What is a good resource for K’wela? I enjoy Spokes Mashiyane having heard his music some year back. I got a whistle from a Takoma Park Md store and wish to learn more.
Thank you,
Jessie D’Artagne
If I’m not mistaken, the Undisputed himself is a fan.
Would love to hear some Jessie. Any clips available online?
Your avatar is so blinkin’ cute, it makes me want to take a bite out of someone.
No clips. I am not that good yet.
Thank you for liking my avatar. Tell me, how come in your avatar, the hair is blond but the eyebrows are brown? 
How can you even see it that well? Amazing vision.
It has to do with my neanderthal ancestry though.
Go here:
http://www.btinternet.com/~adam.keelan/
Listen. Smile.
This is the site of a group calle Positively Testcard who play some really killer Kwela. Nice guys and all terrific musicians.
I have the Spokes Mashiyane LP, and a couple of other tracks (by a “Lemmy” - not Lemmy Kilmeister, however) on a Gallo records sampler from the sixties, and that’s all I’ve ever found. Are there other source recordings out there?
Does Chiff have any South Africa members who could start bombarding whoever owns the Gallo catalogue with requests to open the vaults and issue a retrospective?
Does anyone know how much vintage kwela was actually recorded, besides Mashiyane?
There were hundreds, possibly thousands, of kwela records made and dozens, possibly hundreds, of different artists. Kwela was the dominant form of township jive in the 50s but it is all but invisible in the reissue catalogues. I really don’t know why but these things are cyclical. Someone will realise there’s a market some day and reissue them.
Kwela gave way to saxophone jive in the 60s and there are loads of reissues from that decade. Some people like Nkosi West spanned the two decades. He started out playing kwela and moved on to saxophone. There is very little kwela on his reissue records.
I’m not aware of much 50s South African music being generally available. Miriam Makeba and the Skylarks is always available but not much else.
African music styles seem to be a bit like African American styles. Musicians are not backward looking and nostalgia doesn’t play a significant role. I would not expect a significant market for kwela reissues amongst black South Africans, although I’d be delighted to be proved wrong, and the record companies might sense a bigger overseas collector market for saxophone jive than for pennywhistle jive.
There are some promising signs though. Recently, some historic records of South African jazz from the early 60s and earlier have been released. Surely everybody must have known that Hugh Masekela, Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim), Dudu Pukwana and Chris McGregor didn’t just come from nowhere in the early 60s but came from a mature, developed jazz scene, but nobody seemed to care to explore what that scene might have had to offer. There have also been great CDs released of Zulu choral singing and also of concertina jive from the 30s onward. These records are truly spectacular and I hope we get our share of kwela reissues in time.
AARGH. Every time I find some K’wela online it’s in that insidious Real format.
Hey Emm, how come your eyes look brown but the wall behind you appears beige?
Very few kwela artists at it these days.
Spokes is one. Big Voice Jack another, though I’m not sure if he’s still around.
I live in Cape Town, South Africa, and I’ve only ever seen one whistler round town, busking 'n all. Old dude, nice guy, poor as a churchmouse. Make a point of giving him big tips every time I see him.
Earlier this year the university and the District Six museum allegedly sat him down over several weeks, and recorded his entire repertoire for posterity. I’ve been trying to get down there and raid the tunes, see if there’s anything worth working up (I’m sure there’s a donations + royalties system in place). Plan to follow this up some more in the new year.
Meanwhile, the ethnomusicology dept of Rhodes University in Grahamstown has apparently bought the patents to the Hoehner make, although I may be wrong about this. I do know that they plan, or at least would very much like, to kickstart a kwela revival by producing kwela-appropriate whistles at the G’town african music factory, an NGO-run initiative that teaches and employs otherwise unskilled people to make ethnic instruments that can actually be played rather than simply sit around on mantelpieces looking pretty. Go them!
Once I’ve gained access to the District Six museum’s tune archives, chatted with the archivists and gotten an idea of what’s permisable in terms of transcribing and recording these tunes, I’ll see if it’s worth starting up a database.
Hope this helps
Matt
oh, btw
it’s just kwela, no apostrophe
Again…have to blame the family troglodytes. My eyes are actually blue, and the wall is the scratchy limestone side of a cave.
Nymph!
well, of the rock-throwing, cave-dwelling variety.
I’ve always wondered what kwela was about. Now that I listened to some of the clips I seem to be getting an idea. Interesting harmony, melodoy and rhythm. Hmm.
Wow. nice. I really like the Positively Testcard clips.
Cool thread JessieD.
Meanwhile, the ethnomusicology dept of Rhodes University in Grahamstown has apparently bought the patents to the Hoehner make, although I may be wrong about this. I do know that they plan, or at least would very much like, to kickstart a kwela revival by producing kwela-appropriate whistles at the G’town african music factory, an NGO-run initiative that teaches and employs otherwise unskilled people to make ethnic instruments that can actually be played rather than simply sit around on mantelpieces looking pretty. Go them!
Go indeed!!!
What can you tell us about HOW a kwela appropriate whistle differs from a normal clarke? I’d assumed that the older records featured something like a clarke C whistle.
I’ve just sent an email to http://www.propermusic.com/, my favorite early jazz and cool music reissue label, asking them to look into a kwela or kwela and early township jive release.
What can you tell us about HOW a kwela appropriate whistle differs from a normal clarke? I’d assumed that the older records featured something like a clarke C whistle.
I don’t rightly know exactly what the modifications are, but they’re generally done by the musicians themselves. This is according to music shop owners, who say that they occasionally get folks in who buy a generation and then proceed to carve the fipple into what they want. Maybe a different approach is needed for the generations than the brass/aluminium? I don’t think Positively Testcard customise their whistles.
There is a different way of playing the whistle in kwela though; check out the description by the Positively Testcard whistler in his interview with Dale:
http://www.chiffandfipple.com/cftestcard/testcard.html
later,
Matt
Order both CDs-- you will definitely not be sorry. I just received my copy of the new CD and will review it on the board sometime soon. There is a third CD (actually it came first) which only has a couple of tunes on it including a cover of the jazz standard “Caravan”.
BTW-- the Testcard does not yet have a US distributor, so if any of the entrepeneurs here on the board are interested…