Funny Thing: Ensemble of Rhythm and Art (1977)

Now here’s a ‘Funny Thing’ ... top-drawer musicians, whose core was no doubt drawn from Soweto’s Pelican Club House Band – playing up a funky 70s afro-jazz storm on Mavuthela’s Soul Jazz Pop label, produced by the legendary West Nkosi, but absolutely no band credits, other than to composer Simon Serakoeng aka Baba Themba Mokoena, the lead guitarist featured on Dick Khoza's "Chapita".

Themba Mokoena at the
Rainbow Restaurant, Pinetown - 2011

Take the banks of layered horns and tight rhythms from “Chapita”, the intricate keyboard and arranging sensibilities of “The Drive” and “Abacothozi,” sprinkle a little dash of “The Movers” tending only ever so slightly towards disco, put in a blender, hit the switch, and voila, you have “Ensemble of Rhythm and Art” – an 'ensemble' who seems only to have existed to produce this once-off gem of a record.

In addition to his strong afro-jazz guitar pedigree at the Pelican Club, Mokoena  is referenced as one of South Africa's finest mbaqanga guitar players by Calabash. Calabash go on to say the following:
"Simon Baba Mokoena was born at Umkumbane in Durban in the late '40. He started making music at the age of 12, playing a home-made guitar made from a five-liter oil container. At 17, he picked up his brother's acoustic guitar and has never looked back. Baba's first gig was with a group called Mhlathi and His Comets, whom he stayed with for four years. Next he met Dick Khoza, a jazz drummer. They formed a small jazz group with Pat Matshikiza on piano and Victor Gaba on bass, playing gigs around Durban.

After two years Baba left the group and went to Johannesburg to play mbaqanga, because he had always wanted to play African music. He played for a group called Izintombi Zamangwane. This was followed by guitar work on Gibson Kente's musicals Sikhalo and How Long.

Yours truly with Themba Mokoena at the
Rainbow Restaurant in Pinetown last year -
Getting an autograph on "Chapita" -
pic by Cedric Nunn

Baba joined the resident band at the Pelican Night Club, playing with Winston "Mankunku" Ngozi and Khaya Mahlangu, to name but a few. This stint at the Pelican was a chance to explore different kinds of music — mbaqanga, jazz and rhythm and blues — and to meet names like American jazz organ player Jimmy Smith and U.S. group The Realistic." Calabash go on to describe how Mokoena toured Europe with "Township Fever" and continued to enrich the music of artists such as Mbongeni Ngema and Madala Kunene.

In addition to Baba Mokoena on lead guitar, as to who else is actually’ playing on this great album, we cannot say with certainty – but the Electric Jive team members have had fun listening and tossing ideas around. We all agree, “Pelican regulars ..”. Matt and Nick are pretty sure that West Nkosi’s sax is to be heard, along with Dennis Mpale’s trumpet. Nick wonders about one or both the Piliso brothers, pointing out they were “certainly very active in soul-jazz-pop sessions at the time"? Anyone have any other suggestions?

 For those album cover lovers among you – another Zulu Bidi artwork – see and listen also here for "Night at Pelican". As the ace bass player for Batsumi, Zulu Bidi also did the Batsumi cover, at least two for the Makhona Zonke Band, and one Mpharanyana and the Cannibals (Zion), as well as this 1975 “Reggae Man” cover.

Matt has put up excerpts from the BBC doccie on Zulu Bidi here - “Life and Death in Soweto” here.

Funny Thing: Ensemble of Rhythm and Art

Soul-Jazz-Pop BL110

Recorded 25^th July 1977.

Produced by West Nkosi

Engineer: Glen Pearce

 

Side 1

The Dustbin

Funny Thing

Side 2

Pelican Fantasy

Hello There

Rapidshare here

Mediafire here

Abacothozi - Night in Pelican (1976)

For almost a year we had a request looking for this album in our side bar below. Finally a copy surfaced last year and today we take great pleasure in featuring it.

The title here, Night in Pelican, refers to the famed Orlando East club — the Pelican — a popular music hub and "laboratory" for a number of seminal bands of the mid 1970s. Run by Lucky Michaels, the club featured a house band led by Dick Khoza who was also employed as stage manager. In September 1976 Khoza took the Pelican house band into Rashid Vally's studios to record his classic Chapita album, issued at that time on Vally's Sun label (and recently re-issued by Matsuli). (Matt Temple)

Of course, four of the musicians featured on Chapita were drawn from the group Abacothozi, notably Bethuel Maphumulo, Mac Mathunjwa, Joe Zikhali and Negro Mathunjwa. (Note that the spelling of their names differs from album to album so I have used both versions in this text to facilitate web searches.)

