the first step it’s the thesis statement. Atmospheric and meditative, it lays the philosophical groundwork for what’s to come: house music not just as sound, but as soul science.

Enjoy!!]]> 12250125 no no Sat, 07 Jun 2025 09:02:56 +0200 2025-06-07T09:02:56+02:00 3:17:46 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-deep-songs-from-the-south-2010-2015/
The House Music Pedagogue weaves together a three-hour set that begins with warm, soulful grooves, dives deeper into moody, immersive rhythms mid-set, and then blooms into the rich, drum and horn-laced textures of vibey Afro-jazz in the final hour, an unmistakable precursor to today’s private school amapiano.

Drawn from releases between 2010 and 2015, the mix captures the essence of a golden age in South African house, when Pretoria pulsed with creativity, and the decks at places like Café Del Khuze and Dukes Grill told stories late into the night. From the mellow elegance of Scotch Flavio's "Fountain Of Love" to the wistful uplift of Kojo Akusa's reimagination of Adele's "Rolling In The Deep" and to the percussive heartbeat of Deep Xcape's "After Da Rain", every track was chosen for its mood, message, and mastery. This anthology pulses with rhythm and reverence, spotlighting anthems and underground gems.

Though 27 of the tracks were produced in South Africa, even the two remixes by international producers UPZ and Trinidadian Deep are grounded in local vocals and visions, honoring the South African artists at their core.

This mixtape is dedicated with love and gratitude to my friends and fellow DJs who shaped my musical identity during my time in Pretoria: Muzi Ntunja, Tiyani Ngobeni, Given Sefara, and Theobald Mhinga. Your ears inspired the journey and your taste, the compass.

And with deepest respect, we remember the late Scotch Flavio and Cannon Soul, artists whose work continues to echo in dancefloors and headphones across the country.

This is Deep Songs From The South.]]>
The House Music Pedagogue weaves together a three-hour set that begins with warm, soulful grooves, dives deeper into moody, immersive rhythms mid-set, and then blooms into the rich, drum and horn-laced textures of vibey Afro-jazz in the final hour, an unmistakable precursor to today’s private school amapiano.

Drawn from releases between 2010 and 2015, the mix captures the essence of a golden age in South African house, when Pretoria pulsed with creativity, and the decks at places like Café Del Khuze and Dukes Grill told stories late into the night. From the mellow elegance of Scotch Flavio's "Fountain Of Love" to the wistful uplift of Kojo Akusa's reimagination of Adele's "Rolling In The Deep" and to the percussive heartbeat of Deep Xcape's "After Da Rain", every track was chosen for its mood, message, and mastery. This anthology pulses with rhythm and reverence, spotlighting anthems and underground gems.

Though 27 of the tracks were produced in South Africa, even the two remixes by international producers UPZ and Trinidadian Deep are grounded in local vocals and visions, honoring the South African artists at their core.

This mixtape is dedicated with love and gratitude to my friends and fellow DJs who shaped my musical identity during my time in Pretoria: Muzi Ntunja, Tiyani Ngobeni, Given Sefara, and Theobald Mhinga. Your ears inspired the journey and your taste, the compass.

And with deepest respect, we remember the late Scotch Flavio and Cannon Soul, artists whose work continues to echo in dancefloors and headphones across the country.

This is Deep Songs From The South.]]> 12004461 no no Sat, 12 Apr 2025 20:59:37 +0200 2025-04-12T20:59:37+02:00 3:15:30 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-the-return-of-the-house-music-pedagogue/
The mix features house music pioneers like Kerri Chandler, Eric Kupper, Terry Hunter, DJ Spinna, and John Cutler, alongside remakes of timeless classics, such as Marshall Jefferson’s Move Your Body and Robert Owens' Deep Down. Tracks from South African legends like 60 Hertz & Shane D are highlighted, while new voices Nae SA, Bumi Thomas, Shalati, and Andre Espeut bring fresh energy to the scene.

A standout moment comes with Stim Dyzl, who teams up with Mark Francis on Kilomanjaro, showcasing a soulful New York vibe. Interspersed throughout are spoken word reflections on the spiritual journey of house music, the evolution of deep house, and its roots in American ghetto culture.

The mixtape features tracks dating back as far as 2003, 2004, and 2005, reinforcing the enduring legacy of house music, blending the past with the present and proving that the genre remains as relevant today as ever.]]>
The mix features house music pioneers like Kerri Chandler, Eric Kupper, Terry Hunter, DJ Spinna, and John Cutler, alongside remakes of timeless classics, such as Marshall Jefferson’s Move Your Body and Robert Owens' Deep Down. Tracks from South African legends like 60 Hertz & Shane D are highlighted, while new voices Nae SA, Bumi Thomas, Shalati, and Andre Espeut bring fresh energy to the scene.

A standout moment comes with Stim Dyzl, who teams up with Mark Francis on Kilomanjaro, showcasing a soulful New York vibe. Interspersed throughout are spoken word reflections on the spiritual journey of house music, the evolution of deep house, and its roots in American ghetto culture.

The mixtape features tracks dating back as far as 2003, 2004, and 2005, reinforcing the enduring legacy of house music, blending the past with the present and proving that the genre remains as relevant today as ever.]]> 11858627 no no Tue, 11 Mar 2025 03:12:41 +0100 2025-03-11T03:12:41+01:00 3:15:00 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-sad-departures-an-unexpected-pilgrimage-in-jazz/ 11730263 no no Sat, 01 Feb 2025 18:46:52 +0100 2025-02-01T18:46:52+01:00 3:16:55 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-amapiano-with-a-dash-of-soul-vol-7/ 11631207 no no Tue, 31 Dec 2024 15:54:57 +0100 2024-12-31T15:54:57+01:00 3:14:45 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-amapiano-with-a-dash-of-soul-vol-6/ 11484218 no no Fri, 08 Nov 2024 18:35:18 +0100 2024-11-08T18:35:18+01:00 3:08:35 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-lamentations-tenth-anniversary-mix/
The concept of a musical lament has always fascinated me. Historically, laments were used to express grief and sorrow, whether in classical pieces by composers like Monteverdi or in folk traditions. I drew inspiration from that tradition but adapted it to a modern setting. In my mixes, I aim to take the listener on a journey through layered, introspective soundscapes. It's not just about mourning; it’s about creating space for contemplation and personal emotion.

I see my work as part of the evolution of musical laments. While early laments focused on literal loss or sorrow, my approach reflects a more abstract exploration of those feelings. By mixing traditional influences with contemporary elements, I hope to create something that resonates with today’s listeners, offering them an opportunity to reflect, think deeply, and experience the full spectrum of emotion through music.

In the end, Goya's Lament isn't just about sadness, it's about capturing the complexity of human emotion through sound, something I strive to achieve with every mix I produce.
]]>
The concept of a musical lament has always fascinated me. Historically, laments were used to express grief and sorrow, whether in classical pieces by composers like Monteverdi or in folk traditions. I drew inspiration from that tradition but adapted it to a modern setting. In my mixes, I aim to take the listener on a journey through layered, introspective soundscapes. It's not just about mourning; it’s about creating space for contemplation and personal emotion.

I see my work as part of the evolution of musical laments. While early laments focused on literal loss or sorrow, my approach reflects a more abstract exploration of those feelings. By mixing traditional influences with contemporary elements, I hope to create something that resonates with today’s listeners, offering them an opportunity to reflect, think deeply, and experience the full spectrum of emotion through music.

In the end, Goya's Lament isn't just about sadness, it's about capturing the complexity of human emotion through sound, something I strive to achieve with every mix I produce.
]]> 11444656 no no Sun, 20 Oct 2024 09:53:52 +0200 2024-10-20T09:53:52+02:00 3:12:35 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-rhythm-soul-summer-dance/ 11368510 no no Wed, 11 Sep 2024 03:23:28 +0200 2024-09-11T03:23:28+02:00 3:12:20 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-memoirs-of-a-house-music-pedagogue/ 11282988 no no Fri, 26 Jul 2024 07:51:36 +0200 2024-07-26T07:51:36+02:00 3:18:08 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-a-wonderful-mistake-called-jazz/ 11170123 no no Fri, 14 Jun 2024 07:44:17 +0200 2024-06-14T07:44:17+02:00 3:13:40 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-amapiano-with-a-dash-of-soul-deluxe-edition/ 11050650 no no Fri, 19 Apr 2024 15:22:56 +0200 2024-04-19T15:22:56+02:00 3:12:10 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-another-journey-in-deep-melody/ 11009336 no no Thu, 28 Mar 2024 08:59:56 +0100 2024-03-28T08:59:56+01:00 3:16:55 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-a-journey-into-a-spiritual-jazz-abyss/ 10948068 no no Fri, 08 Mar 2024 00:20:18 +0100 2024-03-08T00:20:18+01:00 3:18:08 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-an-ode-to-sade/ 10614470 no no Wed, 24 Jan 2024 17:34:41 +0100 2024-01-24T17:34:41+01:00 1:33:45 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-that-broken-soul-mood/ 10540821 no no Sun, 24 Dec 2023 10:11:57 +0100 2023-12-24T10:11:57+01:00 3:01:10 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-ri-nyikela-bandi-ra-xigaza/ 10152377 no no Sun, 24 Sep 2023 17:09:39 +0200 2023-09-24T17:09:39+02:00 2:03:50 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-amapiano-with-a-dash-of-soul-vol-5/ 10128174 no no Fri, 22 Sep 2023 11:02:13 +0200 2023-09-22T11:02:13+02:00 3:03:21 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-amapiano-with-a-dash-of-soul-vol-4/ 10086315 no no Fri, 15 Sep 2023 17:04:27 +0200 2023-09-15T17:04:27+02:00 3:05:53 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-rhythm-soul-summer-love-affair/ 9979255 no no Sat, 02 Sep 2023 12:05:47 +0200 2023-09-02T12:05:47+02:00 3:16:21 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-rhythm-soul-expressions/ 9647162 no no Tue, 25 Jul 2023 05:52:13 +0200 2023-07-25T05:52:13+02:00 3:12:50 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-lamentations-2023-notes-of-nostalgia/ 9289759 no no Thu, 15 Jun 2023 14:09:36 +0200 2023-06-15T14:09:36+02:00 3:05:23 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-an-african-funk-odyssey/ 8889615 no no Mon, 01 May 2023 20:40:01 +0200 2023-05-01T20:40:01+02:00 3:16:30 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-rhythm-soul-emotions/ 8743405 no no Sun, 16 Apr 2023 09:25:57 +0200 2023-04-16T09:25:57+02:00 3:18:06 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-a-rhythm-soul-story-2023/ 8315685 no no Sun, 05 Mar 2023 14:03:23 +0100 2023-03-05T14:03:23+01:00 3:02:15 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-the-invocation-of-a-restless-jazz-spirit/
God has wrought many things out of oppression. He has endowed his creatures with the capacity to create—and from this capacity has flowed the sweet songs of sorrow and joy that have allowed man to cope with his environment and many different situations.

Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph.

This is triumphant music.

Modern jazz has continued in this tradition, singing the songs of a more complicated urban existence. When life itself offers no order and meaning, the musician creates an order and meaning from the sounds of the earth which flow through his instrument.

It is no wonder that so much of the search for identity among American Negroes was championed by Jazz musicians. Long before the modern essayists and scholars wrote of racial identity as a problem for a multiracial world, musicians were returning to their roots to affirm that which was stirring within their souls.

Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from this music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down.

And now, Jazz is exported to the world. For in the particular struggle of the Negro in America there is something akin to the universal struggle of modern man. Everybody has the Blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith.

In music, especially this broad category called Jazz, there is a stepping stone towards all of these.

Enjoy!!]]>
God has wrought many things out of oppression. He has endowed his creatures with the capacity to create—and from this capacity has flowed the sweet songs of sorrow and joy that have allowed man to cope with his environment and many different situations.

Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph.

This is triumphant music.

Modern jazz has continued in this tradition, singing the songs of a more complicated urban existence. When life itself offers no order and meaning, the musician creates an order and meaning from the sounds of the earth which flow through his instrument.

It is no wonder that so much of the search for identity among American Negroes was championed by Jazz musicians. Long before the modern essayists and scholars wrote of racial identity as a problem for a multiracial world, musicians were returning to their roots to affirm that which was stirring within their souls.

Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from this music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down.

And now, Jazz is exported to the world. For in the particular struggle of the Negro in America there is something akin to the universal struggle of modern man. Everybody has the Blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith.

In music, especially this broad category called Jazz, there is a stepping stone towards all of these.

Enjoy!!]]> 7754414 no no Fri, 13 Jan 2023 14:10:08 +0100 2023-01-13T14:10:08+01:00 3:09:50 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-memoirs-of-a-soulful-hedonist/
Enjoy!!]]>
Enjoy!!]]> 7698455 no no Sat, 07 Jan 2023 19:08:52 +0100 2023-01-07T19:08:52+01:00 3:18:08 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-funk-in-retrospect-disco-revisted-revamped/ 7501127 no no Sun, 25 Dec 2022 07:14:53 +0100 2022-12-25T07:14:53+01:00 3:11:29 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/tribute-to-the-son-of-man/ 7156450 no no Wed, 19 Oct 2022 04:10:33 +0200 2022-10-19T04:10:33+02:00 3:18:07 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-the-evolution-of-darque-a-tribute-mix/
Darque became one of the nation’s most sought-after producers and DJs with the arrival of “Ready for the World”, his 2013 collaboration with the South African House Music titan Black Coffee. After a string of singles and compilation placements, he released his debut Deep House album, "Rare Eath Elements" in 2014 followed by two Afrocentric albums; "This is Africa" in 2016 and "Must Be Africa" in 2020. He continues to shape songs and projects by artists such as Zakes Bantwini, Shimza, Da Capo and many others. [Shazam, Apple Music]]]>
Darque became one of the nation’s most sought-after producers and DJs with the arrival of “Ready for the World”, his 2013 collaboration with the South African House Music titan Black Coffee. After a string of singles and compilation placements, he released his debut Deep House album, "Rare Eath Elements" in 2014 followed by two Afrocentric albums; "This is Africa" in 2016 and "Must Be Africa" in 2020. He continues to shape songs and projects by artists such as Zakes Bantwini, Shimza, Da Capo and many others. [Shazam, Apple Music]]]> 7067458 no no Sat, 10 Sep 2022 19:33:54 +0200 2022-09-10T19:33:54+02:00 2:18:30 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-a-journey-in-deep-melody/ 7031053 no no Sat, 27 Aug 2022 18:47:29 +0200 2022-08-27T18:47:29+02:00 3:18:04 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-amapiano-with-an-extra-dash-of-soul/ 6833623 no no Fri, 17 Jun 2022 18:06:08 +0200 2022-06-17T18:06:08+02:00 3:18:06 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-amapiano-with-a-dash-of-soul-vol.-3/ 6833538 no no Fri, 17 Jun 2022 17:38:46 +0200 2022-06-17T17:38:46+02:00 3:17:07 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-an-invocation-of-rhythm-soul-spirits/ 6765456 no no Wed, 18 May 2022 21:06:47 +0200 2022-05-18T21:06:47+02:00 3:36:53 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-true-mid-tempo-memories/ 6712534 no no Tue, 26 Apr 2022 02:04:25 +0200 2022-04-26T02:04:25+02:00 2:51:56 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-sounds-of-solace/ 6419093 no no Sat, 27 Nov 2021 02:03:27 +0100 2021-11-27T02:03:27+01:00 3:10:00 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-amapiano-with-a-dash-of-soul-vol-2/ 6179229 no no Sun, 22 Aug 2021 10:29:05 +0200 2021-08-22T10:29:05+02:00 3:09:09 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-a-confluence-of-timeless-sounds/ 6069598 no no Fri, 09 Jul 2021 18:51:47 +0200 2021-07-09T18:51:47+02:00 3:13:30 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-apresenta-sons-latinos-classicos/
Those who were enslaved in Brazil took their culture with and from face value, most Brazilians are Africans from the food they eat to the music they play. This mixtape celebrates the influence of Africa on Brazilian Music. It will be silly of me not to mention the people that inspired the mix, firstly to DJ Glen Lewis for releasing the Numero uno 2 part series back in the early 2000s, to Micheal G for the Minah Casa release , to Djs @ Work for the Channel O Summer Essentials release and to the many others who contributed in inspiring this tape.

