Two venues in Harare, aptly named Time & Jazz and Jazz 24/7 give one the impression that they host jazz acts.
in the groove with Fred Zindi
Last month I had two visitors from the United Kingdom who asked me to take them to a place where they would listen to some jazz music. I took a gamble and went with them to Jazz 24/7 where Peter Moyo and Utakataka Express were performing. One of my visitors remarked, “Hey, this is not jazz. Is this what you call jazz in Zimbabwe? Fred, I know you know a lot about music and we depend on you to take us to the appropriate places for that.” I was embarrassed and I did not dare take them to another “jazz” venue, Time & Jazz where Gary Tight was performing. Instead, I decided to take them back home where we listened to my collection of jazz recordings from Johnny Dodds, Too Open, Tanga Wekwa Sando, Sydney Bechet, Cool Crooners, Buddy Bolden, Mbare Trio, Louis Armstrong, Hugh Masekela, Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington.
We all agreed that the music I was playing for them at my house is what we call jazz.
I was at pains explaining to them that there are no real jazz night clubs in Harare because there are not many jazz enthusiasts who support that genre. So venue owners, although they call their venues places of jazz, do not want to take that gamble and end up losing money.
Controversy has arisen over what it is they call jazz at these two jazz venues. Is it the music that is played by Devera Ngwena Jazz Band? Is it Zimdancehall? Is it dendera or is it sungura?
To me, the music called jazz is that music which was born sometime around 1895 in New Orleans. It combined elements of Ragtime, Marching Band music and Blues. What differentiates jazz from other styles of music is the widespread use of improvisation, often by more than one player at a time. Jazz represents a break from Western musical traditions, where the composer writes a piece of music on paper and the musicians then try their best to play exactly what is in the score. In a jazz piece, the song is often just a starting point or frame of reference for the musicians to improvise around. The song might have been a popular ditty or blues that they didn’t compose, but by the time they are finished with it, they would have composed a new piece that often bears little resemblance to the original song. Zimbabwe jazz is different as it follows Western musical traditions. Some musicians will copy a Duke Wellington or Louis Armstrong song note for note without their own input. This is where Zimbabwean jazz differs from jazz in New Orleans.
I recently spoke to one jazz fan who was a regular at Time & Jazz who says he has given up on trying to capture a jazz act at the venue. These are his words: “I was first attracted by Gonyeti, that woman who left Jah Prayzah’s Third Generation Band last year. She sang jazz songs at the club every Wednesday. There were six or seven of us who came to listen to jazz seriously. Then Big Josh [Josh Hozheri] started bringing other non-jazz artists to the venue and I gave up. These days I only go there for sadza and gango which I wash down with a pint of lager, but I no longer expect to hear jazz at this joint. Instead, I now go to Chez Zandi Restaurant for my weekend wind down where the likes of Philbert and Tafadzwa Marova, Vee and Tinashe Mukarati, Clancy Mbirimi, Prudence Katomeni and Buhle perform jazz every Sunday.”
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This year, the charismatic Big Josh organised the Time and Jazz Music Festival from May 18 to 20 in association with Cresta Oasis Hotel and Impala Car Hire. Groups which featured at the event included Soul Train, Gary Tight, Prince Edward School, St. George’s College Band, David Hondoyedzomba, Edith We Utonga, Sam Dondo, Jabavu Drive, Selmor Mtukudzi, Sulumani Chimbetu and Jah Prayzah.
According to Hozheri, the reason why he included non-Jazz artists was to attract more music fans: “We have invited Jah Prayzah and Sulumani Chimbetu on the line-up as a way of targeting a bigger audience for the festival. We have also put schools on the line-up as a way of targeting the growth of this genre and also its relevance with the involvement of youngsters,” Big Josh said.
Those reasons failed to bear any fruit as only a paltry crowd attended the festival which was held in the car park at Cresta Oasis Hotel after the promoter hired an expensive public address system. In fact, there were more artists present than audiences. Traditional jazz enthusiasts such as Friday Mbirimi, William Kashiri, Herbert Murerwa, Gibson Mandishona, Solomon Guramatunhu and Roger Hukuimwe were conspicuous by their absence at the Winter Jazz Festival. These six jazz fanatics have been prominent features at every jazz festival I have attended in this country.
That decision to include non-jazz artists could have backfired because jazz fans are a particular class of people who hesitate to attend events filled with ghetto youths and the dreadlocked ragamuffins. I have often called them snobs.
Musicians, music promoters and organisers of musical events need to understand these little differences between people before deciding on how to classify the genre they are promoting. They must work out their target audience first before hosting the event. They should ask themselves how their targeted audiences will react to the music of non-jazz artists and whether they will be encouraged to come to support the event knowing fully well that they might sit for hours listening to non-jazz artists before they eventually listen to actual jazz. But this could just be me speculating on what went wrong during the Winter Jazz Festival. There could be a simple reason, which is, people are no longer interested in this genre called Jazz and our promoters have failed to see through this. They keep plugging it hoping that lots of people are still interested and that they would make money out of it. However, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Our promoters have gained experience in this regard. Which is a good thing, because next year they will know where not to tread. It’s not all that jazz! Period!
Fred Zindi is a professor at the University of Zimbabwe. He is also a musician and an author of several books on music. He can be contacted via e-mail on [email protected]
