Jazz from South Africa is a musical kaleidoscope of regional and global influences. South Africa developed its own soulful jazz aesthetic, resulting in the emergence of a distinctive and dynamic musical subgenre. Early South African jazz was influenced by African-American music as well as the diverse culture and heritage of South Africans.
South Africa produced some of the most avant-garde and exciting jazz in the world during the 1960s and 1970s, mixing hard bop and free jazz with township urban dance music. It was innovative, sophisticated, and enjoyable.
These local characteristics were picked up on by traveling musicians, contributing to the distinctive sound of South African jazz. Jazz culture was significantly impacted by the apartheid era. Musicians of different races were no longer allowed to perform together, which significantly altered the music landscape.
Despite the worldwide love for the South African Jazz music, the apartheid regime hated it. “It was sonically subversive because it was an assertion of a non-tribal, urban Black identity, and the ideology of apartheid was that that simply did not and could not exist,” said jazz writer and scholar Gwen Ansell, speaking on “To The Best Of Our Knowledge.”
So the regime tried to stamp it out: “All kinds of hideous and identity-erasing horrors were perpetrated on them when they performed,” Ansell said. “There are some fairly famous cases of Black musicians being forced to perform behind a screen while a white musician mimed their notes.”
The South Africa Broadcasting Corporation went so far as to re-name Black performers, which Ansell wrote about in her book “Soweto Blues.”
“Playing behind a screen at Cape Town City Hall while a white musician mimed his notes, reedman Winston Mankunku Ngozi was billed as ‘Winston Mann,'” wrote Ansell in the book. “In radio broadcasts, pianist Tony Schilder heard himself re-christened ‘Peter Evans,’ and trumpeter Johnny Mekoa became ‘Johnny Keen.”
“It was horrifying, Ansell said in her interview: “You can imagine the psychological impact of erasure that had on Black musicians. It was a form of symbolic annihilation.”
A generation of Black musicians fled into exile or the underground because to censorship, curfew regulations, and the continual danger of genuine, physical extermination. Some never came back.
Even while those years were painful, the music’s beauty endures, and more of the music apartheid did not want people to hear is now accessible because to a recent wave of re-issues.
Listen to Dudu Pukwana And Mongezi Feza’s “Sonia” below:
Jazz evolved into a protest genre in the townships, speaking out against injustice, segregation, and police brutality. Here, the seeds for later-emerging musical subgenres like marabi and mbaqanga were planted. African jazz music is widely popular in the nation today.
Jazz greats like the late Hugh Masekela, Jonas Gwangwa, Cups Nkanuka, Sylvia Mdunyelwa, and Abdullah Ibrahim paved the way for the current SA jazz scene. South Africa Online focuses on informing readers about regional jazz greats, South African jazz history, various genres, and its cultural significance.