Enjoy

]]>
Those who were enslaved in Brazil took their culture with and from face value, most Brazilians are Africans from the food they eat to the music they play. This mixtape celebrates the influence of Africa on Brazilian Music. It will be silly of me not to mention the people that inspired the mix, firstly to DJ Glen Lewis for releasing the Numero uno 2 part series back in the early 2000s, to Micheal G for the Minah Casa release , to Djs @ Work for the Channel O Summer Essentials release and to the many others who contributed in inspiring this tape.

Enjoy

]]> 5941615 no no Tue, 25 May 2021 10:55:17 +0200 2021-05-25T10:55:17+02:00 3:13:30 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-the-sounds-of-freedom/
It is important to note however, that "freedom" should mean emancipation from poverty, unemployment, racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. We are 27 years into our new democracy and many of these issues are still rife in our country. We are still a long way away from solving many of the legacies of Apartheid and now face new challenges, like the growing inequality among South Africans and political and economic instability in the region caused by a new elite who are interested in pursuing their own interests. Freedom Day therefore serves as a reminder to us that the guarantee of our freedom requires us to remain permanently vigilant against corruption and the erosion of the values of the Freedom Struggle and to build an active citizenry that will work towards wiping out the legacy of racism, inequality and the promotion of the rights embodied in our constitution.

Source: https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/freedom-day-celebrated-south-africa]]>
It is important to note however, that "freedom" should mean emancipation from poverty, unemployment, racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. We are 27 years into our new democracy and many of these issues are still rife in our country. We are still a long way away from solving many of the legacies of Apartheid and now face new challenges, like the growing inequality among South Africans and political and economic instability in the region caused by a new elite who are interested in pursuing their own interests. Freedom Day therefore serves as a reminder to us that the guarantee of our freedom requires us to remain permanently vigilant against corruption and the erosion of the values of the Freedom Struggle and to build an active citizenry that will work towards wiping out the legacy of racism, inequality and the promotion of the rights embodied in our constitution.

Source: https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/freedom-day-celebrated-south-africa]]> 5863779 no no Tue, 27 Apr 2021 03:36:33 +0200 2021-04-27T03:36:33+02:00 2:22:09 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-memoirs-of-a-bossa-nova-aficionado/ 5794765 no no Thu, 01 Apr 2021 19:14:15 +0200 2021-04-01T19:14:15+02:00 1:21:42 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-the-original-sounds-of-mali-bamako-calling/ 5794717 no no Thu, 01 Apr 2021 19:13:40 +0200 2021-04-01T19:13:40+02:00 2:26:40 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-an-ode-to-a-restless-soul-a-phil-asher-tribute/
The mix is designed to remind us of Phil's contribution to the dance floor. Consisting mostly of familiar tracks from the first decade of our millennium, the mix is bound to invoke some memories. One way or another... you might know it or not... as a House Head you were definitely touched by his contribution to our music. Rest In Peace Phlash]]>
The mix is designed to remind us of Phil's contribution to the dance floor. Consisting mostly of familiar tracks from the first decade of our millennium, the mix is bound to invoke some memories. One way or another... you might know it or not... as a House Head you were definitely touched by his contribution to our music. Rest In Peace Phlash]]> 5768846 no no Thu, 25 Mar 2021 22:08:59 +0100 2021-03-25T22:08:59+01:00 2:22:00 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-another-soulful-encomium-for-ron-trent/ 5677805 no no Sat, 27 Feb 2021 04:47:14 +0100 2021-02-27T04:47:14+01:00 3:14:32 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-amapiano-with-a-dash-of-soul/
Although the genre gained popularity in Gauteng, there's a lot of ambiguity concerning its origins. It originates with various accounts of the musical styles in the Johannesburg townships - Soweto, Alexandra, Vosloorus and Katlehong. Because of the genre's similarities with Barcadi, some people assert the genre began in the Pretoria area with DJ Mujava which was made popular by Pretoria taxi drivers and has been an on going debate about the origin of Amapiano.

In 2020 the genre experienced increased popularity across the African continent with noted increases in digital streams and chart successes in countries far from its South African origin.

Source: Wikipedia]]>
Although the genre gained popularity in Gauteng, there's a lot of ambiguity concerning its origins. It originates with various accounts of the musical styles in the Johannesburg townships - Soweto, Alexandra, Vosloorus and Katlehong. Because of the genre's similarities with Barcadi, some people assert the genre began in the Pretoria area with DJ Mujava which was made popular by Pretoria taxi drivers and has been an on going debate about the origin of Amapiano.

In 2020 the genre experienced increased popularity across the African continent with noted increases in digital streams and chart successes in countries far from its South African origin.

Source: Wikipedia]]> 5594297 no no Fri, 05 Feb 2021 10:09:53 +0100 2021-02-05T10:09:53+01:00 3:17:02 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-lamentations-2020-tears-for-the-fallen/ 5453336 no no Mon, 28 Dec 2020 20:14:30 +0100 2020-12-28T20:14:30+01:00 2:26:01 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-rhythm-soul-healing-2021/ 5438857 no no Thu, 24 Dec 2020 09:18:30 +0100 2020-12-24T09:18:30+01:00 2:34:27 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-shantis-jazz-songs-for-bra-sais-daughter/ 5272263 no no Tue, 03 Nov 2020 02:30:24 +0100 2020-11-03T02:30:24+01:00 3:01:35 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-the-fine-line-between-deep-soulful/ 4981098 no no Sun, 26 Jul 2020 02:27:36 +0200 2020-07-26T02:27:36+02:00 3:00:26 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-musicman-presents-bra-sais-blues-stuff-like-that/ 4949101 no no Tue, 14 Jul 2020 21:46:24 +0200 2020-07-14T21:46:24+02:00 3:13:47 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-bamako-the-third-bamako-iii/ 4785302 no no Mon, 25 May 2020 20:41:10 +0200 2020-05-25T20:41:10+02:00 1:46:30 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-home-safe-soul/ 4611326 no no Mon, 20 Apr 2020 10:57:22 +0200 2020-04-20T10:57:22+02:00 2:03:33 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-a-soulful-ebb-flow-2020-3hr-deluxe-mix/ 4279873 no no Thu, 16 Jan 2020 02:57:48 +0100 2020-01-16T02:57:48+01:00 3:14:10 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-lamentations-2019-deep-in-thoughts/ 3607579 no no Mon, 19 Aug 2019 02:22:19 +0200 2019-08-19T02:22:19+02:00 1:35:06 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-bamako-sounds-revisted-2019/ ]]> ]]> 3607398 no no Mon, 19 Aug 2019 01:35:22 +0200 2019-08-19T01:35:22+02:00 2:13:30 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-musicman-presents-lament-for-the-deeper-sound-complex-grotesque-edition/ 2680695 no no Thu, 20 Dec 2018 23:58:35 +0100 2018-12-20T23:58:35+01:00 1:54:00 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-the-art-of-soul-dance-2018/ 2495997 no no Sat, 03 Nov 2018 22:18:43 +0100 2018-11-03T22:18:43+01:00 1:35:30 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-musicman-presents-jazzing-with-bra-sai/
**By: Lewis Porter**

**INTRODUCTION **

Jazz music first developed by African Americans around the first decade of the 20th century that has an identifiable history and distinct stylistic evolution. Jazz grew up alongside the blues and popular music, and all these genres overlap in many ways. However, critics generally agree about whether artists fall squarely in one camp or another.

**CHARACTERISTICS**

Since its beginnings jazz has branched out into so many styles that no single description fits all of them accurately. A few generalizations can be made, however, bearing in mind that for all of them, exceptions can be cited.

Performers of jazz improvise within the conventions of their chosen style. Typically, the improvisation is accompanied by the repeated chord progression of a popular song or an original composition. Instrumentalists emulate black vocal styles, including the use of glissandi (sliding movements that smoothly change the pitch), nuances of pitch (including blue notes, the “bent” notes that are played or sung slightly lower than the major scale), and tonal effects such as growls and wails.

In striving to develop a personal sound, or tone colour (an idiosyncratic sense of rhythm and form and an individual style of execution), performers create rhythms characterized by constant syncopation (the placing of accents in unexpected places, usually on the weaker beat) and by swing. Swing can be defined as a sensation of momentum in which a melody is alternately heard together with, then slightly at variance with, the regular beat. Written scores, if present, are often used merely as guides, providing structure within which improvisation occurs. The typical instrumentation begins with a rhythm section consisting of piano, string bass, drums, and optional guitar, to which may be added any number of wind instruments. In big bands the wind instruments are grouped into three sections: saxophones, trombones, and trumpets.

Although exceptions occur in some styles, most jazz is based on the principle that an infinite number of melodies can fit the chord progressions of any song. The musician improvises new melodies that fit the chord progression, which is repeated again and again as each soloist is featured, for as many choruses as desired.

Although pieces with many different formal patterns are used for jazz improvisation, two formal patterns in particular are frequently found in songs used for jazz. One is the AABA form of popular-song choruses, which typically consists of 32 measures in ¹ meter, divided into four 8-measure sections: section A, a repetition of section A, section B (the “bridge” or “release,” often beginning in a new key), and a repetition of section A. The second form, with roots deep in African American folk music, is the 12-bar blues form. Unlike the 32-bar AABA form, blues songs have a fairly standardized chord progression.

**ORIGINS**

Jazz is rooted in the mingled musical traditions of African Americans. These include traits surviving from West African music; black folk music forms developed in the Americas; European popular and light classical music of the 18th and 19th centuries; and later popular music forms influenced by black music or produced by black composers. Among the surviving African traits are vocal styles that include great freedom of vocal colour; a tradition of improvisation; call-and-response patterns; and rhythmic complexity, both in the syncopation of individual melodic lines and in the conflicting rhythms played by different members of an ensemble. Black folk music forms include field hollers, rowing chants, lullabies, and later, spirituals and blues (see African American Music).

European music contributed specific styles and forms: hymns, marches, waltzes, quadrilles, and other dance music, as well as light theatrical music and Italian operatic music. European music also introduced theoretical elements, in particular, harmony, both as a vocabulary of chords and as a concept related to musical form. (Much of the European influence was absorbed through private lessons in European music, even when the black musicians so trained could only find work in seedy entertainment districts and on Mississippi riverboats.)

Black-influenced elements of popular music that contributed to jazz include the banjo music of the minstrel shows (derived from the banjo music of slaves), the syncopated rhythmic patterns of African-influenced Latin American music (heard in southern U.S. cities), the barrelhouse piano styles of tavern musicians in the Midwest, and the marches played by black brass bands in the late 19th century. Near the end of the 19th century, another influential genre emerged. This was ragtime, a composed music that combined many elements, including syncopated rhythms (from banjo music and other black sources) and the harmonic contrasts and formal patterns of European marches. After 1910 bandleader W. C. Handy took another influential form, the blues, and broke its strict oral tradition by publishing his original blues songs. (Favoured by jazz musicians, Handy’s songs found one of their greatest interpreters in the 1920s in blues singer Bessie Smith, who recorded many of them.)

The merging of these multiple influences into jazz is difficult to reconstruct because it occurred before the existence of recording, which has provided valuable documentation. Of course, individual musicians had varying backgrounds and few people were directly exposed to all of these influences. For example, most jazz artists were and are city dwellers and might have only known rural black forms indirectly.

**HISTORY**

Most early jazz was played in small dance bands or by solo pianists. Besides ragtime and marches, the repertoire included all kinds of popular dance music and blues. The bands typically played at picnics, weddings, parades, and funerals. Characteristically, the bands played dirges on the way to funerals and lively marches on the way back. Blues and ragtime had arisen independently just a few years before jazz and continued to exist alongside it, influencing the style and forms of jazz and providing important vehicles for jazz improvisation.

**New Orleans Jazz**

Shortly after the turn of the 20th century, the earliest fully documented jazz style emerged and centred in New Orleans, Louisiana. In this style the cornet, trumpet, or violin carried the melody, the clarinet played florid countermelodies, and the trombone played rhythmic slides and sounded the root notes of chords or simple harmonies. Below this basic trio the guitar or banjo sounded the chords, along with a piano, if available; a string bass (or tuba for marching parades) provided a bass line; and drums supplied the rhythmic accompaniment. In theory, these roles were the same as in other kinds of music—it was the addition of improvisation, along with elements of other black music such as blues and ragtime, that made jazz unique.

A musician named Buddy Bolden appears to have led some bands that influenced early jazz musicians, but this music and its sound have been lost to posterity. Although some jazz influences can be heard on a few early phonograph records, not until 1917 did a jazz band record. This band, a group of white New Orleans musicians called The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, created a sensation overseas and in the United States. Among the band’s many successors, two groups emerged in the early 1920s that were particularly celebrated: the New Orleans Rhythm Kings and the Creole Jazz Band, the latter of which was led by cornetist King Oliver, an influential stylist. The series of recordings made by Oliver’s band are often considered the most significant jazz recordings by a New Orleans group. Other leading New Orleans musicians included trumpeters Bunk Johnson and Freddie Keppard, soprano saxophonist and clarinettist Sidney Bechet, drummer Warren “Baby” Dodds, and pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton. The most influential jazz musician nurtured in New Orleans, however, was King Oliver’s second trumpeter, Louis Armstrong.

**Armstrong’s Impact **

Armstrong was a dazzling improviser, technically, emotionally, and intellectually. He and his generation changed the format of jazz by bringing the soloist to the forefront, and within his recording groups, the Hot Five and the Hot Seven, he demonstrated that jazz improvisation could go far beyond simply ornamenting the melody—he created new melodies based on the chords of the initial tune. He also set a standard for later jazz singers, not only by the way he altered the words and melodies of songs, but also by improvising without words, like an instrument. This form of vocal improvisation is known as scat singing.

**Chicago and New York City **

For jazz, the 1920s was a decade of great experimentation and discovery. Many New Orleans musicians, including Armstrong, migrated to Chicago, Illinois, influencing local musicians and stimulating the evolution of the Chicago style. This style was derived from the New Orleans style but emphasized soloists, often added saxophone to the instrumentation, and usually produced tenser rhythms and more complicated textures. Instrumentalists working in Chicago or influenced by the Chicago style included trombonist Jack Teagarden, banjoist and guitarist Eddie Condon, drummer Gene Krupa, and clarinettist Benny Goodman. Also active in Chicago was Bix Beiderbecke, whose lyrical approach to the cornet provided an alternative to Armstrong’s bravura trumpet style. Many Chicago musicians eventually settled in New York City, another major centre for jazz in the 1920s.

