Jazz in District Six: The Zambezi Restaurant: part 1 - Celebrating International Jazz Day

Distric Six Cape Town (1964): Pic Ian Bruce Huntley

It is written that Cape Town's Zambezi Restaurant in Hanover Street, District Six, first became really popular as a Sunday night jazz venue in 1956 when the second Arab-Israeli war closed the Suez Canal shipping channel. Shiploads of American soldiers in transit would dock in Cape Town, with the bop jazz-lovers among them frequenting District Six, listening to racially mixed groups of South Africans of Muslim, Jewish, Christian and other faiths together creating music.

In celebrating International Jazz Day (30th April), Electric Jive is honoured to be able to share a previously unheard set of 1964 recordings made by Ian Bruce Huntley at this fabled venue.

Hanover Street, District Six (1964). The Zambezi Restaurant
was about half way down, on the right. Pic: Ian Huntley

Trumpeter Syfred Woodrow Dlova describes the times to Lars Rasmussen: “The big American battleships, the aircraft carriers, they used to come here, and some of the black Americans would get off the boat and come and perform ... and have a good time!. Some of them were great musicians. That is before those people went out of their minds (the apartheid government). At one time, they stopped an aircraft carrier from docking in Cape Town because there were black pilots there. They said, No, we can’t have black pilots flying planes over a white country! They were sick, man!. (Jazz People of Cape Town, p.60)

As I continue to process and digest just over 56 hours of Ian Huntley’s recorded archive it becomes possible to notice which musicians performed regularly together. Given the increasingly oppressive racial separation enforced in the mid 1960s, Ian's archive provides strong evidence of these artists persisting with some success in being a defiant multi-racial creative pulse that coursed through the heart of Cape Town's jazz scene in the sixties and early seventies.

"Fairyland" District Six: Pic Ian Huntley

There were some complex dynamics that enabled an ongoing racial mix of South African musicians to play in public. Sammy Maritz talks about the change of name of the Jazz Disciples to the Ronnie Beer Quintet, and then when Mongezi Feza joined them, to the Ronnie Beer Sextet: “To tell the truth, because he was a white guy. So it proved opportune to have a name like that. At that stage, it was good to have a white guy with you. Especially when we had to do night clubs and things. This is the kind of things people won’t tell you. They sort of want to run down the white. White was a good thing at some times. Through this guy we could get into some clubs that we could never go in a black group altogether. The groups I played with was always mixed, there was always white guys and I didn’t see colour. If it was a black guy and we spoke the same thing as far as music that was it. That was the colour - the colour of music.” (Rasmussen p.132/3).

District Six (1964). Pic: Ian Huntley

Ian Huntley remembers the Zambezi Restaurant as a dark and difficult place to take photographs in. Owned by Abie Hurzuk (he also owned The Mermaid), the Zambezi was located on Hanover Street, the bustling ‘central business district’ of District Six. Ian recorded close on three hours of live music there. He also took some amazing pictures.

The eighty four minutes of recordings shared in this post are a testament to the diverse groupings and mix of musicians who gathered to entertain at the Zambezi.

 

If you have not had chance to check out the earlier posts that share Ian Huntley's unique recordings, use the SEARCH function in the right hand column of this blog - search "IBH Jazz".

Jazz at the Zambezi Restaurant

Part one (1964)

Ronnie Beer* (Tenor), Chris Schilder (Piano), Philly Schilder (Bass), Max ‘Diamond’ Dayimani (Drums), Selwyn LissackP(Drums)

1.    Billie's Bounce* (3:33)
2.    Bessies Blues (6:50)
3.    Milestones* (8:52)
4.    Misty (8:21)
5.    Saints*P(9:58)

Ronnie Beer (tenor), Bucs Chonco (Piano), Philly Schilder (Bass), Max Dayimani (Drums)

 

6.     Green Dolphin Street (8:04)

7.     Mr Mecca (6:39)

Ronnie Beer (tenor), Chris Schilder (Piano), Philly Schilder (Bass), Selwyn Lissack (Drums),

