Blue Notes at Wits (1963) - John Blacking recording

Booklet promoting their last South African Tour before going
into exile in 1964. From left to right Dudu Pukwana,
Monty Weber, Chris McGregor, Mongezi Feza.

courtesy of Tony McGregor

Ian Bruce Huntley knew how to hold onto important artefacts: take for example this March 1963 recording of the Blue Notes at Wits University. Not many people knew it existed, and fewer still have heard it.

Recorded by Professor John Blacking at the University of Witwatersrand in Johanesburg on 22nd March 1963, it features Chris McGregor (Piano), Elijah Nkwanyana (Trumpet), Dudu Pukwana (saxophone), Martin Mgijima (Double Bass), and it is believed to possibly be Nelson Magwaza on drums. It is not known who features on the baritone saxophone, but it may well be Christopher Columbus (Mbra) Ngcukana – as he did play with the band during 1963.

This gig comes near the beginning of a year of extensive change and touring for the Blue Notes in South Africa, winning the best band prize at that year’s Castle Lager Jazz Festival. The Blue Notes also played the Wits Great Hall on 29^th April as part of a poetry and jazz evening with Dennis Mpale replacing Elijah Nkwanyane on trumpet, and Early Mabuza on drums. The poetry was read by Zakes Mokae. They went on to do a similar poetry and jazz gig in Cape Town on 18^th May, and will have driven south-north right across the country to play the University of Turfloop Graduation ball on 26^th May.

Further detail to this background information can be found on Mike Fowler’s great Blue Notes archive site here.

When I asked Ian how he came to be in possession of this recording, he said he was friends with architect Julian Beinart who moved to Cape Town from Wits in 1965. Julian Beinart had intersected with John Blacking at Wits University, an English anthropologist and ethnomusicologist who originally came to South Africa under the employ of Hugh Tracey at the International Library of African Music (ILAM). Blacking gave Beinart a copy of the recording, and Beinart gave Ian a copy. You can read more of Blacking and his studies of Venda music and culture here and here.

Like Ian, Julian Beinart was a jazz aficionado. His CV says he produced two African Jazz Albums - I have written him a mail asking for more information.  Beinart’s distinguished career took him to

Disa Park, Vredehoek.

international academic and design heights at MIT. Besides being responsible for designing some important buildings in the USA, Beinart was also responsible for the Pepper Pots in Vredehoek, Cape Town.

Judging by the number of inquiries I have been receiving – especially from those of you who have purchased the book - there are quite a few Electric Jive visitors who are keen to know when the full Ian Huntley archive will become public. I am sorry to say that a bereavement in my family at the beginning of this year means it is going to take a month or so longer than I had originally anticipated. Please do be patient – I have Rose Lombard helping me out, and we are getting somewhere – but we are not there yet.

Today’s special recording comes in at around fifty minutes. Any help with identifying the opening track will be much appreciated.

1. Unidentified (11:07)

2. Vortex Special (6:56)

3. Boogie Stop Shuffle (4:20)

4. Kippie (4:33)

5. The Baptist (6:38)

6. Ukuphuma Kwetanga (2:52)

7. Jongaphu (4:48)

8. Cherokee (6:40)

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Hidden South African Jazz archive comes to life

Tonight at a public lecture in the City of York there will be a live performance of four South African jazz compositions found in the Ian Bruce Huntley archive. The "original" Ian Huntley recordings are shared here today in celebration of the great work that Jonathan Eato and students at the Department of Music at the University of York are doing in bringing Ian's archive alive in a most positive manner. Jazz legend Louis Moholo-Moholo will be there tonight, participating in the celebration.

Jonathan is talking to an interested audience about the Ian Bruce Huntley archive, showing some of the pictures, and to illustrate some of the material found in the audio archive, he

Ronnie Beer: Pic © Ian Huntley

has taken the trouble to transcribe the music and give "the dots" as he calls the sheet music, to four students who will be performing compositions by Tete Mbambisa (Leads Dwana); Ronnie Beer (Immediately); Ebrahim Kalil Shihab aka Chris Schilder (Look Up ) and Winston Mankunku Ngozi (Ekhaya).