**Jazz Piano **

Another vehicle for the development of jazz in the 1920s was piano music. The Harlem section of New York City became the centre of a highly technical, hard-driving solo style known as stride piano. The master of this approach in the early 1920s was James P. Johnson, but it was Johnson’s protégé Fats Waller—a talented vocalist and entertainer as well—who became by far the most popular performer of this idiom.

A second piano style to develop in the 1920s was boogie-woogie. A form of blues played on the piano, it consists of a short, sharply accented bass pattern played repeatedly by the left hand while the right hand plays freely, using a variety of rhythms. Boogie-woogie became especially popular in the 1930s and 1940s. Leading boogie-woogie pianists included Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson, and Pine Top Smith.

The most brilliant pianist of the 1920s, comparable to Armstrong in sheer innovation and present on some of his most influential recordings, was Earl “Fatha” Hines, a Chicago-nurtured virtuoso considered to possess a wild, unpredictable imagination. His style, combined with the smoother approach of Waller, influenced most pianists of the next generation—notably Teddy Wilson, who was featured with Goodman’s band in the 1930s, and Art Tatum, who performed mostly as a soloist and was regarded with awe for his virtuosity and sophisticated harmonic sense.

**The Big-Band Era**

Also during the 1920s, large groups of jazz musicians began to play together, after the model of society dance bands. These were the so-called big bands, which became so popular in the 1930s and early 1940s that the period was known as the swing era. One major development in the emergence of the swing era was a rhythmic change that smoothed the two-beat rhythms of some early bands into a more flowing four beats to the bar. Musicians also developed the use of short melodic patterns, called riffs, in call-and-response patterns. To facilitate this procedure, orchestras were divided into instrumental sections, each with its own riffs, and opportunities were provided for musicians to play solos.

The development of the big band as a jazz medium was strongly influenced by the achievements of Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson. Henderson’s arranger, Don Redman, and later Henderson himself, introduced written jazz scores that were widely admired for their effort to capture the quality of improvisation that characterized the music of smaller ensembles. To achieve this improvisation, Redman and Henderson were aided by gifted soloists such as tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and by Armstrong, who played in Henderson’s band during 1924 and 1925.

Ellington led a band at the Cotton Club in New York City during the late 1920s. Continuing to direct his orchestra until his death in 1974, he composed colorful experimental concert pieces ranging in length, from the three-minute “Ko-Ko” (1940) to the hourlong Black, Brown, and Beige (1943), as well as songs such as “Solitude” and “Sophisticated Lady.” More complex than Henderson’s music, Ellington’s music made his orchestra a cohesive ensemble, with solos written for the unique qualities of specific instruments and players. Other black bands that were popular among musicians and audiences were led by Jimmie Lunceford, Chick Webb, and Cab Calloway.

A different style of big-band jazz was developed in Kansas City, Missouri, during the mid-1930s and was epitomized by the band of Count Basie. Originally assembled in Kansas City, Basie’s band reflected that region’s emphasis on improvisation, keeping the prepared passages relatively short and simple. The wind instruments in his band exchanged ensemble riffs in a free, strongly rhythmical interplay, with pauses to accommodate instrumental solos. Basie’s tenor saxophonist Lester Young, in particular, played with a rhythmic freedom rarely apparent in the improvisations of soloists from other bands. Young’s delicate tone and long, flowing melodies, laced with an occasional avant-garde honk or gurgle, opened up a whole new approach, just as Armstrong’s trumpet and cornet playing had done in the 1920s.

Other trendsetters of the late 1930s were trumpeter Roy Eldridge, electric guitarist Charlie Christian, drummer Kenny Clarke, and vibraphonist Lionel Hampton. Jazz singing in the 1930s became increasingly flexible and stylized. Ivie Anderson, Mildred Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald, and, above all, Billie Holiday were among the leading singers. Europeans also became more active in jazz during this time. Christian, for example, was influenced by Belgian guitarist Django Reinhardt, whose brilliant recordings were available in the United States.

**Interplay with Popular and Classical Music **

The pioneering efforts of Armstrong, Ellington, Henderson, and others made jazz a dominant influence on American music during the 1920s and 1930s. Popular musicians such as bandleader Paul Whiteman used some of the more obvious rhythmic and melodic devices of jazz, although with less improvisational freedom and skill than were displayed in the music of the major jazz players. Attempting to fuse jazz with light classical music, Whiteman’s orchestra also premiered jazzy symphonic pieces by American composers such as George Gershwin. Closer to the authentic jazz tradition of improvisation and solo virtuosity was the music played by the bands of Benny Goodman (who used many of Henderson’s arrangements), Gene Krupa, and Harry James.

Since the days of ragtime, jazz composers had admired classical music. A number of swing-era musicians “jazzed the classics” in works such as “Bach Goes to Town” (written by Alec Wilder and recorded by Goodman) and “Ebony Rhapsody” (recorded by Ellington and others). Composers of concert music, in turn, paid tribute to jazz in works such as Contrasts (1938, commissioned by Goodman) by Hungarian Béla Bartók and Ebony Concerto (1945, commissioned by Woody Herman) by Russian-born Igor Stravinsky. Other composers, such as Aaron Copland, an American, and Darius Milhaud, a Frenchman, acknowledged the spirit of jazz in their works.

**The 1940s and the Postwar Decades**

The preeminently influential jazz musician of the 1940s was Charlie Parker, who became the leader of a new style known usually as bebop, but also as rebop or bop. Like Lester Young, Charlie Christian, and other outstanding soloists, Parker had played with big bands. During World War II (1939-1945), however, the wartime economy and changes in audience tastes had driven many big bands out of business. Their decline, combined with the radically new bebop style, amounted to a revolution in the jazz world.

Bebop was still based on the principle of improvisation over a chord progression, but the tempos were faster, the phrases longer and more complex, and the emotional range expanded to include more unpleasant feelings than before. Jazz musicians became aware of themselves as artists and made little effort to sell their wares by adding vocals, dancing, and comedy as their predecessors had.

At the centre of the ferment stood Parker, who could play anything on the saxophone, in any tempo and in any key. He created beautiful melodies that were related in advanced ways to the underlying chords, and his music possessed endless rhythmic variety. Parker’s frequent collaborators were trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, known for his formidable speed and range and daring harmonic sense, and pianist Earl “Bud” Powell and drummer Max Roach, both leaders in their own right. Also highly regarded were pianist-composer Thelonious Monk and trumpeter Fats Navarro. Jazz singer Sarah Vaughan was associated early in her career with bebop musicians, particularly Gillespie and Parker.

The late 1940s brought forth an explosion of experimentation in jazz. Modernized big bands led by Gillespie and Stan Kenton flourished alongside small groups with innovative musicians such as pianist Lennie Tristano. Most of these groups drew ideas from 20th-century pieces by masters such as Bartók and Stravinsky.

The most influential of the mid-century experiments with classically influenced jazz were the recordings made in 1949 and 1950 by an unusual nonet led by Charlie Parker’s protégé, a young trumpeter named Miles Davis. The written arrangements, by Davis and others, were soft in tone but highly complex. Many groups adopted this “cool” style, especially on the West Coast, and so it became known as West Coast jazz. Refined by players such as tenor saxophonists Zoot Sims and Stan Getz and baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, West Coast jazz flourished throughout the 1950s. Also in the 1950s pianist Dave Brubeck (a student of Milhaud’s), with alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, achieved popularity with his blend of classical music and jazz.

Most musicians, however, particularly on the East Coast, continued to expand on the hotter, more driving bebop tradition. Major exponents of the hard-bop or East Coast style included trumpeter Clifford Brown, drummer Art Blakey, and tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, whose unique approach made him one of the major talents of his generation. Another derivative of the Parker style was soul jazz, played by pianist Horace Silver, alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, and his brother, cornetist Nat Adderley.

**The Late 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s**

Several new approaches characterized jazz in the third quarter of the century. The years around 1960 ranked with the late 1920s and the late 1940s as one of the most fertile periods in the history of jazz.

**Modal Jazz**

In 1955 Miles Davis organized a quintet that featured tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, whose complex approach produced a striking contrast to Davis’s rich-toned, unhurried, expressive melodic lines. Coltrane poured out streams of notes with velocity and passion, exploring every melodic idea, no matter how exotic; nevertheless, he played slow ballads with poise and serenity. In his solos he revealed an exceptional sense of form and pacing. In 1959 Coltrane appeared on a landmark Miles Davis album, Kind of Blue. Along with pianist Bill Evans, Davis devised for this album a set of pieces that remain in one key, chord, and mode for as long as 16 measures at a time. This genre, which came to be known as modal jazz, allowed much freedom for the improviser.

Coltrane, striking out on his own, first pushed the complexity of bebop to its limits in the piece “Giant Steps” (1959), then settled on the other extreme, modal jazz. The latter style dominated his repertoire after 1960, when he recorded “My Favourite Things” using an open-ended arrangement in which each soloist stayed in one mode for as long as he wished. Coltrane’s quartet included pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones, two musicians who, because of their dramatic musical qualities, were widely imitated.

**Third-Stream and Avant-Garde Movements **

Another product of the experimentation of the late 1950s and 1960s was the attempt by composer Gunther Schuller, together with pianist John Lewis and his Modern Jazz Quartet, to combine jazz and classical music into a “third stream.” This movement brought together musicians from both worlds in a repertoire that drew heavily on the techniques of both kinds of music.

Also active during these years was composer, bassist, and bandleader Charlie Mingus, who imbued his chord-progression-based improvisations with a wild, raw excitement. Most controversial was the work of alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman, whose improvisations, at times almost atonal, did away with chord progressions altogether, while retaining the steady rhythmic swing so characteristic of jazz. Although Coleman’s wailing sound and rough technique shocked many critics, others recognized the wit, sincerity, and rare sense of form that characterized his solos. He inspired a whole school of avant-garde jazz that flourished in the 1960s and included the Art Ensemble of Chicago, clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre, pianist Cecil Taylor, and even Coltrane, who ventured into avant-garde improvisation before his death in 1967.

**Mainstream Developments**

Meanwhile, the mainstream of jazz, despite incorporating many of Coltrane’s melodic ideas and even some modal jazz pieces, continued to build improvisations largely on the chord progressions of popular songs. Brazilian songs, especially those in the bossa nova style, were added to the jazz repertoire in the early 1960s. Their Latin rhythms and fresh chord progressions appealed to jazz musicians of several generations, notably Stan Getz and flutist Herbie Mann. Even after the bossa nova style declined, the sambas that gave rise to it remained staples of the jazz repertoire, and many groups augmented their regular drum set with Caribbean percussion.

The trio formed by pianist Bill Evans treated popular songs with depth; the musicians were constantly interacting instead of simply taking turns for solos. This interactive approach was carried even further by the rhythm section of Davis’s quintet of 1963 and beyond, which included drummer Tony Williams, bassist Ron Carter, pianist Herbie Hancock, and later the highly original tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter.

**Fusion Jazz **

Jazz underwent an economic crisis in the late 1960s. Younger audiences favoured soul music and rock, while older aficionados turned away from the abstractness and emotional rawness of much modern jazz. Jazz musicians realized that to regain an audience they had to draw ideas from popular music, and this movement was dubbed fusion jazz. Some of these ideas came from rock, but most were drawn from the dance rhythms and chord progressions of soul musicians such as James Brown. Some groups also added elements of music from other cultures. The initial examples of this new genre met with varying success, but in 1969 Davis recorded Bitches Brew, a highly successful album that combined soul rhythms and electronically amplified instruments with uncompromising, highly dissonant jazz. Not surprisingly, alumni of Davis’s groups created some of the most musically successful fusion recordings of the 1970s: Hancock; Shorter and Austrian-born pianist Joe Zawinul, coleaders of the ensemble Weather Report; English electric guitarist John McLaughlin; and the brilliant pianist Chick Corea and his group Return to Forever. Rock musicians, in turn, began featuring jazz phrasings and solos over a rock-based rhythm. These groups included Chase; Chicago; and Blood, Sweat & Tears.

During this same period another alumnus of one of Davis’s groups, the iconoclastic pianist Keith Jarrett, succeeded commercially while eschewing electronic instruments and popular styles. His performances of popular standards and original songs with a quartet, as well as his improvisations alone at the keyboard, made him a major contemporary pianist of jazz.

**The 1980s and 1990s **

By the mid-1980s jazz artists were once again performing to sizable audiences in a variety of styles, and there was renewed interest in acoustic, non-fusion jazz. One of the key artists during this rejuvenation was trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, who has also received acclaim for his classical music—in 1982 he became the first person ever to win Grammy Awards in both jazz and classical categories in the same year. Marsalis is a gifted artist who considers jazz as practically a birth right: His father is one of the leading jazz pianists in New Orleans, and a number of Wynton’s siblings are also jazz musicians, including his brother Branford Marsalis. Wynton’s trumpet style has changed dramatically over the years; today, he pays tribute to past masters such as Louis Armstrong and Ellington’s trumpeter, Cootie Williams. His work is always technically outstanding and often melodically brilliant.

In addition to his work as an artist, Marsalis has played a significant role as an advocate and promoter of jazz. In 1987 he cofounded and became artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Centre, an extensive education and performance program. Marsalis was an important consultant and contributor to the 20-hour television series Jazz by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns.

On the heels of Marsalis, more and more young jazz musicians have emerged and received recording deals and exposure. Among them is the exciting saxophonist Joshua Redman, who gave up plans to attend law school at Yale University when his jazz career took off in 1991. His recordings include Freedom in the Groove (1996) and Beyond (2000). Some others who achieved prominence in the 1990s were saxophonist Mark Turner, trumpeters Roy Hargrove and Nicholas Payton (both associated with Marsalis) and Dave Douglas (associated with a more experimental approach), and pianist Brad Mehldau. And despite concerns that older artists are being ignored, some have achieved renewed fame, including saxophonist Joe Lovano and pianist Bill Charlap.

**Current Trends**

In recent years jazz has become a legitimate worldwide international phenomenon, with most top U.S. artists regularly touring Europe and Japan. Most developed countries have a jazz scene to some degree, and in some—such as Japan, Italy, and Denmark—jazz is flourishing. It has been estimated that the Japanese buy as many jazz recordings as Americans do, even though Japan has less than half the population of the United States. European and Japanese jazz musicians such as Italian pianist Franco D’Andrea, Italian clarinetist Mauro Negri, and British saxophonist John Surman are also being recognized among the best jazz musicians in the world.

Jazz is also more open to women than ever before. In the early days of the music, it was a kind of 'boys club.” In the 1930s and 1940s all-women groups were formed as one way to combat these limits. In the 1960s women were sometimes included in bands, but this would provoke comment. Female jazz performers began to gain more acceptance in the genre beginning in the 1970s. Some of these female artists include pianists Renee Rosnes and Geri Allen, composer and bandleader Maria Schneider, saxophonist and composer Jane Ira Bloom, and the big band Diva led by drummer Sherrie Maricle.

