STERNS CLASSIC EAST AFRICAN SERIES

This article comprises extracts from Douglas Paterson's original notes for Sterns Music's East African series. The full essays plus song translations from the original Swahili can be found in the booklet accompanying the CDs, or downloaded as a PDF when purchased as a full album from iTunes.

ISSA JUMA and Super Wanyika Stars 

World Defeats The Grandfathers

Swinging Swahili Rumba 1982 - 1986


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For nearly thirty years, the "Wanyika" bands were a sensation in Kenya. Institutions of renown they were a dominating presence in Nairobi’s nightclubs and recording industry, and in their heyday there were three or four bands each simultaneously bearing a Wanyika name, together with several spin-off groups operating under different names. 


The rumba music these bands played had its stylistic origins in Tanzania but rather quickly took on a unique Kenyan identity. It was propelled by light percussion, the rhythm often on the high hat cymbals and conga drums and made sweet with a delicate interplay between rhythm and solo guitars. The sound was instrumentally sparse with a rich bass filling the gaps in  syncopated bursts. Trumpets and saxophones were sometimes used in recordings but rarely in live performance. On top of this were simple two-part harmony melodies in Swahili that could be widely understood across East Africa. This was the defining sound of Kenyan Swahili rumba in the late 70s and early 80s. Issa Juma was a pivotal voice in creating that sound and taking it in new directions as the 80s progressed. 

Like the other founding members of the Wanyika groups, Issa was born in Tanzania. Coming from the north coastal Tanga region, he started his music career age 15 singing for several groups in his home area, and was soon on tour in Uganda with one of those groups, the Green Guards. Over the two and half years he stayed in Uganda, he shuttled between several groups performing in Tanzanian, Congolese, and Ugandan styles before returning to Tanzania in 1970. He then made his way to Dar es Salaam and eventually joined up with the Police Jazz Band, but he was only with them for six months before they sent him back to Tanga to start a sister group. Issa was now well-known in the region for his vocal abilities, and this brought him to the attention of Kenyan music producer A.P. Chandarana, who invited Issa to join Kericho Jazz as their singer. Issa accepted and, in April 1971, he made the move to Kericho in the tea country of western Kenya. This group soon split up but Chandarana hired Issa as a recording assistant in the studio. During his time in Kericho, Issa married, started his family and recorded a couple of not very successful numbers. 


Issa Juma & Super Wanyika Stars - "Barua (The Letter)" by Sterns Music

By 1977, however, the urge to be a successful performing musician brought him to Nairobi where he worked with Orchestra Kumba Kumba and, in late 1978, he joined the first of his “Wanyika” bands: Simba wa Nyika (Lions of the Wilderness). This group had begun as Arusha Jazz in the early 70s when Tanzanian musicians took up residence in Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa. It wasn’t long before they changed their name to Simba wa Nyika, then Simba Wanyika, and, in 1975, they relocated to Nairobi. The band was well received and gained a considerable following, but not without some internal problems. Issa had been with the group for only a month when a number of members decided to leave and start a new group, Les Wanyika. Issa joined them as their lead vocalist, and Les Wanyika took off with a string of number one hits including Paulina, Sina Makosa, Pamela, and Kajituliza Kasuku. With Les Wanyika, Issa Juma finally attained the critical recognition and popular support he had been looking for, and his powerful baritone voice was indisputably recognized as the best of the Wanyika clan. It’s also clear he had an independent streak and wanted creative and entrepreneurial control of his music. In June 1981 Issa quit Les Wanyika to lead a new group formed with members of another Simba Wanyika offshoot, Orchestra Jobiso. This started off as Super Wanyika but quickly came to operate under a variety of names (often simultaneously) such as Wanyika Stars, Super Wanyika Stars, Waanyika, and Wanyika “Super Les Les”. Super Wanyika got off to a brilliant start with a number of hits and even some limited international exposure through their inclusion on the compilation ‘Djalenga’ (Swahili Records) released in the UK in 1983. Some of the earliest Super Wanyika recordings have a Congolese flavour in the guitar mix and the full horn section, and this is one of the interesting aspects of Issa Juma's 
music: his sound could change with each record producer and each session, even when with the same producers. One recording might suggest a Congolese influence, another (e.g. Mwanaidi), would have a rhythm and solo guitar interplay reminiscent of Les Wanyika, while yet another might merge elements of Kenya’s benga style with Swahili rumba. Of the different Wanyika bands, Issa Juma’s groups brought more variety from one recording to the next, and perhaps a greater willingness to challenge the boundaries of Kenyan Swahili rumba. Under Issa’s leadership, his branch of the Wanyika lineage was perhaps the most innovative, adventuresome, and prolific of all.