In writing to me about the planned event tonight, and the process leading up to it, Jonathan had the following to say:

"Obviously this couldn't have happened without Ian's recordings. They (the students) will play them as part of the Merchant Adventurer talk .... And what's great is that Mpumi Moholo and Louis Moholo-Moholo will be there (although this is making the drummer both very nervous and very excited). I wonder if these compositions have ever been played outside South Africa?

"When they're tidied up I'll send the dots through for Ian (if that's of interest to him...). In listening to this music in detail so I could transcribe it for the students the interesting thing to me is that although improvisation over blues sequences are ubiquitous in jam sessions and gigs with impromptu bands, 'Immediately', 'Leads Dwana' and 'Look Up' all do this in unusual ways. Probing and exploring the form in one way or another.

"The head for 'Look Up' is thirteen bars (the usual 12 with a sort of one bar hiatus added to the end), whereas 'Immediately' has an extra two beats added to bars 4 and 12 - which also gives a total length of 13 bars but with the elongations split up and spread throughout the head, if that makes sense. 'Leads Dwana' is really doing my head in - it's heavily modal but I think I'm going to have to do more work on trying to understand how it works (or perhaps hope that Tete will explain it to me - assuming we can find a language that makes sense to both of us). Anyways it's a 32 bar modal head which covers the main harmonic centres of a typical jazz blues without using the form, or the bebop language prevalent in modern jazz blues.

"Of course these musicians were aware of Miles Davis' work etc. (hence 'Milestones' etc featuring so often in the IBH recordings) - and even though Davis recorded that in 1958, Herbie Hancock's 'Maiden Voyage' (the other great landmark of modal jazz) wasn't recorded until a year *after* Barney Rachabane, Ronnie Beer, Dennis Mpale, Tete Mbambisa, Max Dayimani and Sammy Maritz recorded 'Leads Dwana' in the studios at Thibault Square."



Jackie, Philly and Chris Schilder
Pic © Ian Huntley

 

I hope the musically technical stuff made sense to some of you, I just nod my head and happily accept that I can still love and appreciate the music without really understanding the intricacies of how it is constructed.

 
Ian's recordings are believed to be the first or earliest recordings of all of these compositions - and as Jonathan wonders aloud, have they even been played outside of South Africa - before tonight? By my amateur reckoning, I do believe, Ronnie Beer's "Immediately" has the greatest chance of having been  performed in Europe while Beer was there playing with Chris McGregor and the Blue Notes. 

In addition to the two versions of "Immediately" already shared on this blog (The Thibault Square recording at 7:55) here and (Room At the Top) a 15 min 46sec take here  - we are sharing two more versions. A 9:52 take, from another fine performance by Mpale, Rachabane, Mbambisa, Beer, Mgijima and Dayimani at the Room at the Top - at the end of which you can hear one of the band members commenting about Max Dayimani "hitting the drums". The second take is a 13min 55sec version, also performed by the same members at the Room At The Top in 1964.
 

"Look Up" features on the 1968 vinyl holy grail - Chris Schilder Quintet's "Spring". The 3:35 version also features on Volume 3 of the great Strut Next Stop Soweto Compilation issued in 2010. The 1966 version of Spring recorded by Ian in District Six, Cape Town stretches to close on eight minutes performed by a Schilder family trio.

Tete Mbambisa's  Leads Dwana also deserves to be heard internationally, and perhaps it has been already. Who knows? Here, the Jazz Disciples - with Sammy Maritz on bass - provide a swinging eight-minute rendition.

The recording of Ekhaya is unlikely to have been performed and is not widely known. The recording shared here today was not a public performance and is not of the best sound quality, but those who recognize its importance will forgive that.

The musicians playing the four compositions at the live gig tonight are: Will Edwards (drums), Twm Dylan (bass), Joe McGrail (piano), Ben Turner (alto saxophone).