While jazz recordings have consistently remained at about 3 percent of all music sales, an indication that the number of devoted fans remains small, jazz is now considered attractive and fashionable by a much greater number of casual listeners. Jazz music and musicians are now used in popular culture settings such as television commercials, while major jazz concert and lecture programs at Lincoln Centre, the Smithsonian Institution, and elsewhere have helped raise the status of the music. Academic programs for the study of jazz history and performance continue to proliferate, and more and more jazz musicians boast music degrees. With all its variety and despite its various factions, jazz remains a rich and vital presence in the world of music.

**Porter, Lewis, M.A., Ph.D.**
Associate Professor of Music, Rutgers University. Author of Lester Young. Editor, A Lester Young Reader. Co-editor and contributor, Annual Review of Jazz studies.

Porter, Lewis. "Jazz." Microsoft® Student 2009 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2008.
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**By: Lewis Porter**

**INTRODUCTION **

Jazz music first developed by African Americans around the first decade of the 20th century that has an identifiable history and distinct stylistic evolution. Jazz grew up alongside the blues and popular music, and all these genres overlap in many ways. However, critics generally agree about whether artists fall squarely in one camp or another.

**CHARACTERISTICS**

Since its beginnings jazz has branched out into so many styles that no single description fits all of them accurately. A few generalizations can be made, however, bearing in mind that for all of them, exceptions can be cited.

Performers of jazz improvise within the conventions of their chosen style. Typically, the improvisation is accompanied by the repeated chord progression of a popular song or an original composition. Instrumentalists emulate black vocal styles, including the use of glissandi (sliding movements that smoothly change the pitch), nuances of pitch (including blue notes, the “bent” notes that are played or sung slightly lower than the major scale), and tonal effects such as growls and wails.

In striving to develop a personal sound, or tone colour (an idiosyncratic sense of rhythm and form and an individual style of execution), performers create rhythms characterized by constant syncopation (the placing of accents in unexpected places, usually on the weaker beat) and by swing. Swing can be defined as a sensation of momentum in which a melody is alternately heard together with, then slightly at variance with, the regular beat. Written scores, if present, are often used merely as guides, providing structure within which improvisation occurs. The typical instrumentation begins with a rhythm section consisting of piano, string bass, drums, and optional guitar, to which may be added any number of wind instruments. In big bands the wind instruments are grouped into three sections: saxophones, trombones, and trumpets.

Although exceptions occur in some styles, most jazz is based on the principle that an infinite number of melodies can fit the chord progressions of any song. The musician improvises new melodies that fit the chord progression, which is repeated again and again as each soloist is featured, for as many choruses as desired.

Although pieces with many different formal patterns are used for jazz improvisation, two formal patterns in particular are frequently found in songs used for jazz. One is the AABA form of popular-song choruses, which typically consists of 32 measures in ¹ meter, divided into four 8-measure sections: section A, a repetition of section A, section B (the “bridge” or “release,” often beginning in a new key), and a repetition of section A. The second form, with roots deep in African American folk music, is the 12-bar blues form. Unlike the 32-bar AABA form, blues songs have a fairly standardized chord progression.

**ORIGINS**

Jazz is rooted in the mingled musical traditions of African Americans. These include traits surviving from West African music; black folk music forms developed in the Americas; European popular and light classical music of the 18th and 19th centuries; and later popular music forms influenced by black music or produced by black composers. Among the surviving African traits are vocal styles that include great freedom of vocal colour; a tradition of improvisation; call-and-response patterns; and rhythmic complexity, both in the syncopation of individual melodic lines and in the conflicting rhythms played by different members of an ensemble. Black folk music forms include field hollers, rowing chants, lullabies, and later, spirituals and blues (see African American Music).

European music contributed specific styles and forms: hymns, marches, waltzes, quadrilles, and other dance music, as well as light theatrical music and Italian operatic music. European music also introduced theoretical elements, in particular, harmony, both as a vocabulary of chords and as a concept related to musical form. (Much of the European influence was absorbed through private lessons in European music, even when the black musicians so trained could only find work in seedy entertainment districts and on Mississippi riverboats.)

Black-influenced elements of popular music that contributed to jazz include the banjo music of the minstrel shows (derived from the banjo music of slaves), the syncopated rhythmic patterns of African-influenced Latin American music (heard in southern U.S. cities), the barrelhouse piano styles of tavern musicians in the Midwest, and the marches played by black brass bands in the late 19th century. Near the end of the 19th century, another influential genre emerged. This was ragtime, a composed music that combined many elements, including syncopated rhythms (from banjo music and other black sources) and the harmonic contrasts and formal patterns of European marches. After 1910 bandleader W. C. Handy took another influential form, the blues, and broke its strict oral tradition by publishing his original blues songs. (Favoured by jazz musicians, Handy’s songs found one of their greatest interpreters in the 1920s in blues singer Bessie Smith, who recorded many of them.)

The merging of these multiple influences into jazz is difficult to reconstruct because it occurred before the existence of recording, which has provided valuable documentation. Of course, individual musicians had varying backgrounds and few people were directly exposed to all of these influences. For example, most jazz artists were and are city dwellers and might have only known rural black forms indirectly.

**HISTORY**

Most early jazz was played in small dance bands or by solo pianists. Besides ragtime and marches, the repertoire included all kinds of popular dance music and blues. The bands typically played at picnics, weddings, parades, and funerals. Characteristically, the bands played dirges on the way to funerals and lively marches on the way back. Blues and ragtime had arisen independently just a few years before jazz and continued to exist alongside it, influencing the style and forms of jazz and providing important vehicles for jazz improvisation.

**New Orleans Jazz**

Shortly after the turn of the 20th century, the earliest fully documented jazz style emerged and centred in New Orleans, Louisiana. In this style the cornet, trumpet, or violin carried the melody, the clarinet played florid countermelodies, and the trombone played rhythmic slides and sounded the root notes of chords or simple harmonies. Below this basic trio the guitar or banjo sounded the chords, along with a piano, if available; a string bass (or tuba for marching parades) provided a bass line; and drums supplied the rhythmic accompaniment. In theory, these roles were the same as in other kinds of music—it was the addition of improvisation, along with elements of other black music such as blues and ragtime, that made jazz unique.

A musician named Buddy Bolden appears to have led some bands that influenced early jazz musicians, but this music and its sound have been lost to posterity. Although some jazz influences can be heard on a few early phonograph records, not until 1917 did a jazz band record. This band, a group of white New Orleans musicians called The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, created a sensation overseas and in the United States. Among the band’s many successors, two groups emerged in the early 1920s that were particularly celebrated: the New Orleans Rhythm Kings and the Creole Jazz Band, the latter of which was led by cornetist King Oliver, an influential stylist. The series of recordings made by Oliver’s band are often considered the most significant jazz recordings by a New Orleans group. Other leading New Orleans musicians included trumpeters Bunk Johnson and Freddie Keppard, soprano saxophonist and clarinettist Sidney Bechet, drummer Warren “Baby” Dodds, and pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton. The most influential jazz musician nurtured in New Orleans, however, was King Oliver’s second trumpeter, Louis Armstrong.

**Armstrong’s Impact **

Armstrong was a dazzling improviser, technically, emotionally, and intellectually. He and his generation changed the format of jazz by bringing the soloist to the forefront, and within his recording groups, the Hot Five and the Hot Seven, he demonstrated that jazz improvisation could go far beyond simply ornamenting the melody—he created new melodies based on the chords of the initial tune. He also set a standard for later jazz singers, not only by the way he altered the words and melodies of songs, but also by improvising without words, like an instrument. This form of vocal improvisation is known as scat singing.

**Chicago and New York City **

For jazz, the 1920s was a decade of great experimentation and discovery. Many New Orleans musicians, including Armstrong, migrated to Chicago, Illinois, influencing local musicians and stimulating the evolution of the Chicago style. This style was derived from the New Orleans style but emphasized soloists, often added saxophone to the instrumentation, and usually produced tenser rhythms and more complicated textures. Instrumentalists working in Chicago or influenced by the Chicago style included trombonist Jack Teagarden, banjoist and guitarist Eddie Condon, drummer Gene Krupa, and clarinettist Benny Goodman. Also active in Chicago was Bix Beiderbecke, whose lyrical approach to the cornet provided an alternative to Armstrong’s bravura trumpet style. Many Chicago musicians eventually settled in New York City, another major centre for jazz in the 1920s.

**Jazz Piano **

Another vehicle for the development of jazz in the 1920s was piano music. The Harlem section of New York City became the centre of a highly technical, hard-driving solo style known as stride piano. The master of this approach in the early 1920s was James P. Johnson, but it was Johnson’s protégé Fats Waller—a talented vocalist and entertainer as well—who became by far the most popular performer of this idiom.

A second piano style to develop in the 1920s was boogie-woogie. A form of blues played on the piano, it consists of a short, sharply accented bass pattern played repeatedly by the left hand while the right hand plays freely, using a variety of rhythms. Boogie-woogie became especially popular in the 1930s and 1940s. Leading boogie-woogie pianists included Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson, and Pine Top Smith.

The most brilliant pianist of the 1920s, comparable to Armstrong in sheer innovation and present on some of his most influential recordings, was Earl “Fatha” Hines, a Chicago-nurtured virtuoso considered to possess a wild, unpredictable imagination. His style, combined with the smoother approach of Waller, influenced most pianists of the next generation—notably Teddy Wilson, who was featured with Goodman’s band in the 1930s, and Art Tatum, who performed mostly as a soloist and was regarded with awe for his virtuosity and sophisticated harmonic sense.

**The Big-Band Era**

Also during the 1920s, large groups of jazz musicians began to play together, after the model of society dance bands. These were the so-called big bands, which became so popular in the 1930s and early 1940s that the period was known as the swing era. One major development in the emergence of the swing era was a rhythmic change that smoothed the two-beat rhythms of some early bands into a more flowing four beats to the bar. Musicians also developed the use of short melodic patterns, called riffs, in call-and-response patterns. To facilitate this procedure, orchestras were divided into instrumental sections, each with its own riffs, and opportunities were provided for musicians to play solos.

The development of the big band as a jazz medium was strongly influenced by the achievements of Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson. Henderson’s arranger, Don Redman, and later Henderson himself, introduced written jazz scores that were widely admired for their effort to capture the quality of improvisation that characterized the music of smaller ensembles. To achieve this improvisation, Redman and Henderson were aided by gifted soloists such as tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and by Armstrong, who played in Henderson’s band during 1924 and 1925.

Ellington led a band at the Cotton Club in New York City during the late 1920s. Continuing to direct his orchestra until his death in 1974, he composed colorful experimental concert pieces ranging in length, from the three-minute “Ko-Ko” (1940) to the hourlong Black, Brown, and Beige (1943), as well as songs such as “Solitude” and “Sophisticated Lady.” More complex than Henderson’s music, Ellington’s music made his orchestra a cohesive ensemble, with solos written for the unique qualities of specific instruments and players. Other black bands that were popular among musicians and audiences were led by Jimmie Lunceford, Chick Webb, and Cab Calloway.

A different style of big-band jazz was developed in Kansas City, Missouri, during the mid-1930s and was epitomized by the band of Count Basie. Originally assembled in Kansas City, Basie’s band reflected that region’s emphasis on improvisation, keeping the prepared passages relatively short and simple. The wind instruments in his band exchanged ensemble riffs in a free, strongly rhythmical interplay, with pauses to accommodate instrumental solos. Basie’s tenor saxophonist Lester Young, in particular, played with a rhythmic freedom rarely apparent in the improvisations of soloists from other bands. Young’s delicate tone and long, flowing melodies, laced with an occasional avant-garde honk or gurgle, opened up a whole new approach, just as Armstrong’s trumpet and cornet playing had done in the 1920s.

Other trendsetters of the late 1930s were trumpeter Roy Eldridge, electric guitarist Charlie Christian, drummer Kenny Clarke, and vibraphonist Lionel Hampton. Jazz singing in the 1930s became increasingly flexible and stylized. Ivie Anderson, Mildred Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald, and, above all, Billie Holiday were among the leading singers. Europeans also became more active in jazz during this time. Christian, for example, was influenced by Belgian guitarist Django Reinhardt, whose brilliant recordings were available in the United States.

**Interplay with Popular and Classical Music **

The pioneering efforts of Armstrong, Ellington, Henderson, and others made jazz a dominant influence on American music during the 1920s and 1930s. Popular musicians such as bandleader Paul Whiteman used some of the more obvious rhythmic and melodic devices of jazz, although with less improvisational freedom and skill than were displayed in the music of the major jazz players. Attempting to fuse jazz with light classical music, Whiteman’s orchestra also premiered jazzy symphonic pieces by American composers such as George Gershwin. Closer to the authentic jazz tradition of improvisation and solo virtuosity was the music played by the bands of Benny Goodman (who used many of Henderson’s arrangements), Gene Krupa, and Harry James.

Since the days of ragtime, jazz composers had admired classical music. A number of swing-era musicians “jazzed the classics” in works such as “Bach Goes to Town” (written by Alec Wilder and recorded by Goodman) and “Ebony Rhapsody” (recorded by Ellington and others). Composers of concert music, in turn, paid tribute to jazz in works such as Contrasts (1938, commissioned by Goodman) by Hungarian Béla Bartók and Ebony Concerto (1945, commissioned by Woody Herman) by Russian-born Igor Stravinsky. Other composers, such as Aaron Copland, an American, and Darius Milhaud, a Frenchman, acknowledged the spirit of jazz in their works.

**The 1940s and the Postwar Decades**

The preeminently influential jazz musician of the 1940s was Charlie Parker, who became the leader of a new style known usually as bebop, but also as rebop or bop. Like Lester Young, Charlie Christian, and other outstanding soloists, Parker had played with big bands. During World War II (1939-1945), however, the wartime economy and changes in audience tastes had driven many big bands out of business. Their decline, combined with the radically new bebop style, amounted to a revolution in the jazz world.

Bebop was still based on the principle of improvisation over a chord progression, but the tempos were faster, the phrases longer and more complex, and the emotional range expanded to include more unpleasant feelings than before. Jazz musicians became aware of themselves as artists and made little effort to sell their wares by adding vocals, dancing, and comedy as their predecessors had.

At the centre of the ferment stood Parker, who could play anything on the saxophone, in any tempo and in any key. He created beautiful melodies that were related in advanced ways to the underlying chords, and his music possessed endless rhythmic variety. Parker’s frequent collaborators were trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, known for his formidable speed and range and daring harmonic sense, and pianist Earl “Bud” Powell and drummer Max Roach, both leaders in their own right. Also highly regarded were pianist-composer Thelonious Monk and trumpeter Fats Navarro. Jazz singer Sarah Vaughan was associated early in her career with bebop musicians, particularly Gillespie and Parker.

The late 1940s brought forth an explosion of experimentation in jazz. Modernized big bands led by Gillespie and Stan Kenton flourished alongside small groups with innovative musicians such as pianist Lennie Tristano. Most of these groups drew ideas from 20th-century pieces by masters such as Bartók and Stravinsky.

The most influential of the mid-century experiments with classically influenced jazz were the recordings made in 1949 and 1950 by an unusual nonet led by Charlie Parker’s protégé, a young trumpeter named Miles Davis. The written arrangements, by Davis and others, were soft in tone but highly complex. Many groups adopted this “cool” style, especially on the West Coast, and so it became known as West Coast jazz. Refined by players such as tenor saxophonists Zoot Sims and Stan Getz and baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, West Coast jazz flourished throughout the 1950s. Also in the 1950s pianist Dave Brubeck (a student of Milhaud’s), with alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, achieved popularity with his blend of classical music and jazz.