Mike Gibbs (Trombone), Bob Tizzard (Trombone)

8.     Bag’s Groove (11:51)

9.     Softly As a Morning Sunrise (8:57)

Tony Schilder (Piano), Basil Moses (Bass), Selwyn Lissack (Drums), Mike Gibbs (Trombone),

Bob Tizzard (Trombone), Ronnie Beer (Tenor)

10. Billie's Bounce (11:00)

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Free Jazz Experiments at Selwyn's Room (1966)

Selwyn Lissack - back in the day.
Picture by Ian Bruce Huntley

In a 1985 interview Sheila Wallis asks Winston Mankunku Ngozi about the mid 1960s: "Do you remember Selwyn Lissack? He said you used to have great jam sessions together at a house in Bantry Bay". Winston: "Ooh boy, we had a quartet, a beautiful group, those guys were really together. Selwyn on drums, Chris Schilder, Midge Pike, and at times with Merton Barrow. We would rehearse the whole night, play, play, play and play. We were doing the Art Centre then. I met a friend who was really into music - Ian Huntley. He had a lot of records, a photographer, a beautiful guy, he was in love with musicians. He bought me another saxophone."  (April 1985 edition of 'Think Jazz').

In talking to Selwyn Lissack this week, he emphasised the important and generous role played by Ian: "Ian, played a very important part in my comprehension of how to approach playing Jazz. I would go to Ian’s flat to listen to the tapes after a concert. They say the tapes never lie and this was a perfect way to learn and understand the music of that time." (see below for more).

Another gift that Ian gave to us all was to keep and preserve these recordings and share them with us now. In this previously unreleased fascinating ninety-minute experimental session Chris Schilder and Selwyn Lissack stand-out most often in their technically tight exploratory forays. Winston Manunku delights and surprises more in the second half.

 

In listening for the first time I had the experience of being seized in recognising snippets of music, and then being taken for a compelling diversionary ride, gripped in waiting to hear what comes next, and then occasionlly being brought back to familiar territory that I could not quite identify. The more I listen to these recordings the more I get to know and appreciate them as a product of talented jazz musicians at the top of their game.

 

Selwyn Lissack left South Africa in 1966, not long after these recordings were made. In 1969 after a three-year sojourn in England he recorded his only album as leader: "Friendship Next of Kin" with Mongezi Feza (trumpet), Harry Miller (bass), Mike Osborn (alto sax), Kenneth Terroade (tenor sax), Earl Freeman (bass and piano), and Louis Moholo (additional percussion). After contributing to another ground-breaking free jazz album in 1970, Lissack quit music, disgusted at feeling ripped off. Read more here. Lissack re-mastered and re-issued "Friendship Next of Kin" in 2006 - look out for it, it is becoming difficult to find again. It is not for nothing that Lissack was rated in a list of a top ten from the free jazz underground.

 

Ever pushing boundaries Lissack teamed up in a five-year collaborative relationship with Salvador Dali in the 1970s to produce ten holographic works of art. Watch a video of Lissack describing what they did here. Visit Selwyn Lissack's own website here.

 

Very close friends at the time, Selwyn and Ian recently re-connected via telephone - Selwyn in Tucson, Arizona, and Ian in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. I invited Selwyn to share a few words on his recollections of those times.

"In the early 1950’s it was not yet possible, to pursue a Jazz musical career, through the local school curriculum, in South Africa. Some schools could teach the basic classical fundamentals of music. It was difficult to find a teacher who enjoyed and under-stood the intricacy of Jazz music.

"Another set back was, as I had chosen the drums as an instrument, it was nearly impossible to find a space to practice, in a suburban area.

"In order to play without disturbing anyone, I would rent an office space in the city of Cape Town and soundproof the walls and ceiling. After some years of this activity, I was able to find a garage close to my home, where many, many hours were spent in the pursuit of learning how to play, Jazz music.   