In his talk, Jonathan will be outlining the thesis he puts forward in his essay contained in the book "Keeping Time". Thank you to all of you who have pre-ordered the book - and for your kind and encouraging words. For those of you who have not yet reserved your copy - it might be a good idea. Click on the picture of the book on the side-bar - it will give you an e-mail address. Send me an e-mail requesting a copy, and I will send you further details.
 

 

1. Look Up  (7:59) (Chris Schilder): Chris Schilder (piano), Philly Schilder (bass), Jackie Schilder (drums) - recorded at the Moses House, Smart Street, District Six ~1966.

 

2. Ekhaya (7:35) (Winston Mankunku Ngozi) Winston Mankunku Ngozi (tenor), Ebrahim Kalil Shihab (Chris Schilder) (Piano), Midge Pike (Bass), Selwyn Lissack (Drums). Recorded at a practice session at Selwyn Lissack's Bantry Bay garage studio - 1966.

 

3. Immediately (Ronnie Beer) ver a (9:52) Dennis Mpale (trumpet), Barney Rachabane (alto), Ronnie Beer (tenor), Tete Mbambisa (piano), Martin Mgijima (bass), Max Dayimani (drums). Performed at the Room at the Top, Strand Street, Cape Town 1964.

 

4. Immediately (Ronnie Beer) ver b (13:55) Dennis Mpale (trumpet), Barney Rachabane (alto), Ronnie Beer (tenor), Tete Mbambisa (piano), Martin Mgijima (bass), Max Dayimani (drums). Performed at the Room at the Top, Strand Street, Cape Town 1964.

 

5. Leads Dwana  (11:32) (Tete Mbambisa) Dennis Mpale (trumpet), Barney Rachabane (alto), Ronnie Beer (tenor), Tete Mbambisa (piano), Martin Mgijima (bass), Max Dayimani (drums). Performed at the Room at the Top, Strand Street, Cape Town 1964.

 

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Keeping Time: 1964 - 1974 The Photographs and Cape Town Jazz Recordings of Ian Bruce Huntley

This book celebrates the public emergence of an extraordinary visual and audio archive that was initiated by Ian Bruce Huntley in Cape Town fifty years ago. Electric Jive is very happy to announce that a limited edition print run of 500 copies is now at the printers. The book is expected to be available towards the end of November.

Covering the period 1964 - 1974, the Ian Bruce Huntley archive opens a window to a little known era of South African music history, documenting an ‘underground’ jazz scene that persisted in creative defiance of all that grand apartheid threw at it. In addition to 120 historical images, 56 hours of live recordings from many of the photographed performances are indexed in this book and will become available for free download through Electric Jive.

This previously hidden archive documents accomplished South African jazz musicians pushing the creative envelope and entertaining appreciative audiences. In his accompanying essay Jonathan Eato argues that Ian Bruce Huntley’s photos and recordings document an extension of the Drum decade lineage right through to the 1970s.

Many of the musicians Huntley worked with have passed on, and a large number were never afforded the opportunity to record (whilst others remain woefully under-documented). Combined with the loss to exile of yet more key people in the history of jazz in South Africa and the general inaccessibility of records that do exist, this conflation of events and circumstances has left a big dent in our historical understanding and resources. For those students, musicians, scholars, and devotees of South African music who wish to engage with the achievements of a generation of South African jazz musicians the newly found accessibility of the Ian Huntley archive goes a small but invaluable way towards maintaining memory and articulating lost stories

Published by Chris Albertyn and Associates in partnership with Electric Jive, the book is edited by Chris Albertyn. In addition to a biographical sketch of Ian Huntley, the book offers a substantial essay by Jonathan Eato, a full discography of all the recordings, and an index. Electric Jive's Siemon Allen is responsible for the design and layout, while Cedric Nunn has painstakingly spent many many hours restoring the  professionally scanned digitized images. More details will be made available in the coming months.