Most musicians, however, particularly on the East Coast, continued to expand on the hotter, more driving bebop tradition. Major exponents of the hard-bop or East Coast style included trumpeter Clifford Brown, drummer Art Blakey, and tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, whose unique approach made him one of the major talents of his generation. Another derivative of the Parker style was soul jazz, played by pianist Horace Silver, alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, and his brother, cornetist Nat Adderley.

**The Late 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s**

Several new approaches characterized jazz in the third quarter of the century. The years around 1960 ranked with the late 1920s and the late 1940s as one of the most fertile periods in the history of jazz.

**Modal Jazz**

In 1955 Miles Davis organized a quintet that featured tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, whose complex approach produced a striking contrast to Davis’s rich-toned, unhurried, expressive melodic lines. Coltrane poured out streams of notes with velocity and passion, exploring every melodic idea, no matter how exotic; nevertheless, he played slow ballads with poise and serenity. In his solos he revealed an exceptional sense of form and pacing. In 1959 Coltrane appeared on a landmark Miles Davis album, Kind of Blue. Along with pianist Bill Evans, Davis devised for this album a set of pieces that remain in one key, chord, and mode for as long as 16 measures at a time. This genre, which came to be known as modal jazz, allowed much freedom for the improviser.

Coltrane, striking out on his own, first pushed the complexity of bebop to its limits in the piece “Giant Steps” (1959), then settled on the other extreme, modal jazz. The latter style dominated his repertoire after 1960, when he recorded “My Favourite Things” using an open-ended arrangement in which each soloist stayed in one mode for as long as he wished. Coltrane’s quartet included pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones, two musicians who, because of their dramatic musical qualities, were widely imitated.

**Third-Stream and Avant-Garde Movements **

Another product of the experimentation of the late 1950s and 1960s was the attempt by composer Gunther Schuller, together with pianist John Lewis and his Modern Jazz Quartet, to combine jazz and classical music into a “third stream.” This movement brought together musicians from both worlds in a repertoire that drew heavily on the techniques of both kinds of music.

Also active during these years was composer, bassist, and bandleader Charlie Mingus, who imbued his chord-progression-based improvisations with a wild, raw excitement. Most controversial was the work of alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman, whose improvisations, at times almost atonal, did away with chord progressions altogether, while retaining the steady rhythmic swing so characteristic of jazz. Although Coleman’s wailing sound and rough technique shocked many critics, others recognized the wit, sincerity, and rare sense of form that characterized his solos. He inspired a whole school of avant-garde jazz that flourished in the 1960s and included the Art Ensemble of Chicago, clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre, pianist Cecil Taylor, and even Coltrane, who ventured into avant-garde improvisation before his death in 1967.

**Mainstream Developments**

Meanwhile, the mainstream of jazz, despite incorporating many of Coltrane’s melodic ideas and even some modal jazz pieces, continued to build improvisations largely on the chord progressions of popular songs. Brazilian songs, especially those in the bossa nova style, were added to the jazz repertoire in the early 1960s. Their Latin rhythms and fresh chord progressions appealed to jazz musicians of several generations, notably Stan Getz and flutist Herbie Mann. Even after the bossa nova style declined, the sambas that gave rise to it remained staples of the jazz repertoire, and many groups augmented their regular drum set with Caribbean percussion.

The trio formed by pianist Bill Evans treated popular songs with depth; the musicians were constantly interacting instead of simply taking turns for solos. This interactive approach was carried even further by the rhythm section of Davis’s quintet of 1963 and beyond, which included drummer Tony Williams, bassist Ron Carter, pianist Herbie Hancock, and later the highly original tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter.

**Fusion Jazz **

Jazz underwent an economic crisis in the late 1960s. Younger audiences favoured soul music and rock, while older aficionados turned away from the abstractness and emotional rawness of much modern jazz. Jazz musicians realized that to regain an audience they had to draw ideas from popular music, and this movement was dubbed fusion jazz. Some of these ideas came from rock, but most were drawn from the dance rhythms and chord progressions of soul musicians such as James Brown. Some groups also added elements of music from other cultures. The initial examples of this new genre met with varying success, but in 1969 Davis recorded Bitches Brew, a highly successful album that combined soul rhythms and electronically amplified instruments with uncompromising, highly dissonant jazz. Not surprisingly, alumni of Davis’s groups created some of the most musically successful fusion recordings of the 1970s: Hancock; Shorter and Austrian-born pianist Joe Zawinul, coleaders of the ensemble Weather Report; English electric guitarist John McLaughlin; and the brilliant pianist Chick Corea and his group Return to Forever. Rock musicians, in turn, began featuring jazz phrasings and solos over a rock-based rhythm. These groups included Chase; Chicago; and Blood, Sweat & Tears.

During this same period another alumnus of one of Davis’s groups, the iconoclastic pianist Keith Jarrett, succeeded commercially while eschewing electronic instruments and popular styles. His performances of popular standards and original songs with a quartet, as well as his improvisations alone at the keyboard, made him a major contemporary pianist of jazz.

**The 1980s and 1990s **

By the mid-1980s jazz artists were once again performing to sizable audiences in a variety of styles, and there was renewed interest in acoustic, non-fusion jazz. One of the key artists during this rejuvenation was trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, who has also received acclaim for his classical music—in 1982 he became the first person ever to win Grammy Awards in both jazz and classical categories in the same year. Marsalis is a gifted artist who considers jazz as practically a birth right: His father is one of the leading jazz pianists in New Orleans, and a number of Wynton’s siblings are also jazz musicians, including his brother Branford Marsalis. Wynton’s trumpet style has changed dramatically over the years; today, he pays tribute to past masters such as Louis Armstrong and Ellington’s trumpeter, Cootie Williams. His work is always technically outstanding and often melodically brilliant.

In addition to his work as an artist, Marsalis has played a significant role as an advocate and promoter of jazz. In 1987 he cofounded and became artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Centre, an extensive education and performance program. Marsalis was an important consultant and contributor to the 20-hour television series Jazz by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns.

On the heels of Marsalis, more and more young jazz musicians have emerged and received recording deals and exposure. Among them is the exciting saxophonist Joshua Redman, who gave up plans to attend law school at Yale University when his jazz career took off in 1991. His recordings include Freedom in the Groove (1996) and Beyond (2000). Some others who achieved prominence in the 1990s were saxophonist Mark Turner, trumpeters Roy Hargrove and Nicholas Payton (both associated with Marsalis) and Dave Douglas (associated with a more experimental approach), and pianist Brad Mehldau. And despite concerns that older artists are being ignored, some have achieved renewed fame, including saxophonist Joe Lovano and pianist Bill Charlap.

**Current Trends**

In recent years jazz has become a legitimate worldwide international phenomenon, with most top U.S. artists regularly touring Europe and Japan. Most developed countries have a jazz scene to some degree, and in some—such as Japan, Italy, and Denmark—jazz is flourishing. It has been estimated that the Japanese buy as many jazz recordings as Americans do, even though Japan has less than half the population of the United States. European and Japanese jazz musicians such as Italian pianist Franco D’Andrea, Italian clarinetist Mauro Negri, and British saxophonist John Surman are also being recognized among the best jazz musicians in the world.

Jazz is also more open to women than ever before. In the early days of the music, it was a kind of 'boys club.” In the 1930s and 1940s all-women groups were formed as one way to combat these limits. In the 1960s women were sometimes included in bands, but this would provoke comment. Female jazz performers began to gain more acceptance in the genre beginning in the 1970s. Some of these female artists include pianists Renee Rosnes and Geri Allen, composer and bandleader Maria Schneider, saxophonist and composer Jane Ira Bloom, and the big band Diva led by drummer Sherrie Maricle.

While jazz recordings have consistently remained at about 3 percent of all music sales, an indication that the number of devoted fans remains small, jazz is now considered attractive and fashionable by a much greater number of casual listeners. Jazz music and musicians are now used in popular culture settings such as television commercials, while major jazz concert and lecture programs at Lincoln Centre, the Smithsonian Institution, and elsewhere have helped raise the status of the music. Academic programs for the study of jazz history and performance continue to proliferate, and more and more jazz musicians boast music degrees. With all its variety and despite its various factions, jazz remains a rich and vital presence in the world of music.

**Porter, Lewis, M.A., Ph.D.**
Associate Professor of Music, Rutgers University. Author of Lester Young. Editor, A Lester Young Reader. Co-editor and contributor, Annual Review of Jazz studies.

Porter, Lewis. "Jazz." Microsoft® Student 2009 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2008.
]]> 2263778 no no Fri, 17 Aug 2018 00:50:27 +0200 2018-08-17T00:50:27+02:00 3:15:45 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-keeping-house-music-alive/ 2022715 no no Fri, 25 May 2018 04:55:05 +0200 2018-05-25T04:55:05+02:00 1:28:20 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-rhythm-and-soul-journey-2018/ 1867285 no no Fri, 20 Apr 2018 20:23:02 +0200 2018-04-20T20:23:02+02:00 2:04:14 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-an-ode-to-nomzamo-madikizela/ 1844730 no no Sat, 07 Apr 2018 13:29:26 +0200 2018-04-07T13:29:26+02:00 1:01:32 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/eulogy-for-hugh-masekela-by-goya-musicman/
Because his discography is too large to sift through, for this tribute mix I have decided to select only 11 disco/house music gems from my generation. This mix attempts to highlight how much he contributed to underground music since 1984 to date; from Lagos, New York, Berlin and back to Johannesburg.

The mix commences with a medley of Uncle Hugh’s 1985 funky disco remake of Nigeria’s Fela Anikulapo kuti’s Lady and his1984 legendary underground dance classic Don’t Go Lose It Baby which became hits on dance floors of the post-disco era, culminating in a live performance at the infamous New York City disco club Paradise Garage. The Medley is followed by a concoction of funky remixes and original recordings by some of the most successful dance music artist and disc jockeys of the current era, most notably Nkosinathi “Black Coffee” Maphumulo, Luis Ferdinand “Little Louie” Vega (New York), Ralf Gum (Berlin), Mandla “Spikiri” Mofokeng, Jeff Maluleke, Kabomo and Zakes Bantwini.

Rest in Peace Masekela
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Because his discography is too large to sift through, for this tribute mix I have decided to select only 11 disco/house music gems from my generation. This mix attempts to highlight how much he contributed to underground music since 1984 to date; from Lagos, New York, Berlin and back to Johannesburg.

The mix commences with a medley of Uncle Hugh’s 1985 funky disco remake of Nigeria’s Fela Anikulapo kuti’s Lady and his1984 legendary underground dance classic Don’t Go Lose It Baby which became hits on dance floors of the post-disco era, culminating in a live performance at the infamous New York City disco club Paradise Garage. The Medley is followed by a concoction of funky remixes and original recordings by some of the most successful dance music artist and disc jockeys of the current era, most notably Nkosinathi “Black Coffee” Maphumulo, Luis Ferdinand “Little Louie” Vega (New York), Ralf Gum (Berlin), Mandla “Spikiri” Mofokeng, Jeff Maluleke, Kabomo and Zakes Bantwini.

Rest in Peace Masekela
]]> 1740129 no no Sun, 28 Jan 2018 00:45:22 +0100 2018-01-28T00:45:22+01:00 1:10:33 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goyas-complexities-of-sound/ 1707144 no no Mon, 15 Jan 2018 00:34:29 +0100 2018-01-15T00:34:29+01:00 1:34:26 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-presents-thomas-mapfumos-chimurenga-dance/ 1643861 no no Wed, 22 Nov 2017 22:56:07 +0100 2017-11-22T22:56:07+01:00 1:24:08 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-musicman-presents-lamentations-special-edition/ 1521120 no no Thu, 18 Mar 2021 21:48:10 +0100 2021-03-18T21:48:10+01:00 1:34:26 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-musicman-presents-felas-rare-beats/
No one who knew him well was surprised when Nigeria's greatest musician Fela Ransome-Kuti changed the first part of his double-barrelled surname to Anikulapo in the mid-1970s. He was just being consistent. Throughout his career, up to that point, Fela had constantly changed his mode of living and transformed the nature of his music. Eventually this process of change was to become the force that motivated his entire life.

The renaming was instructive. Anikulapo means 'I have death in my pocket', which is to say, as he often did, 'I will be the master of my own destiny and will decide when it is time for death to take me'. When he died in August of last year at the age of 58, Fela appeared to fulfil the prophecy implicit in that earlier name change; and the manner of his dying was as dramatic and unruly as the manner of his living.

In the weeks leading up to his death, Fela's condition deteriorated while he refused to accept treatment from Western-trained doctors, in spite of the fact that many of his family were illustrious medicos (Koye, the eldest, and former Minister of Health; Beko the younger, who was once President of the Nigerian Medical Association, detained incognito by the Nigerian government for his outspoken protests against what he believed to be the anti-democratic activities of the military; and his elder sister, a former matron in Nigeria's health services). To the end Fela was a conscious rebel. The themes of his rebellion never changed, and the anarchy which often seemed to surround his life and music was always tempered by the fundamental truths which he sought to elucidate with regard to both African society and the ongoing exploitation of people in African nations.

Fela's family wanted him to become a lawyer, and in 1958 he left Nigeria for the UK, ostensibly to study law. But many of his close friends maintain that he never intended to follow that line, and that he had made his decision to be a musician from his schooldays.

Once in the UK Fela enrolled In the Trinity School of Music. The trumpet was his preferred instrument, as most of Nigeria's leading highlife band leaders were trumpeters and at least two of them, Rex Jim Lawson and Victor Olaiya, were early heroes of Fela's. Although his father, the Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, encouraged him to play the piano, he had begun to practise the trumpet on his own before leaving secondary school, and sat in with many of the popular groups of the day. Bandleaders such as Roy Chicago, Bobby Benson, Eddie Okonta and the late anarchic genius Billy Friday all encouraged him and spoke highly of his youthful talent. However, Fela once told me that it was the discovery of Miles Davis's early recordings with Charlie Parker that strengthened his commitment to the instrument when he began studying in London.

During his stay in London, Fela also listened to Afro-Cuban music, and began performing in venues frequented by African students and workers with a group of dedicated Nigerian musicians which included the pianist Wole Bucknor, who became the Musical Director of the Nigerian Navy Band, and the fine jazz drummer Bayo Martins. In fact Martins was a seminal influence on Fela's listening habits, and was largely responsible for steering him in the direction he was eventually to take in building a close link between jazz and highlife music.

Fela returned to Nigeria in the mid-60s, and was employed by Nigeria's National Broadcasting Corporation, but he seemed to have little interest in working there. He formed his first professional group, The Koala Lobitos, and in their earliest performances the musical influences which had exercised Fela's imagination in the UK came to the fore. The group made some recordings, and while Fela's trumpet playing, though lyrical, sounded weak in interpretative power, his singing was innovative, more discursive and rational than the general run of highlife vocalising of the time. Fela's musical sensibility drew on the principles of West African popular music, especially its hypnotic, cyclical rhythm patterns, and he was always conscious of the ability of music to carry a social message in a powerful way. Accordingly, the lyrics he wrote for The Koala Lobitos also demonstrated a desire to bring new subjects into the purview of the music.