 

"Chris, Midge and Winston would usually come to ‘Selwyn’s room’ to rehearse, for the Sunday concerts at the Art Center on the Green Point common. It was at this venue that Ian Huntley recorded a lot of the music that has been preserved to this day.

"Ian, played a very important part in my comprehension of how to approach playing Jazz. I would go to Ian’s flat, to listen to the tapes, after a concert. They say the tapes never lie and this was a perfect way to learn and understand the music of that time.  

 

"I had a choice selection of the best east-coast jazz musicians, to study and learn from.

"Learning to play perfect straight ahead time was hard enough but my ultimate goal was to find a different and original approach to playing time. Like a pulse. This was eventually was achieved, in future recordings, 'Friendship Next of Kin' and the 'Sun Is Coming Up.'

"All the time that was dedicated to ‘Selwyn's Room’ and other urban  recordings, is an important historical documentation, of the legacy of Ian’s love and devotion to the jazz world and the musicians of Cape Town.

"

I would like to thank him, for always being there to catch the moment, making it possible for me to advance and perfect my concept of playing Jazz."

Ian is hoping to make contact with Chris Schilder (Ebrahim Kalil Shihab) again too. In searching the web, I did manage to find this March 2012 video clip of the master still at work! He released a solo piano CD in 2010 and it appears to be already sold out. It is possible download it from itunes here and Amazon here, and for a very reasonable price from Look and Listen here.

 

Experiments At Selwyn's Room - Part One

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If you have not yet listened to the earlier postings from Ian’s archive, you can find them here:

1. Winston Mankunku gem 

2. Love for Free: Hidden South African Jazz Archive revealed

3. The Blue Notes: A Journey of Faith

4. Chris McGregor Quintet Live in Geneva

5. Becoming Free In Cape Town

6. Last Night at the Room At The Top: Dyani and Pukwana

7. Kippie Moeketsi: The album he never made

8. Mankunku and Goldberg Go Free In Cape Town

Mankunku and Goldberg Go Free in Cape Town



Morris Goldberg, Chris Schilder and Midge Pike at the Art Centre, Cape Town  (1966).
Pic by Ian Bruce Huntley

Best wishes to you from us here at Electric Jive for 2013. Before sharing another previously unheard gem from the Ian Bruce Huntley jazz archive, an update on Electric Jive for the year ahead.
 

When comparing burn-out symptoms at the end of 2012, the four of us who run this blog agreed that something had to change. In addition to our own working lives we have other voluntary projects besides Electric Jive that we are also committed to. So, we plan to slow down and publish less frequently this year. We are also more likely to mix up the post format, length, and content. Each contributor will have a two-week slot in which at least one post will be shared. Sometimes we may post more often within that two-week slot than in other times. All of us are committed to keeping this blog going for as long as our energies enable us to.

We kick of this year with an eighth instalment from the Ian Huntley Jazz archive. Ian has often pointed out to me that ‘free jazz’ was a lot more popular amongst South Africa’s 1960s jazz musicians than we realise.

My friend Max Annas reckons that much of the written history of jazz in South Africa has been shaped largely by the evidence of relatively few studio recordings. He agrees with Ian in pointing out that the narrative of jazz history in South Africa has little to say of the enthusiastic embrace by  important musicians of the Free Jazz movement.

There is still quite a bit of ‘free jazz’ to share from Ian’s archive, including a number of private sessions of “Experiments in Selwyn’s Garage”, with Winston Mankunku Ngozi and Chris Schilder  mixing their own musical chemistry. There are also a number of sessions at the Art Centre in particular which are most certainly ‘free’ in character. Perhaps Cape Town audiences were more receptive and just as enthusiastic in wanting to break with convention at that time? 