The front cover image is of Psych Big T Ntsele playing at a 1971 open-air concert in New Brighton Township.

So - in celebration herewith a very rare recording. As regular Electric Jive visitors will know, one of the bands that Ian recorded in Cape Town was "The Jazz Disciples" - which included Tete Mbambisa (piano), Barney Rachabane and Ronnie Beer (saxophones), Dennis Mpale, Trumpet, Max Dayimani (drums) and either Sammy Maritz or Martin Mgijima on bass. You can read more about them and hear their music here, here, and here,

It is known that the Jazz Disciples did record for the SABC in 1964. What is less known is that there was at least one commercial release of a 45rpm on His Master's Voice, featuring the historic Tete Mbambisa compositions, Umsenge (his first) and Tete's Jump. While the labels do not indicate a date or release, it is estimated that this would be either 1964 or 1965. 

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Dudu Pukwana and the Jazz Disciples (1964)

L-R: Barney Rachabane, Dennis Mpale (drums) Tete Mbambisa,
drummer Timmy Kweblulana on bass. (Pic: Ian Huntley)

The Room at the Top (featured in the picture above) was another Cape Town live jazz venue that hosted legendary performances in the 1960s. Two things are striking about this picture of Ian Huntley's: Two of the musicians have swopped roles, with trumpeter Dennis Mpale playing drums, and drummer Timmy Kwebulana playing bass (he toured with Victor Ntoni for the Japan performances of Meropa).

This picture of Tete Mbambisa sitting on a very makeshift piano stool also tells a story of challenges of a different kind. Ian Huntley recalls that the particular piano featured in the picture - and in the recordings shared below - had one fairly important key that simply did not work. The genius that was Tete Mbambisa improvised around his found circumstances. My own limited musical expertise means I did not hear any difference in the recording shared here - perhaps you might notice?

My journey of working on Ian Huntley's jazz archive is approaching an important milestone. The promised book of Ian's pictures has moved to the design and layout phase, with the release scheduled for mid-November this year. Without giving too much away, the book will contain more than 100 pictures chosen by Ian, a short biography of Ian, an essay by Jonathan Eato, and a full discographical listing of the more than 56 hours of recordings made by Ian.

Photographer Cedric Nunn was engaged to work long hours in restoring the digitally scanned black and white and colour images to their pristine original selves, taking away years of residual fungus and scratch marks.

Electric Jive's 'very own' Siemon Allen is voluntarily giving a huge chunk of his time to design the book and lay it out ready for the printers. Siemon is currently a Guggenheim Fellowship holder.

So, what better way to celebrate the anticipation of the launch of a book of Ian's photos than with these rather special recordings made by Ian before Dudu Pukwana left the country with the Blue Notes in July 1964.

Pukwana joins the Jazz Disciples in giving us seven tracks extended over more than two hours, including local compositions Vortex Special (Chris McGregor) Mr Mecca, Tete's Jump, and Leads Dwana (Tete Mbambisa). Due to size, the files are split into two downloads.

Please enjoy!

If you have not yet had chance to access previous posts of Ian's Cape Town jazz archive on Electric Jive (it stretches back to April 2012), use the search function in the right-hand box of this blog and look for "IBH Jazz".

Tape 18   Room at the Top (1964)

7 tracks at 2:11:25

Dennis Mpale (trumpet), Ronnie Beer (tenor sax), Dudu Pukwana (alto sax), Tete Mbambisa (piano), Martin Mgijima (bass), Max ‘Diamond’ Dayimani (drums).

1. Milestones (31:54)

2. Mr Mecca (15:25)

3. Leads Dwana (11:32)

4. Bag’s Groove (15:36)

5. Tete’s Jump - incomplete (19:30)

6. Arabia (18:21)

7. Vortex Special (20:26)

Part 1:  Mediafire here

Part II:  Mediafire here

Mankunku with Cups and Saucers Nkanuka at Ambassadors Jazz Club, Cape Town (1965)

Ephraim 'Cups and Saucers' Nkanuka - Pic: Ian Bruce Huntley

South Africa’s jazz history makes reference to pioneering tenor saxophonist Cups and Saucers Nkanuka as having had a pivotal influence on a generation of emerging South African jazz musicans in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Along with Martin Mgijima on bass (also in today's recording), these two stalwarts were already professionally active as members of  Chris McGregor's 'Cape Town Five' early in 1961.