In 1968, by which time he had consolidated the membership of The Lobitos, new elements began to surface in the music which were strongly influenced by James Brown's recordings. In that year Fela gave a number of press interviews claiming that Brown had actually "stolen my music". Whatever the truth of the matter, what was clear was that in emphasising the rhythmic and improvisational elements, Fela's music was drawing closer to the kind of extended trance-like workouts that defined Brown's music of the period.

Later the same year, Fela went on a maverick tour to Ghana, the acknowledged home of highlife. He was accompanied and guided on the tour by Benson Idonije, a well-known Nigerian producer who was responsible for the presentation of jazz on Radio Nigeria. But while his music was well received by both Ghanaian audiences and musicians, he felt that in Nigeria his talents were still not appreciated. He either lost or left his job at the radio station after that. While still in Ghana he met a promoter called 'Duke', a Ghanaian who had relocated to California, and together they began to plan a tour to the USA.

The tour took place in 1969, and turned out to be a frustrating sequence of triumphs and disasters. It was halted when it was discovered that the promoter had not obtained the proper work permits for all the group's members. In addition, some members absconded, and in a legal fight with some of the local promoters, Fela seized a collection of hired instruments and shipped them back to Nigeria. He left the USA under a cloud of debt and threats of legal action, but in the few months he had been there he also met many musicians and other artists, especially writers and painters, who were harnessing their creative energies to the kind of radical politics that were being espoused by groups such as the Black Panthers. It was on this trip that he realised how valuable an understanding of Africa's history could be to the expansion of music's outreach, and it was during this trip too that he was able to record some of his latest compositions with a new group of musicians who interpreted his musical vision with a greater level of commitment and ability. He called this group Nigeria 70.

On his return to Nigeria Fela renamed the group a second time, calling it Africa 70. He hired the Kakadu (Parrot) nightclub in Yaba, a suburb of Lagos, renamed it the Afro-Spot, and instigated a programme of three live sessions a week that were to produce some of the most extraordinary events in African musical history.

Liberated by the music's new open-ended forms, some of the members of Africa 70 emerged as performing geniuses in their own right: tenor saxophonist Igo Chico Okwechime (replacing Isaac Olasugba), drummer Tony Allen, guitarist Fred Lawal and percussionist Henry 'Perdido' Kofi. Fela gradually dropped the trumpet and concentrated on leading the group by conducting it from the front and singing. Eventually his rudimentary keyboard riffs, which he used as part of his conducting formula, began to become more integral to the arrangements. By early 1971 he had stopped playing trumpet solos entirely and Tunde Williams, playing second trumpet, developed into a key player, taking over the important brass parts which Fela introduced into the arrangements.

By now Fela was virtually composing his songs in public. Each week at the Afro-Spot new works were premiered, and Fela would talk the audience through the meaning of the lyrics and work the group through the arrangement on stage. In this way classics such as "Lady", "Go-Slow", "Water No Get Enemy", "Chop And Quench", "Palava" and "Shakara-Oloje" emerged to become part of the urban folklore of Lagos. Not only were the songs massive local hits, but for many Lagos citizens it became imperative to attend these sessions, where Fela's interactive style made the audience a part of the performance.

That year – 1970-71 – Fela set a pace which was incredible, not only in terms of his musical growth but also his philosophical and ideological trajectory. The issues he raised as he discussed the lyrics of his songs grew increasingly topical, and he began the form of public speaking which he termed 'yabis' in which he would excoriate government officials for their inefficiency, or preach a new form of freedom of expression which he equated with the right to smoke 'igbo' (marijuana). Before his trip to the USA, Fela had neither smoked nor drank. He was a serious and committed musician, definitely no libertine. Back in Lagos, he claimed that a young woman he had met in America (who was later to sing on one of his albums) had introduced him to marijuana, and he was now convinced that the use of stimulants was not taboo provided the user was 'conscious'. This attitude was eventually to contribute greatly towards his many confrontations with the Nigerian government, and his public criticisms became increasingly focused on specific instances of what he considered to be government hypocrisy and the betrayal of national potential.

As his group grew from nine to 16 members, the music became less lyrical and more strident, the arrangements more complex. In 1974 Fela had a serious falling out with his tenor saxophonist Igo Chico, and in one of the legendary feats of his life, he vowed to replace Igo himself in 24 hours. According to the legend, Fela practised for 17 hours straight, and when the group appeared at the Afro-Spot that Friday night, he played all the famous Igo Chico tenor saxophone solos, not nearly as brilliantly as the master but with enough competence to satisfy his loyal audience.

This period also marked a turning point in Fela's commercial strategies. He moved from the Afro-Spot to a new club located in another part of Lagos called Surulere. The club was owned by a legendary Lagos entrepreneur, Chief SB Bakare, and Fela began to operate a full week's schedule. It was here that he first referred to his club as the Shrine, and began to speak of his musical existence as a religious rather than a purely commercial experience.

Fela's recording strategy was a particularly unique one at this point. Almost monthly he would go into the EMI studios in Apapa and produce extended versions of two of the group's most popular and topical compositions. EMI would release the songs immediately, their remarkable sales fuelled by the fact that a few weeks after they were issued on vinyl, Fela would stop singing them in his club. Fela continued this strategy for two years, issuing records like news bulletins, so that he served as a symbol of Nigeria's united national consciousness, as his songs would be heard blaring from loudspeakers across Nigeria as soon as they were released. The fact that his lyrics were in a very direct form of pidgin English was crucial, as it made his records accessible throughout Nigeria and much of Anglophone Africa.

Now Fela decided to build his own management team and control the release and performance of his music himself. In the early 70s, multinational record companies such as EMI, Decca and Philips/Phonogram had a stranglehold on recording and management of groups in Nigeria and elsewhere in West Africa, bankrolling watered down versions of US soul and Fela's patented Afrobeat. But as Fela developed into a megastar he sought to gain greater benefits from his recording contracts by encouraging competitive bidding among the rival companies for his independently recorded tapes.

The strain of this strategy caused cracks to appear within Fela's own organisation. He tended to be informal and careless with his finances, and some of his musicians broke away when it became difficult for him to pay them regularly. This was the period too when he began to expand his team of female dancers and establish a commune in his mother's house at Mosholashi-Idi-Oro. His sexual appetite was legendary, and many young women submitted themselves to a life of virtual enslavement as he preached an ideology of chauvinistic control and established a lifestyle that was based on his theories of female submission.

With the departure of certain musicians, the nature of the group changed drastically. Fela added more percussion and developed a new style of rhythm guitar voicing, laying a greater emphasis on the guitars and bass to carry the melody lines. He gave control of the reed and brass sections to Lekan 'Ani' Animashaun, a baritone saxophonist and one of the stalwarts of Fela's music, and spent more time refining his keyboard playing. Along with the ensemble singing of his female chorus, these developments became the signatures of his music, and the most distinctive sound of Afrobeat emerged from this era.

Some time In 1974, Fela moved from his Surulere base to the former Ambassador Club, a famous nightspot owned by the Lagos-based Ibo businessman and entertainment tycoon, Chief Kanu. This club was rechristened the African Shrine, and it was here that Fela began to incorporate ritualistic elements into his performances, including the pouring of libations and ceremonies performed by a succession of visiting traditional priests, some of whom appeared from nowhere, it seemed, and disappeared just as mysteriously. There was a Camerounian High Priest who, it was claimed, had sacrificed a human being at the Shrine and brought the victim back to life. Then there was a Ghanaian who performed magic tricks, and a Yoruba 'Babalawo' who gave Ifa divinations for selected members of the audience. Eventually Fela himself was declared High Priest of the Shrine, and each of his performances was prefaced with an elaborate ritual ceremony, replete with face painting, libation pouring, wild dancing and special prayers offered to the ubiquitous 'God of Africa'.

The African Shrine was located right opposite his mother's house, where his commune was still based, and his presence attracted a lot of commercial activity to the area, including a swarm of marijuana dealers. It was in this period, from 1974-76, that both his lifestyle and political attitudes coalesced into a flagrant challenge to the Nigerian authorities.

Apart from openly advocating the smoking of 'igbo' on the theory that "the God of Africa created this herb to enlighten his people", he also paraded his harem of young women all over Lagos. For a while they were appendages to his entourage, but in mid-1975 he began to incorporate them into his show, first as dancers and then as members of the vocal chorus. Later that year he undertook the famous single-day traditional marriage in which he pledged himself as husband to 28 women.

There followed another change of name for the group. Fela had begun reading esoteric literature promoting the belief that African history had been distorted and misrepresented by Western academics, and his interpretation of these ideas and transformation of them into musical themes became his main concern. Reflecting this embrace of pan-African revisionism, he now called his group Egypt 80.

Fela began applying these radical ideas in a pungent and systematic criticism of the Nigerian Government's own decrepit value system. Inevitably, the state began to fight back against both his political criticisms and what some government officials referred to as his 'immoral' lifestyle, and in what would turn out to be just the first of many raids on his club and commune, Fela's house was raided in daylight by teams of soldiers and police.

During the raid Fela was arrested and taken to the notorious Alagbon Close jail, where he was hailed as a hero by the prisoners and installed as 'president' of one of the toughest cells, named after the infamous dark hole of Calcutta but pronounced 'Kalakuta'. On his release he immortalised this experience in the extraordinary protest song "Kalakuta Show", and renamed his commune the Kalakuta Republic. This marked a major turning point in his life, and in many ways may have sealed his fate.

Fela's domestic lifestyle, and his battles with the Nigerian authorities, became major selling points for Nigerian tabloids. One newspaper, The Sunday Punch, serialised a set of features about the Kalakuta experience, liberally sprinkled with pungent quotes from Fela himself, and sold in numbers hitherto unknown for independent newspapers in Nigeria. His reputation also began to spread abroad: The New York Times ran a major feature on him, and his comments began to surface in foreign articles surveying Nigeria's economic and political climates. It is a moot point whether this attention was responsible for his increasing militancy or whether it was the other way round. Whatever the cause, Fela's radicalism increased and his music became even more powerful as a result. The consistency with which he interpreted political events and issues in musical terms was remarkable. The anti-military pieces "Zombie" and "Unknown Soldier" were seminal products of this period. They indicated that Fela was unbowed in the face of sustained attacks from the police and military.

Eventually he fell out seriously with his record companies and began to attack them also. It was clear to Fela that the government had been putting pressure on these organisations to undermine his independence, and he set out to prove that he could survive without them. One of his most famous songs emerged during this period, "ITT" ("International T'ief T'ief"), in which he heaped abuse on Chief MKO Abiola who was then 'Vice President for Africa and the Middle East of ITT', owners of the Decca label.

In a further break from the conventions of the record industry, some of Fela's closest friends were drafted into his organisation to handle contractual and promotional matters. These included the late Kanmi 'People's Lawyer' Osobu, Alhaji UK Buraimoh, the late Akin Davies and Barrister 'Wole 'Feelings Lawyer' Kuboye. Now Fela began to tour Nigeria playing concerts that drew up to 50,000 people at a time in places such as Port Harcourt, Aba, Benin City, Warri, Enugu, Jos, Kaduna and Calabar. These were not club dates but fully fledged stadium concerts. This strategy, and Fela's increasing popularity, seemed to anger the government even more, and towards the end of 1976, after Fela had returned to Lagos following one of his major national tours, one of the most vicious attacks on his home took place.

The timing of the raid was strategic. Nigeria was about to host the Second World Festival of Black and African Arts (FESTAC 77), and the government obviously wanted to silence Fela before the expected large contingent of international visitors arrived in Lagos for the festival. If this was the intention, it backfired badly. The raid was covered widely in the media, and the songs Fela wrote by way of response emerged as some of his most popular international hits. In fact, during the festival the African Shrine was packed almost every night, proving more popular than any of the official FESTAC events, so much so that most nights Fela and Egypt 80 had to play four shows instead of the normal one or two.

In early 1978, a few months after FESTAC, Fela's home was raided again, and this time the raid was carried out entirely by the military - with tragic consequences. Fela believed that the raid had been ordered personally by the then Head of State General Olusegun Obasanjo, a fellow Ogun State indigene, who had been humiliated by the amount of attention Fela had received during FESTAC. During the raid, Fela's mother, Funmilayo, who was then around 75 years old, was thrown from a first floor window by "an unknown soldier". In addition, Funmilayo's house, and an adjoining clinic belonging to Dr Beko Ransome-Kuti, were both burned to the ground. Official explanations for the raid were cynically off hand, which angered Fela even more.

When his mother died some months later from complications arising from the injuries she had received during the raid, Fela led a protest march carrying a coffin to the official residence of the Head of State in central Lagos, and also wrote one of his most tragic hits, "Unknown Soldier", which contained the heart-rending lamentation, "Dem kill my mama, political mama, the only Mama in Africa".

Shortly after the death of Funmilayo, Fela and his group went on a European tour, where he was surprised to discover that he had a massive following, especially in France. He toured for about three months, but on his return to Nigeria some of the key members of Egypt 80 - percussionist Henry 'Perdido' Kofi and drummer Tony Allen - left the group. In addition, one of its brighter young stars, the guitarist Kologbo, absconded and remained in Europe. The European tour was a success both critically and commercially, but once again Fela's casual approach to finance led to disagreements within the group. Moreover, he seemed increasingly depressed over the death of his mother.

Although he had never been a big drinker Fela had created a special compound which he called 'Felagoro' made from marijuana mixed with the local gin 'ogogoro', and he used it extensively during the European tour. The compound was a powerful hallucinogenic and sometimes, when under its influence, his performances were erratic, and the music was mostly held together by Lekan 'Ani' Animashaun, who had developed into a powerful baritone saxophonist, and was officially designated musical director of the group.

During the European tour Fela introduced his teenage son Femi on stage in the heat of a hard-driving performance in a circus tent outside of Paris. It was a real baptism of fire, as Femi was breaking in a new alto saxophone, and previously had only practised with the group during rehearsals. But before a crowd of more than 10,000 Fela ordered Femi to take his first major solo. Fela stood by the side of the stage driving his son on with shouts of encouragement and derision. The experience proved its worth. Femi now leads a group called Positive Force, and has developed a streak of determination in almost direct response to his father's unorthodox method of apprenticeship.

After his return from Europe, Fela's life and music took on a doomed brilliance which was overshadowed by a cloud of inevitable confrontation. Raids by the police and military became even more regular when he moved to Ikeja and took over another club, where he installed the New African Shrine. His hangers-on from Mosholashi-Idi-Oro followed. They virtually repopulated the area around the Shrine bringing hard drugs, especially 'bana' (heroin) and crack, with them. Fela spoke against the use of any drugs other than igbo, but many members of his entourage, including some of his wives, had already become junkies, a development which only seemed to reinforce the allegations of immorality and criminality that the government was levelling against him.

The confrontation between Fela and the security forces now developed into one of the saddest displays of state terrorism ever seen in Africa; sometimes it appeared that individual government members and departments were vying with each other to see which one was more anti-Fela.