Today’s session was recorded at The Art Centre on 20^th August 1966. While a bop idiom provides  lyrical foundation, and there is a meter that keeps the likes of me interested, huge spaces are created for the musicians to express their own voice in the moment. The opening track “Free Thing” features fairly frequently on Ian’s tapes. The second track “Ole” is the Coltrane composition that featured on the introductory post to this archive. The outstanding third track “Poor” was previously unknown to me and showcases Mankunku and Goldberg taking their instruments to new places. Does anyone recognise "Poor"? Can you tell us more about it?

 In addition to having Morris Goldberg and Winston Mankunku Ngozi to hand on saxophones, there is a double-up in having Midge Pike and Philly Schilder on double-bass. Chris Schilder’s brilliance shines through on piano, while Selwyn Lissack's drumming is clearly happy ‘out there’ in the experiment.

Please – if any of you has anything you could add by way of information or have a reaction to this music, we would very much welcome a few words in the comments section below.

 

Mankunku and Goldberg Go Free in Cape Town

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If you have not yet listened to the earlier postings from Ian’s archive, you can find them here:

1. Winston Mankunku gem

2. Love for Free: Hidden South African Jazz Archive revealed

 

3. The Blue Notes: A Journey of Faith

4. Chris McGregor Quintet Live in Geneva

5. Becoming Free In Cape Town

6. Last Night at the Room At The Top: Dyani and Pukwana

7. Kippie Moeketsi: The album he never made

Becoming Free In Cape Town (1967)

The quality of both the music and the audio reproduction on tape 39 of Ian Huntley's reel-to-reel recordings is something quite special. From the grooving twelve-bar blues of 'Hip Twitch' via "Good News" (the same composition made famous a few years later by Johnny Dyani and Dollar Brand) through to the free-jazz explorations in 'Always', this 83-minute eight-tune live set at The Art Centre in 1967 has four exceptional Cape Town musicians becoming more than the sum of their parts. It really is a pleasure to be able to share this previously unreleased recording with you.

Midge Pike
Pic: Ian Bruce Huntley

While I have billed this as 'The Morris Goldberg Quartet', I am not certain they were introduced in this way on the night. The original tape does have some low-res recording of Morris Goldberg in a thick 'Safrican' accent introducing one or two of the songs, including the second untitled number which he and Chris Schilder co-wrote.

Sensitively led by Goldberg on saxophone, Chris Schilder's playing on Richard Rodgers' 'Spring is Here' has beautiful contemplative echoes of the evocative1959 Bill Evans Trio recording of the same classic song - you can check out the Evans version here. Ian Huntley recalls Chris Schilder going through an intense phase of listening to Bill Evans. The same certainly applied to Midge Pike with respect to Scott LeFaro on bass. This particular recording puts me in a beautiful 'place', and even if Spring is not yet here, I believe in it.

I sometimes wonder how much the choice of playlist, the mood and interpretation of great songs like these were a conscious, talked through, response of these young musicians to the context that was Cape Town and South Africa in 1967? Or, at another level, did they choose to play what inspired them and just felt good or right? Ian Huntley recalls most of the musicians being very much focussed on producing good music. While growing apartheid oppression did put significant obstacles in the way of their musical goals, and specificaly on the lives of those musicians who were not classified as "European / White", their unity in music gave them the persistence to find ways of working around these barriers.

Ian recalls Chris Schilder becoming very agitated when new laws were promulgated making it nearly impossible for mixed bands to play for mixed audiences. "Chris got very upset and swore on the spot that he would never play for an all-white audience again, but he did eventualy relent on ocassions, with the support of musicians and some owners of venues who worked their own ways to bend the rules wherever possible. There were a number of venues that continued to enable mixed audiences, including the Zambezi in District Six, until the bulldozers knocked that down.

"Winston Mankunku was another musician who at times expressed great agitation at what apartheid was doing, and he would take it out in his performances with his screams, wails and squawks. There were few other viable avenues for protest at the time, they were focussed on their music and the most immediate choice was either to stay, or to go (leave the country)." Midge Pike (1973), Selwyn Lissack and Morris Goldberg did leave the country. Chris Schilder did not. Morris Goldberg returns often, most recently playing the 2012 Grahamstown Festival.