Winston Mankunku Ngozi
Pic: Ian Bruce Huntley

Until Ian Bruce Huntley produced this reel-to-reel tape from the recesses of his seemingly bottomless cupboard I did not know there were actual recordings of Nkanuka playing with one of the greats he mentored, Winston Mankunku Ngozi. 

Today’s previously unreleased recording from the Huntley archive reveals an historical saxophone duo treat, supported by a top-class and tight band. Themba Matole (piano), Phakamile  Joya (drums), Martin Mgijima (bass), Winston Mankunku Ngozi (second sax), Robert Sithole (flute).

Both Martin Mgijima and Phakamile Joya had stints with early formations of the Blue Notes, the band playing at 'The Naaz' in Salt River for a fee of  five pounds a week.

Cups and Saucers Nkanuka and Temba Matole were members of the Jazz Ambassadors who competed in the 1962 Cold Castle National Jazz Festival. Mankunku Ngozi played in the Jazz Giants, along with Martin Mgijima (and Tete Mbambisa, Dudu Pukwana, Nik Moyake and Makaya Ntshoko).

In the late 1950s the Ambassadors School of Dancing in Woodstock (its original name) was home to a group of jazz musicians who regularly jammed there - including Chris McGregor, Cups and Saucers Nkanuka, Christopher Columbus Ngcukana, Dave Galloway, and Martin Mgijima. A year after the departure of the Blue Notes, the Ambassadors was still hosting amazing jam sessions with the remaining stalwarts.

Captured live by Ian in 1965 at The Ambassador’s Jazz Club, located on Main Road in Woodstock, Cape Town, this stimulating yet laid-back ninety-minute gem of a set features seven tracks – two of which we would love some help in identifying.

Ian Huntley with Willie Nete, Themba Matola (hat)
Martin Mgijima (pipe), Chris Schilder (seated left)
Winston Mankunku Ngozi (seated right)

Cups and Saucers leads with a languid and sensitive sax which could be the Coleman Hawkins to a 22-year-old Mankunku’s Coltrane influence. Themba Matola’s versatile and bluesy piano steps in regularly and leads from the front, for example on unidentified track three, and then taking ‘Milestones’ on some entertaining tangents. Robert Sithole’s haunting flute features on “Bag’s Groove” and “Whisper Not” – playing solo and in harmony with muted saxophones.

For me, the really stand-out track on an all-round outstanding set is the rendition of “Summertime” – I just can’t get enough of it. It really is something special.
 

Ian and all at Electric Jive are hoping that these posts stimulate further interest, research and writing on these musicians, their legacy and the recordings. We welcome your thoughts and reactions.

Robert Sithole: Pic  Ian Bruce Huntley

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

 

Winston Mankunku gem

Love for Free: Hidden South African Jazz Archive revealed

The Blue Notes: A Journey of Faith

Becoming Free In Cape Town

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

Recorded live on stage with a Tandberg 6 reel-to-reel by Ian Bruce Huntley.

Nkanuka and Mankunku At the Ambassadors Jazz Club (1965)

1.     Why Don't I (Sonny Rollins) 14:35

2.     On Green Dolphin Street – 16:43

3.     Unidentified track – (suggestions please) 13:59

4.     Summertime – 12:10

5.     Whisper Not – 11:16

6.     Bag’s Groove – 10:55

7.     Milestones – 10:43

Cups and Saucers Nkanuka – Tenor Saxophone
Winston Mankunku Ngozi – Tenor Saxophone
Themba Matola – Piano
Martin Mgijima – Bass
Parks Joya – Drums
Robert Sithole - Flute

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