In 1983 Fela announced that he would be standing for President in the forthcoming Nigerian elections on the ticket of his own party, the Movement of the People (MOP), in order to "clean up society like a mop". Following the elections, the military overthrew the new civilian government and the attacks on Fela increased again. He was accused by one agency of flouting the country's currency laws because he returned from an overseas visit with about 1000 US dollars. He was arrested, charged, and kept in detention for almost two years. He was released in 1986 after yet another coup had occurred, but just a few months later he was charged with kidnapping one of the young women who lived at his house and whose father was said to be a senior official in one of the security agencies. Fela was acquitted, but a year or so later he was accused of murder after someone had been killed in a fight at the Shrine. Years later, Fela told me that he believed the dead man was killed and planted in the club by yet another branch of the security services.

Even during this incredibly fraught period, Fela's music retained an innovative strength. Just before the breakdown of apartheid in South Africa at the beginning of the 1990s he began to turn his attention to the subject of world racism, and the economic exploitation and international hypocrisy that sustained it.

His composition "Beast Of No Nation" evolved out of a statement by South Africa's President PW Botha: "This uprising [against the apartheid system] will bring out the beast in us." The song was powerfully argued and the music showed that Fela had not lost his sense of rhythmic vitality in his approach to composition. Many of his last songs written between 1993-96 represent some of his best work, containing large scale orchestrated arrangements with more freedom for melodic interpretation. In a parallel with the increased sophistication of his music, Fela announced that marriage was an erroneous imposition of control on a fellow human being. Accordingly, he granted freedom to all his wives, or at least those who remained - more than half of the original 28 had already absconded, although many of them remained resident in his house and as members of his performing ensemble.

Even as Fela was revising his lifestyle, the authorities were closing in. A few weeks before his death, his health shot to pieces by years of official and personal physical abuse, he was paraded in chains on state television in Lagos by yet another security agency, the Anti-Drug Squad. Even in these harrowing circumstances, Fela maintained his dignity, challenging the director of the agency openly, and declaring that he did smoke marijuana and considered it not only his right but a privilege ordained for humanity by the "God of Africa".

By now, Fela's poor health was obvious. He was skeletal, but his spirit was unbowed. He continued to appear at the Shrine, and whenever the group, led by Lekan Animashaun, struck up its signature tunes, he still found the strength to leap on stage and blast his adversaries and proclaim his belief in the rejuvenative power of his personal vision. To the end, Fela believed that this vision was motivated by a spiritual link to the ancestral power of Africa, and that even if it did not save his own life it had the power to restore a sense of political renewal in the continent.

Fela died on 2 August 1997. Some members of his family announced that he was suffering from AIDS, and have demanded that the Nigerian government establish a campaign to officially recognise the AIDS issue as a potentially catastrophic one for the whole of Africa. In this way they probably hope that Fela's death might help bring about the kind of fundamental changes in Nigerian society which he strived for during his life, but failed to achieve, in spite of his constant battles with officialdom.

Fela's funeral developed into a festival of joy and anger unprecedented in Lagos. Three days of processions culminated in a public service which brought the city of well over five million people to a standstill - obviously, Fela's spirit still ran deep in the hearts of the masses.

It is no exaggeration to say that Fela's memory will always symbolise the spirit of truth for a vast number of struggling people in Africa and beyond. His music and the determined consistency with which he challenged authority and demanded that popular ambitions and attitudes should be reflected in the official objectives of the nation's leadership will continue to create a basis for radical challenges to the complacency of officialdom. His musical legacy is a solid one. His compositions are effectively underscored by the huge number of records which he leaves behind. Everyone who worked with him retained a deep sense of his musical spirit, and in the future, his formal musical legacy will grow even stronger as the extraneous elements of his wild, anarchic lifestyle give way to reflective tributes to his talent and the philosophical relevance of his ideas.

The members of Fela's group, devastated by his passing, will find it difficult to keep the flame alive, but there is also a need to preserve the traditions which Fela established. One of his greatest legacies is the consummate technical proficiency which he enabled his instrumentalists to achieve even without travelling beyond Nigeria. Some of his soloists, such as the young baritone saxophonist 'Showboy' and the leader Lekan Animashaun, have the breadth of experience as well as the evanescent quality of stardom in their veins.

Now that he is no longer alive, the eternal values which gave birth to Fela's perpetual struggle to find justice in life will gain new strength through the immortal power of his musical vision.

Copyright © Lindsay Barrett 1998.

By Lindsay Barrett

Copyright © Lindsay Barrett 1998.

By Lindsay Barrett

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No one who knew him well was surprised when Nigeria's greatest musician Fela Ransome-Kuti changed the first part of his double-barrelled surname to Anikulapo in the mid-1970s. He was just being consistent. Throughout his career, up to that point, Fela had constantly changed his mode of living and transformed the nature of his music. Eventually this process of change was to become the force that motivated his entire life.

The renaming was instructive. Anikulapo means 'I have death in my pocket', which is to say, as he often did, 'I will be the master of my own destiny and will decide when it is time for death to take me'. When he died in August of last year at the age of 58, Fela appeared to fulfil the prophecy implicit in that earlier name change; and the manner of his dying was as dramatic and unruly as the manner of his living.

In the weeks leading up to his death, Fela's condition deteriorated while he refused to accept treatment from Western-trained doctors, in spite of the fact that many of his family were illustrious medicos (Koye, the eldest, and former Minister of Health; Beko the younger, who was once President of the Nigerian Medical Association, detained incognito by the Nigerian government for his outspoken protests against what he believed to be the anti-democratic activities of the military; and his elder sister, a former matron in Nigeria's health services). To the end Fela was a conscious rebel. The themes of his rebellion never changed, and the anarchy which often seemed to surround his life and music was always tempered by the fundamental truths which he sought to elucidate with regard to both African society and the ongoing exploitation of people in African nations.

Fela's family wanted him to become a lawyer, and in 1958 he left Nigeria for the UK, ostensibly to study law. But many of his close friends maintain that he never intended to follow that line, and that he had made his decision to be a musician from his schooldays.

Once in the UK Fela enrolled In the Trinity School of Music. The trumpet was his preferred instrument, as most of Nigeria's leading highlife band leaders were trumpeters and at least two of them, Rex Jim Lawson and Victor Olaiya, were early heroes of Fela's. Although his father, the Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, encouraged him to play the piano, he had begun to practise the trumpet on his own before leaving secondary school, and sat in with many of the popular groups of the day. Bandleaders such as Roy Chicago, Bobby Benson, Eddie Okonta and the late anarchic genius Billy Friday all encouraged him and spoke highly of his youthful talent. However, Fela once told me that it was the discovery of Miles Davis's early recordings with Charlie Parker that strengthened his commitment to the instrument when he began studying in London.

During his stay in London, Fela also listened to Afro-Cuban music, and began performing in venues frequented by African students and workers with a group of dedicated Nigerian musicians which included the pianist Wole Bucknor, who became the Musical Director of the Nigerian Navy Band, and the fine jazz drummer Bayo Martins. In fact Martins was a seminal influence on Fela's listening habits, and was largely responsible for steering him in the direction he was eventually to take in building a close link between jazz and highlife music.

Fela returned to Nigeria in the mid-60s, and was employed by Nigeria's National Broadcasting Corporation, but he seemed to have little interest in working there. He formed his first professional group, The Koala Lobitos, and in their earliest performances the musical influences which had exercised Fela's imagination in the UK came to the fore. The group made some recordings, and while Fela's trumpet playing, though lyrical, sounded weak in interpretative power, his singing was innovative, more discursive and rational than the general run of highlife vocalising of the time. Fela's musical sensibility drew on the principles of West African popular music, especially its hypnotic, cyclical rhythm patterns, and he was always conscious of the ability of music to carry a social message in a powerful way. Accordingly, the lyrics he wrote for The Koala Lobitos also demonstrated a desire to bring new subjects into the purview of the music.

In 1968, by which time he had consolidated the membership of The Lobitos, new elements began to surface in the music which were strongly influenced by James Brown's recordings. In that year Fela gave a number of press interviews claiming that Brown had actually "stolen my music". Whatever the truth of the matter, what was clear was that in emphasising the rhythmic and improvisational elements, Fela's music was drawing closer to the kind of extended trance-like workouts that defined Brown's music of the period.

Later the same year, Fela went on a maverick tour to Ghana, the acknowledged home of highlife. He was accompanied and guided on the tour by Benson Idonije, a well-known Nigerian producer who was responsible for the presentation of jazz on Radio Nigeria. But while his music was well received by both Ghanaian audiences and musicians, he felt that in Nigeria his talents were still not appreciated. He either lost or left his job at the radio station after that. While still in Ghana he met a promoter called 'Duke', a Ghanaian who had relocated to California, and together they began to plan a tour to the USA.

The tour took place in 1969, and turned out to be a frustrating sequence of triumphs and disasters. It was halted when it was discovered that the promoter had not obtained the proper work permits for all the group's members. In addition, some members absconded, and in a legal fight with some of the local promoters, Fela seized a collection of hired instruments and shipped them back to Nigeria. He left the USA under a cloud of debt and threats of legal action, but in the few months he had been there he also met many musicians and other artists, especially writers and painters, who were harnessing their creative energies to the kind of radical politics that were being espoused by groups such as the Black Panthers. It was on this trip that he realised how valuable an understanding of Africa's history could be to the expansion of music's outreach, and it was during this trip too that he was able to record some of his latest compositions with a new group of musicians who interpreted his musical vision with a greater level of commitment and ability. He called this group Nigeria 70.

On his return to Nigeria Fela renamed the group a second time, calling it Africa 70. He hired the Kakadu (Parrot) nightclub in Yaba, a suburb of Lagos, renamed it the Afro-Spot, and instigated a programme of three live sessions a week that were to produce some of the most extraordinary events in African musical history.

Liberated by the music's new open-ended forms, some of the members of Africa 70 emerged as performing geniuses in their own right: tenor saxophonist Igo Chico Okwechime (replacing Isaac Olasugba), drummer Tony Allen, guitarist Fred Lawal and percussionist Henry 'Perdido' Kofi. Fela gradually dropped the trumpet and concentrated on leading the group by conducting it from the front and singing. Eventually his rudimentary keyboard riffs, which he used as part of his conducting formula, began to become more integral to the arrangements. By early 1971 he had stopped playing trumpet solos entirely and Tunde Williams, playing second trumpet, developed into a key player, taking over the important brass parts which Fela introduced into the arrangements.

By now Fela was virtually composing his songs in public. Each week at the Afro-Spot new works were premiered, and Fela would talk the audience through the meaning of the lyrics and work the group through the arrangement on stage. In this way classics such as "Lady", "Go-Slow", "Water No Get Enemy", "Chop And Quench", "Palava" and "Shakara-Oloje" emerged to become part of the urban folklore of Lagos. Not only were the songs massive local hits, but for many Lagos citizens it became imperative to attend these sessions, where Fela's interactive style made the audience a part of the performance.

That year – 1970-71 – Fela set a pace which was incredible, not only in terms of his musical growth but also his philosophical and ideological trajectory. The issues he raised as he discussed the lyrics of his songs grew increasingly topical, and he began the form of public speaking which he termed 'yabis' in which he would excoriate government officials for their inefficiency, or preach a new form of freedom of expression which he equated with the right to smoke 'igbo' (marijuana). Before his trip to the USA, Fela had neither smoked nor drank. He was a serious and committed musician, definitely no libertine. Back in Lagos, he claimed that a young woman he had met in America (who was later to sing on one of his albums) had introduced him to marijuana, and he was now convinced that the use of stimulants was not taboo provided the user was 'conscious'. This attitude was eventually to contribute greatly towards his many confrontations with the Nigerian government, and his public criticisms became increasingly focused on specific instances of what he considered to be government hypocrisy and the betrayal of national potential.

As his group grew from nine to 16 members, the music became less lyrical and more strident, the arrangements more complex. In 1974 Fela had a serious falling out with his tenor saxophonist Igo Chico, and in one of the legendary feats of his life, he vowed to replace Igo himself in 24 hours. According to the legend, Fela practised for 17 hours straight, and when the group appeared at the Afro-Spot that Friday night, he played all the famous Igo Chico tenor saxophone solos, not nearly as brilliantly as the master but with enough competence to satisfy his loyal audience.

This period also marked a turning point in Fela's commercial strategies. He moved from the Afro-Spot to a new club located in another part of Lagos called Surulere. The club was owned by a legendary Lagos entrepreneur, Chief SB Bakare, and Fela began to operate a full week's schedule. It was here that he first referred to his club as the Shrine, and began to speak of his musical existence as a religious rather than a purely commercial experience.

Fela's recording strategy was a particularly unique one at this point. Almost monthly he would go into the EMI studios in Apapa and produce extended versions of two of the group's most popular and topical compositions. EMI would release the songs immediately, their remarkable sales fuelled by the fact that a few weeks after they were issued on vinyl, Fela would stop singing them in his club. Fela continued this strategy for two years, issuing records like news bulletins, so that he served as a symbol of Nigeria's united national consciousness, as his songs would be heard blaring from loudspeakers across Nigeria as soon as they were released. The fact that his lyrics were in a very direct form of pidgin English was crucial, as it made his records accessible throughout Nigeria and much of Anglophone Africa.

Now Fela decided to build his own management team and control the release and performance of his music himself. In the early 70s, multinational record companies such as EMI, Decca and Philips/Phonogram had a stranglehold on recording and management of groups in Nigeria and elsewhere in West Africa, bankrolling watered down versions of US soul and Fela's patented Afrobeat. But as Fela developed into a megastar he sought to gain greater benefits from his recording contracts by encouraging competitive bidding among the rival companies for his independently recorded tapes.

The strain of this strategy caused cracks to appear within Fela's own organisation. He tended to be informal and careless with his finances, and some of his musicians broke away when it became difficult for him to pay them regularly. This was the period too when he began to expand his team of female dancers and establish a commune in his mother's house at Mosholashi-Idi-Oro. His sexual appetite was legendary, and many young women submitted themselves to a life of virtual enslavement as he preached an ideology of chauvinistic control and established a lifestyle that was based on his theories of female submission.

With the departure of certain musicians, the nature of the group changed drastically. Fela added more percussion and developed a new style of rhythm guitar voicing, laying a greater emphasis on the guitars and bass to carry the melody lines. He gave control of the reed and brass sections to Lekan 'Ani' Animashaun, a baritone saxophonist and one of the stalwarts of Fela's music, and spent more time refining his keyboard playing. Along with the ensemble singing of his female chorus, these developments became the signatures of his music, and the most distinctive sound of Afrobeat emerged from this era.

Some time In 1974, Fela moved from his Surulere base to the former Ambassador Club, a famous nightspot owned by the Lagos-based Ibo businessman and entertainment tycoon, Chief Kanu. This club was rechristened the African Shrine, and it was here that Fela began to incorporate ritualistic elements into his performances, including the pouring of libations and ceremonies performed by a succession of visiting traditional priests, some of whom appeared from nowhere, it seemed, and disappeared just as mysteriously. There was a Camerounian High Priest who, it was claimed, had sacrificed a human being at the Shrine and brought the victim back to life. Then there was a Ghanaian who performed magic tricks, and a Yoruba 'Babalawo' who gave Ifa divinations for selected members of the audience. Eventually Fela himself was declared High Priest of the Shrine, and each of his performances was prefaced with an elaborate ritual ceremony, replete with face painting, libation pouring, wild dancing and special prayers offered to the ubiquitous 'God of Africa'.

The African Shrine was located right opposite his mother's house, where his commune was still based, and his presence attracted a lot of commercial activity to the area, including a swarm of marijuana dealers. It was in this period, from 1974-76, that both his lifestyle and political attitudes coalesced into a flagrant challenge to the Nigerian authorities.

