In past articles, agreement has been found with James Lincoln Collier’s definition in his renowned book The Making of Jazz, that by definition, jazz is an “Afro-American folk music”. Afro-American refers to geographical location - America - and to the unique historical experience of Africans -Afro -, who were forced to live there, first under conditions of slavery and subsequently under conditions of racial segregation of one sort or another.
“Folk” refers to the new “tribe” of African Americans, which had been shaped by their North American experience. Otherwise, it refers to “average black people”.
By those facts alone, it should be abundantly clear that there are very few Africans of our time who have enjoyed the benefit of living in North America. Fewer have had the benefit of the historical experience of living under the varieties of racist society that have evolved in North America for the past four to five hundred years.
However, there should be no denial of the fact that there has always been a connection between the African continent and North America largely through the establishment of subsidiaries of American recording companies in South Africa and other parts of Africa.
The port of Cape Town in South Africa received many American and European sailors who left jazz records. Radio also gave Africans some access to American jazz.
The World Wars in which Africans were recruited to fight on the side of western imperialist powers also gave them the opportunity to gain some access - war conditions permitting - to Afro-American folk music.
This music also affected the Africans who went to study in America, Fela Kuti, for example and the South Africans who were driven to exile by the cruelty of the apartheid system.
These include Africa’s musical icon, singer Miriam Makeba, trumpet player Hugh Masekela, trombonist Jonas Gwangwa, composer and arranger, Caiphus Semenya and wife Letta Mbulu.
Jazz, having found its way to Europe starting around the 1940’s, also found its way into the creative arena that inspired Port Elizabethan alto saxophonist, Dudu Phukwana, Grahamstown born trumpet player Mongezi Feza, drummer Louis Moholo, bass player, Johhny Dyani, bassist Johnny Gertze and drummer Makhaya Ntshoko.
Actually, there will be stylistic nuances that differentiate the South African musicians who lived in Europe and those who lived in North America, much in the same way, as this is true of the Afro-American musicians who found cultural refuge in Europe as opposed to those who stayed “at home”. That is a different subject.
Much can be discussed about the historical sequence that maps out the meeting of the Africans in America with western instruments and European music theory.
This can be compared with the similar process that occurred in South Africa. Let us bypass that complicated exercise and summarise that the Africans in America met the western instruments and music theory ahead of the Africans on the continent.
For those with a particular interest in the subject, let it be hinted that the Afro-Americans are believed to have benefited hugely from the abandonment of army instruments around the time of the American civil war in the mid 1800’s when the music bands had served their purpose.
The piano had found its way into black households in earlier times through the graciousness of good whites that recognised black talent and quietly detested slavery.
This means - apart from the fact that the Africans could not have created jazz at the same time with their North American progeny - that Africans had in their possession, their own cultural and musical heritage when they met Afro-American folk music. They had their own “African folk music”.
The suggestion, therefore that the Africans could ever play anything like jazz is probably the greatest hoax of the 20th Century.
In the Talking Musika column of August 23 (The Monitor), this writer points out that even in American terms “jazz” was originally a derogatory term used by the musical establishment of “white Anglo Saxon society” to denote “razzle-dazzle” music or, more succinctly, rubbish.
Only time - and the persistence of the black innovators who made the music - transformed the negative denotation of the label “jazz” to mean something positive. And the musicians accepted its new meaning, though with some scepticism.
Asked what jazz was, Louis Armstrong is widely quoted as responding elusively: “If you gotta ask, you’ll never know.”
So jazz has never found a definition as precise as the terms “Dixieland, ragtime, stride, swing, be-bop, cool or free”, all of which refer to a historical period and a stylistic approach to the playing of the music. The terms might even refer quiet directly to the political philosophy that gave rise to the music.
“Free” music refers to collective improvisation around a dynamic theme that will change depending on the emotional intensity of the communal effort and any changes to the melody, harmony or rhythm that might occur as performance progresses.
In addition, “free” refers to the conscious effort to rid the music of the burdens of conventional European rules that govern performance, much in the same way as the wider Afro-American community seeks liberation from the racist institutions of white society.
There must however be a reason why the title “jazz” has found its way into the African musical environment.
Firstly, African music, especially in southern Africa, has borrowed extensively from the theory and practice of improvisation as it is practiced in North American “jazz”.
Secondly, apartheid and other forms of colonial oppression exhausts the resources of the oppressed for positive self-recognition and drives them to see excellence only outside of themselves.
Thus the musicians, gangsters and politicians of Africa, and South Africa in particular, found ease of identity with American jazz, the gangsters of Chicago, and political philosophies of the North American politicians.
The Africans described themselves in accordance with the outwardly glamorous image of the Americans who could only have been better, according to their false perceptions
Thirdly, the captains of the recording industry were not inclined to commit themselves to research on issues of African culture and history.
“Jazz” was a ready-made tag to paste on to music that was neither classical, pop, Zulu, Sotho, Afrikaaner, Khoi nor San.
Thus, the title “jazz” hangs over the head of the body of the improvisational music that the Africans produce.
It should be apparent from the above argument that essentially, this music is alien to the character and spirit of Afro-American folk music in the first place, and African music in the second instance.
And even as this name has been accepted by both communities, essentially by default, there should be intensive research and discussion about the title that will best promote the economic advancement of African folk music and its practitioners.