Abacothozi were formed in 1973 by bassist, Berthwel Maphumulo, formerly of the Elite Swingsters. Together with Mac Mathunjwa on organ, his brother Innocent Mathunjwa on drums and Joe Zikhali on guitar, they recorded at least two albums: Thema Maboneng (Soul Jazz Pop, BL 59, December 1975) and Night in Pelican (Soul Jazz Pop, BL 66, February 1976). The two Abacothozi albums were recorded six weeks apart and predate the Chapita sessions with Dick Khoza by eight months. Mac Mathunjwa would go on to play keyboards with the Peddlers backing Mpharanyana. (The above image of the group is sampled from SoulStrut.)

Night in Pelican features two long, single-sided tracks that slip out of the bump jive groove — the style that developed from Dollar Brand's seminal Mannenburg (1974). But where the early bump jive tracks have a slower, more jazzier reference to the majuba tradition, the tracks here are fast, funky and a lot more danceable — straddling the organ jive sounds of the Movers and the disco sound that would soon follow.

In the early 1970s Gallo Mavuthela's jazz catalogue was apparently quite thin. The company that had perfected the short, highly successful mbaganga sound in the late 1960s, by 1975 was now trying to compete with Teal's lengthy, bump jive formula and subsequently recruited a number of their jazz veterans (including Ntemi Piliso, Michael Xaba and Ellison Themba) to record new material in a similar vein. The Members, the group developed out of this push, generated a number of long format tracks in the bump jive style in January and April of 1975 and were subsequently issued on Gallo's Soul Jazz Pop label. Mavuthela would continue the experiment with a number of other long format albums including The Webb by the Makhona Zonke Band and Abacothozi's Night in Pelican. But without too much success, the company soon returned to its winning mbaqanga formula with groups like Abafana Baseqhudeni. (Rob Allingham)

The cover of Night in Pelican features a drawing by Zulu Bidi, the bassist for Batsumi, who also designed the cover for their debut album. His Pelican album image features the band, presumably Abacothozi, in a somewhat psychedelic African landscape that channels the club itself with its patrons drinking and dancing to their vibe.

The title track of Abacothozi's Thema Maboneng album is featured on Kon and Amir's compilation disc Off Track Volume 2 - Queens (BBE, 2008) (Though it is incorrectly titled as Theme Maboneng).

ABACOTHOZI
Night in Pelican
1976
Soul Jazz Pop
Gallo Mavuthela
Produced by West Nkosi
BL 66

Roots (HSH 8000, 1975)

Roots were a short-lived band comprising Barney Rachabane (alto), Dennis Mpale (trumpet), Duke Makasi (tenor), Sipho Gumede (bass), Peter Morake (drums) and Jabu Nkosi (organ). Replace Jabu Nkosi with Abdullah Ibrahim, add Basil Coetzee on sax and you have the group that recorded the seminal African Herbs LP under the direction of Abdullah Ibrahim.

Roots are often cited as a key strand in the development of an indigenous afro jazz sound that links the Drive, the Pelican Club house band under Dick Khoza, Spirits Rejoice and later Sakhile. The liner notes (repeated below) make reference to the public performance diffculties of the times, something well noted by David Coplan in "In Township Tonight". There was nowhere left to perform this kind of music in the late seventies.

From the original liner notes: "Within two months of its formation, the group has already got down to composing and recording this LP. Barney Rachabane on the alto and Dennis Mpale the trumpet master are the backbone of Roots. These two have played with the greats, such as Mackay Davashe and Gordon Mfanda who were both nipped in their buds by an untimely death. Duke Makasi plays the tenor sax, Sipho Gumede is on bass, Peter Morake on the drums and Jabu Nkosi on the organ, The group plays Rock Jazz with a local sound. Their music takes one back to Dorkay House jam session days which are now no more. They play in private homes and intend making more recordings."

For a long time no recordings of the Roots were thought to exist but slowly we uncover the past through the artefacts we are fortunate to find. We hope you enjoy today's recovery. Highly recommended.

Roots (HSH 8000, 1975)
1. Jabu
2. Roots
3. School Girl
4. Emakhaya
5. Poor Mother
6. Barney’s Shoes
Prod by Almon Memela
New MF LINK HERE