Apart from openly advocating the smoking of 'igbo' on the theory that "the God of Africa created this herb to enlighten his people", he also paraded his harem of young women all over Lagos. For a while they were appendages to his entourage, but in mid-1975 he began to incorporate them into his show, first as dancers and then as members of the vocal chorus. Later that year he undertook the famous single-day traditional marriage in which he pledged himself as husband to 28 women.

There followed another change of name for the group. Fela had begun reading esoteric literature promoting the belief that African history had been distorted and misrepresented by Western academics, and his interpretation of these ideas and transformation of them into musical themes became his main concern. Reflecting this embrace of pan-African revisionism, he now called his group Egypt 80.

Fela began applying these radical ideas in a pungent and systematic criticism of the Nigerian Government's own decrepit value system. Inevitably, the state began to fight back against both his political criticisms and what some government officials referred to as his 'immoral' lifestyle, and in what would turn out to be just the first of many raids on his club and commune, Fela's house was raided in daylight by teams of soldiers and police.

During the raid Fela was arrested and taken to the notorious Alagbon Close jail, where he was hailed as a hero by the prisoners and installed as 'president' of one of the toughest cells, named after the infamous dark hole of Calcutta but pronounced 'Kalakuta'. On his release he immortalised this experience in the extraordinary protest song "Kalakuta Show", and renamed his commune the Kalakuta Republic. This marked a major turning point in his life, and in many ways may have sealed his fate.

Fela's domestic lifestyle, and his battles with the Nigerian authorities, became major selling points for Nigerian tabloids. One newspaper, The Sunday Punch, serialised a set of features about the Kalakuta experience, liberally sprinkled with pungent quotes from Fela himself, and sold in numbers hitherto unknown for independent newspapers in Nigeria. His reputation also began to spread abroad: The New York Times ran a major feature on him, and his comments began to surface in foreign articles surveying Nigeria's economic and political climates. It is a moot point whether this attention was responsible for his increasing militancy or whether it was the other way round. Whatever the cause, Fela's radicalism increased and his music became even more powerful as a result. The consistency with which he interpreted political events and issues in musical terms was remarkable. The anti-military pieces "Zombie" and "Unknown Soldier" were seminal products of this period. They indicated that Fela was unbowed in the face of sustained attacks from the police and military.

Eventually he fell out seriously with his record companies and began to attack them also. It was clear to Fela that the government had been putting pressure on these organisations to undermine his independence, and he set out to prove that he could survive without them. One of his most famous songs emerged during this period, "ITT" ("International T'ief T'ief"), in which he heaped abuse on Chief MKO Abiola who was then 'Vice President for Africa and the Middle East of ITT', owners of the Decca label.

In a further break from the conventions of the record industry, some of Fela's closest friends were drafted into his organisation to handle contractual and promotional matters. These included the late Kanmi 'People's Lawyer' Osobu, Alhaji UK Buraimoh, the late Akin Davies and Barrister 'Wole 'Feelings Lawyer' Kuboye. Now Fela began to tour Nigeria playing concerts that drew up to 50,000 people at a time in places such as Port Harcourt, Aba, Benin City, Warri, Enugu, Jos, Kaduna and Calabar. These were not club dates but fully fledged stadium concerts. This strategy, and Fela's increasing popularity, seemed to anger the government even more, and towards the end of 1976, after Fela had returned to Lagos following one of his major national tours, one of the most vicious attacks on his home took place.

The timing of the raid was strategic. Nigeria was about to host the Second World Festival of Black and African Arts (FESTAC 77), and the government obviously wanted to silence Fela before the expected large contingent of international visitors arrived in Lagos for the festival. If this was the intention, it backfired badly. The raid was covered widely in the media, and the songs Fela wrote by way of response emerged as some of his most popular international hits. In fact, during the festival the African Shrine was packed almost every night, proving more popular than any of the official FESTAC events, so much so that most nights Fela and Egypt 80 had to play four shows instead of the normal one or two.

In early 1978, a few months after FESTAC, Fela's home was raided again, and this time the raid was carried out entirely by the military - with tragic consequences. Fela believed that the raid had been ordered personally by the then Head of State General Olusegun Obasanjo, a fellow Ogun State indigene, who had been humiliated by the amount of attention Fela had received during FESTAC. During the raid, Fela's mother, Funmilayo, who was then around 75 years old, was thrown from a first floor window by "an unknown soldier". In addition, Funmilayo's house, and an adjoining clinic belonging to Dr Beko Ransome-Kuti, were both burned to the ground. Official explanations for the raid were cynically off hand, which angered Fela even more.

When his mother died some months later from complications arising from the injuries she had received during the raid, Fela led a protest march carrying a coffin to the official residence of the Head of State in central Lagos, and also wrote one of his most tragic hits, "Unknown Soldier", which contained the heart-rending lamentation, "Dem kill my mama, political mama, the only Mama in Africa".

Shortly after the death of Funmilayo, Fela and his group went on a European tour, where he was surprised to discover that he had a massive following, especially in France. He toured for about three months, but on his return to Nigeria some of the key members of Egypt 80 - percussionist Henry 'Perdido' Kofi and drummer Tony Allen - left the group. In addition, one of its brighter young stars, the guitarist Kologbo, absconded and remained in Europe. The European tour was a success both critically and commercially, but once again Fela's casual approach to finance led to disagreements within the group. Moreover, he seemed increasingly depressed over the death of his mother.

Although he had never been a big drinker Fela had created a special compound which he called 'Felagoro' made from marijuana mixed with the local gin 'ogogoro', and he used it extensively during the European tour. The compound was a powerful hallucinogenic and sometimes, when under its influence, his performances were erratic, and the music was mostly held together by Lekan 'Ani' Animashaun, who had developed into a powerful baritone saxophonist, and was officially designated musical director of the group.

During the European tour Fela introduced his teenage son Femi on stage in the heat of a hard-driving performance in a circus tent outside of Paris. It was a real baptism of fire, as Femi was breaking in a new alto saxophone, and previously had only practised with the group during rehearsals. But before a crowd of more than 10,000 Fela ordered Femi to take his first major solo. Fela stood by the side of the stage driving his son on with shouts of encouragement and derision. The experience proved its worth. Femi now leads a group called Positive Force, and has developed a streak of determination in almost direct response to his father's unorthodox method of apprenticeship.

After his return from Europe, Fela's life and music took on a doomed brilliance which was overshadowed by a cloud of inevitable confrontation. Raids by the police and military became even more regular when he moved to Ikeja and took over another club, where he installed the New African Shrine. His hangers-on from Mosholashi-Idi-Oro followed. They virtually repopulated the area around the Shrine bringing hard drugs, especially 'bana' (heroin) and crack, with them. Fela spoke against the use of any drugs other than igbo, but many members of his entourage, including some of his wives, had already become junkies, a development which only seemed to reinforce the allegations of immorality and criminality that the government was levelling against him.

The confrontation between Fela and the security forces now developed into one of the saddest displays of state terrorism ever seen in Africa; sometimes it appeared that individual government members and departments were vying with each other to see which one was more anti-Fela.

In 1983 Fela announced that he would be standing for President in the forthcoming Nigerian elections on the ticket of his own party, the Movement of the People (MOP), in order to "clean up society like a mop". Following the elections, the military overthrew the new civilian government and the attacks on Fela increased again. He was accused by one agency of flouting the country's currency laws because he returned from an overseas visit with about 1000 US dollars. He was arrested, charged, and kept in detention for almost two years. He was released in 1986 after yet another coup had occurred, but just a few months later he was charged with kidnapping one of the young women who lived at his house and whose father was said to be a senior official in one of the security agencies. Fela was acquitted, but a year or so later he was accused of murder after someone had been killed in a fight at the Shrine. Years later, Fela told me that he believed the dead man was killed and planted in the club by yet another branch of the security services.

Even during this incredibly fraught period, Fela's music retained an innovative strength. Just before the breakdown of apartheid in South Africa at the beginning of the 1990s he began to turn his attention to the subject of world racism, and the economic exploitation and international hypocrisy that sustained it.

His composition "Beast Of No Nation" evolved out of a statement by South Africa's President PW Botha: "This uprising [against the apartheid system] will bring out the beast in us." The song was powerfully argued and the music showed that Fela had not lost his sense of rhythmic vitality in his approach to composition. Many of his last songs written between 1993-96 represent some of his best work, containing large scale orchestrated arrangements with more freedom for melodic interpretation. In a parallel with the increased sophistication of his music, Fela announced that marriage was an erroneous imposition of control on a fellow human being. Accordingly, he granted freedom to all his wives, or at least those who remained - more than half of the original 28 had already absconded, although many of them remained resident in his house and as members of his performing ensemble.

Even as Fela was revising his lifestyle, the authorities were closing in. A few weeks before his death, his health shot to pieces by years of official and personal physical abuse, he was paraded in chains on state television in Lagos by yet another security agency, the Anti-Drug Squad. Even in these harrowing circumstances, Fela maintained his dignity, challenging the director of the agency openly, and declaring that he did smoke marijuana and considered it not only his right but a privilege ordained for humanity by the "God of Africa".

By now, Fela's poor health was obvious. He was skeletal, but his spirit was unbowed. He continued to appear at the Shrine, and whenever the group, led by Lekan Animashaun, struck up its signature tunes, he still found the strength to leap on stage and blast his adversaries and proclaim his belief in the rejuvenative power of his personal vision. To the end, Fela believed that this vision was motivated by a spiritual link to the ancestral power of Africa, and that even if it did not save his own life it had the power to restore a sense of political renewal in the continent.

Fela died on 2 August 1997. Some members of his family announced that he was suffering from AIDS, and have demanded that the Nigerian government establish a campaign to officially recognise the AIDS issue as a potentially catastrophic one for the whole of Africa. In this way they probably hope that Fela's death might help bring about the kind of fundamental changes in Nigerian society which he strived for during his life, but failed to achieve, in spite of his constant battles with officialdom.

Fela's funeral developed into a festival of joy and anger unprecedented in Lagos. Three days of processions culminated in a public service which brought the city of well over five million people to a standstill - obviously, Fela's spirit still ran deep in the hearts of the masses.

It is no exaggeration to say that Fela's memory will always symbolise the spirit of truth for a vast number of struggling people in Africa and beyond. His music and the determined consistency with which he challenged authority and demanded that popular ambitions and attitudes should be reflected in the official objectives of the nation's leadership will continue to create a basis for radical challenges to the complacency of officialdom. His musical legacy is a solid one. His compositions are effectively underscored by the huge number of records which he leaves behind. Everyone who worked with him retained a deep sense of his musical spirit, and in the future, his formal musical legacy will grow even stronger as the extraneous elements of his wild, anarchic lifestyle give way to reflective tributes to his talent and the philosophical relevance of his ideas.

The members of Fela's group, devastated by his passing, will find it difficult to keep the flame alive, but there is also a need to preserve the traditions which Fela established. One of his greatest legacies is the consummate technical proficiency which he enabled his instrumentalists to achieve even without travelling beyond Nigeria. Some of his soloists, such as the young baritone saxophonist 'Showboy' and the leader Lekan Animashaun, have the breadth of experience as well as the evanescent quality of stardom in their veins.

Now that he is no longer alive, the eternal values which gave birth to Fela's perpetual struggle to find justice in life will gain new strength through the immortal power of his musical vision.

Copyright © Lindsay Barrett 1998.

By Lindsay Barrett

Copyright © Lindsay Barrett 1998.

By Lindsay Barrett

]]> 1401932 no no Fri, 14 Jul 2017 05:24:26 +0200 2017-07-14T05:24:26+02:00 1:58:03 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/voices-of-descendants-of-goat-herders-from-bamako/
Wassoulou music is performed mostly by women. Some recurring themes in the lyrics are childbearing, fertility, and polygamy. Instrumentation includes soku (a traditional fiddle sometimes replaced with modern imported instruments), djembe drum, kamalen n'goni (a six-stringed harp), karinyan (metal tube percussion) and bolon (a four-stringed harp). The vocals are often passionate and emphatic, and delivered in a call-and-response pattern.

Salif Keita, Oumo sangare, Rokia Traoré, Nahawa Doumbia, Adama Coulibaly, Aissata Kouyate, Yacoub, Majid Bekkas and Baaba Maal are the main voices in this exquisite mix, this fusion of Wassoulou Music and House, brings together the best of both worlds. Enjoy !!]]>
Wassoulou music is performed mostly by women. Some recurring themes in the lyrics are childbearing, fertility, and polygamy. Instrumentation includes soku (a traditional fiddle sometimes replaced with modern imported instruments), djembe drum, kamalen n'goni (a six-stringed harp), karinyan (metal tube percussion) and bolon (a four-stringed harp). The vocals are often passionate and emphatic, and delivered in a call-and-response pattern.

Salif Keita, Oumo sangare, Rokia Traoré, Nahawa Doumbia, Adama Coulibaly, Aissata Kouyate, Yacoub, Majid Bekkas and Baaba Maal are the main voices in this exquisite mix, this fusion of Wassoulou Music and House, brings together the best of both worlds. Enjoy !!]]> 1374198 no no Sun, 04 Nov 2018 00:36:48 +0100 2018-11-04T00:36:48+01:00 1:31:09 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goya-musicman-presents-modern-sounds-of-soul/ 1366948 no no Fri, 23 Jun 2017 01:52:47 +0200 2017-06-23T01:52:47+02:00 1:26:22 https://hearthis.at/6rqcff2v/goyas-ode-to-the-late-nite-tuff-guy/
How does that one quote go, about there being no second acts in Australian dance music? Whoever it was didn't know much about Cam Bianchetti, a DJ/producer from Adelaide, Australia's reputedly sleepy "city of churches." In the early '90s, he was making and playing driving, drug-fuelled underground dance music as DJ HMC, inspired as much by Chicago and Detroit as by European styles connected with his Italian heritage. Tracks like "Phreakin" and "LSD" remain classics, fusing sample-heavy house with analog techno.

Fast forward to the present, and Bianchetti's renown no longer lies in being the Godfather of Australian Techno, touring the world and winning the admiration of key players in the scene like Claude Young and Laurent Garnier. Instead he has returned from an extended hiatus, fully reconfigured as an emerging master of the re-edit in a rebooted, reloaded guise, as Late Nite Tuff Guy

]]>
How does that one quote go, about there being no second acts in Australian dance music? Whoever it was didn't know much about Cam Bianchetti, a DJ/producer from Adelaide, Australia's reputedly sleepy "city of churches." In the early '90s, he was making and playing driving, drug-fuelled underground dance music as DJ HMC, inspired as much by Chicago and Detroit as by European styles connected with his Italian heritage. Tracks like "Phreakin" and "LSD" remain classics, fusing sample-heavy house with analog techno.

Fast forward to the present, and Bianchetti's renown no longer lies in being the Godfather of Australian Techno, touring the world and winning the admiration of key players in the scene like Claude Young and Laurent Garnier. Instead he has returned from an extended hiatus, fully reconfigured as an emerging master of the re-edit in a rebooted, reloaded guise, as Late Nite Tuff Guy

]]> 1363487 no no Thu, 18 Mar 2021 21:45:04 +0100 2021-03-18T21:45:04+01:00 1:06:42