Selwyn Lissack provides a performance on these eight numbers that herald him as the world-class free-jazz drummer he became known for after he left South Africa. Check his monster solo out on track four.

Morris Goldberg and Chris Schilder at The Art Centre (1966)
Pic: Ian Bruce Huntley

If you have not yet acquainted yourself with Morris Goldberg's later recordings, do yourself the favour and visit the following postings on Electric Jive here and here. If you have missed the previous shares from the Ian Huntley Jazz Archive thread, you can find them here (Blue Notes) and here (Intro samples) and here (Mankunku).

Multiple demands this month limit the time I can spend researching and adding further info to do justice to this splendid recording. If anyone has further info, or comments, please do share them with us. I am collecting and collating as much historical information for a book a few of us are planning.

Morris Goldberg (saxophone), Chris Schilder (Piano), Midge Pike (bass), Selwyn Lissack (drums). Recorded live by Ian Bruce Huntley in stereo on a Tandberg Six reel-to-reel recorder with four microphones on stage.

1. Hip Twitch (7:33)
Mediafire here   Rapidshare here
2. Untitled (8:59)
Mediafire here    Rapidshare here
3. Good News (8:43)
Mediafire here Rapidshare here
4. Unknown title (anyone recognise it?) 16:09
Mediafire here Rapidshare here
5. Big George (10:07)
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6. Blue Med (11:01)
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7. Spring is Here (8:35)
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8. Always (12:34)
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Hidden Winston Mankunku Ngozi gem found

Something unusually special today. This 1965 recording is of a live performance at the Stables in Loop Street, Cape Town. It is previously unpublished and gives a unique and surprising peep into the live Cape Town jazz scene at the time.

Recordings of saxophone legend Winston Mankunku Ngozi are few and far between.  In today's posting, lasting a little over half an hour, the twenty-two-year-old Mankunku makes magic with Dave Galloway on organ,  Midge Pike on bass and Selwyn Lissack on drums. Think Jimmy Smith in a bop fusion spiced up with Mankunku’s own special flavouring.

Selwyn Lissack went on to become a renowned, but somewhat mysterious international free jazz drummer, who made two recordings and then stopped recording and branched off into a collaborative artistic relationship with Salvador Dali. In 2006 Lissack re-mastered and re-issued his two recordings, and was listed by Thurston Moore as amongst his "Top Ten from the Free Jazz underground".  Read more about Lissack here.

Midge Pike (1967)
Picture by Ian Bruce Huntley

Mankunku would often acknowledge bass player Midge Pike in the same breath as mentioning John Coltrane as being key in shaping his music. In writing the liner notes for Mankunku's Yakhal' Inkomo, Ray Nkwe describes Midge Pike as "South Africa's greatest bassist". Nkwe goes on to quote Mankunku as saying: "Midge was really the man behind my success. He really helped me a lot, I take my hat off to him." Midge left South Africa for the United States in 1973 where he continued to compose and play. He died in September 2008.

Dave Galloway was (is?) a professional musician who played trombone for the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra at the time. He was last heard of as working in Vryheid as a music educator for the provincial education department.

There are five tracks in today's share - any help in identifying them would be greatly appreciated. So far, we have:
1. "Taps Miller" (Buck Clayton)
2.?
3. "A Taste of Honey" (Bobby Scott / Ric Marlow)
4. "Well You Needn't" (Thelonius Monk).
5. "How High The Moon" (Hamilton/Lewis)

(Thanks Bob and Howard for your input)

We hope in the coming months to be able to bring you a few more Cape Town jazz gems like this one. We are working on that possibility, so please understand if we cannot say more right now. Tony McGregor does a great job in painting a picture of Mankunku and the sixties Cape Town jazz scene here.

If you have not yet heard Mankunku's recording with the Cliffs, do have a look at this 2009 electric jive posting. And futher posts available here and here.

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