The songs in this collection were recorded for AIT Records in Nairobi between 1982 and 1986 and represent no fewer than five different sessions with a different mix of band personnel for each session. His groups were always in flux with disputes over the ownership of the Super Wanyika name, band members coming and going en masse, plus guest musicians brought in for recording sessions. Yet they also performed long stints at Garden Square and Mumias Bar in Nairobi, and toured widely in other parts of Kenya. Despite the ever-changing personnel, Issa’s music always had the powerful, raspy, pitch-perfect sound of his own voice and throughout all the many band members, he carried the essence of Swahili rumba with brilliant rhythm guitarists providing that luscious, quietly active, quintessential rhythm sound. Kenyans, both urban and rural, seem to have been able to identify with Issa’s lyrics whether it be humorously touching on shady business deals or his continuing concern with social relationships and their many problems, where a common theme is, “Don’t blame me, you brought these problems on yourself, but I’ll help you through them”. 

Another element Kenyans enjoyed were the band’s many ‘shout outs’ to various locations in Kenya (especially in a song like Mwanaidi where no less than a dozen areas across Kenya are mentioned). The shout outs for band members’ names in the recording sessions is also a clue as to which musicians participated. Thus, when you hear the name “Chou Chou” mentioned, it’s a reference to the high-pitched backup voice that on most songs belonged to the late Betanga Mazinere. Likewise, the fabulous solo guitar work in Mony and Maria is by “Adamu”, Adam Solomon (now in Canada) with superb rhythm guitar by “Abbu”, Abbu Omar Prof. Jr., who played with Simba Wanyika for many years and currently lives and performs in Japan. Issa Juma and Super Wanyika Stars performed in Kenya into 1987 but he was not always able to work because of difficulties with both his health and his immigration status. At one point in, 1984, he actually spent a couple months in jail for working without a valid permit. His health suffered from that incarceration and it this slowed his reentry into music. Then, in 1988, he suffered a stroke which affected his mobility and speech. His effectively ended his musical career, and he finally passed away in the early 1990s.

D.O. MISIANI and SHIRATI JAZZ 

THE KING OF HISTORY 
CLASSIC 1970S BENGA BEATS FROM KENYA


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As I entered, I immediately noticed a large banner pinned to the back of the stage:

Klub Oasis Presents

The King of History

Mw D.O. Misiani

D.O. ‘7’ Shirati Jazz

To Dance is your choice

This was July 2003 and I was in Kondele, just outside Kisumu (Kenya’s port on Lake Victoria) in the midst of a whirlwind musical pilgrimage. A long time before, when resident in Kenya during the 70s and 80s, I had often heard people refer to Daniel Owino Misiani as “Mwalimu,” meaning “teacher” in Swahili. But “The king of History” was new to me and, frankly, I didn’t know what to make of it. Did it refer to his long career in the music business and his position as the most influential performer to help shape Kenya’s benga style of pop music? Or perhaps it had another meaning? But today, whichever way you look at it, D.O. Misiani is the embodiment of the near 40 year history of benga music. 

I’d come to know his music in the mid-80s, first on radio and then in performance at the River Yala Club in Nairobi’s Kariobangi Estate. The fact that I didn’t understand any of his lyrics in Luo was of no concern to me. I was in it for the guitar and the great percussive and  syncopated bass lines. Guitars had started gaining popularity in Kenya in the 1950s and it wasn’t long before  enga started taking form in the Luo speaking areas surrounding Lake Victoria in the early 60s. Misiani was actually born across Kenya’s southern border in Tanganyika in 1940 in the Luo community of Shirati. His earliest years as a musician brought him numerous clashes with  uthority and several escapes to safer ground to avoid punishment. It seems he and his music were very popular with schoolgirls and young women, but the parents weren’t too keen on his seductive love songs and the authorities didn’t appreciate the fights among the young men over the girls. Misiani recounted several times that his guitars were seized and smashed, and that he had to leave the village quickly. He would disappear for a while, wait for things to settle down and then return. 

D.O. Misiani & Shirati Jazz - "Giko Piny (End Of The World)"

He first landed in Nairobi in 1960 where he met Daudi Kabaka, a popular
guitarist and vocalist from western Kenya already well-established in the local music scene and who mentored Misiani. In 1961, after returning home and failing again to reconcile with his family and the community in Shirati, Misiani went back to Nairobi and joined the Sokoto Band, with which he successfully toured Kenya’s coast and hinterland for several years. By 1965 he had patched up relations with his father in Shirati and married the first of his four wives. Back in Nairobi he linked up with Kabaka again and played in the Equator Sound Band through to 1967. He then set in motion the beginnings of what is perhaps Kenya’s most successful band ever. It
started as Luo Sweet Voice, became Shirati Luo Voice Jazz around 1972 and, in 1975, changed to Orchestra D.O. 7 Shirati Jazz, the ‘7’ possibly signifying the number of letters in his name. The songs in this compilation focus in on a relatively short time frame, 1973 to 1979, yet it is quite easy to hear the evolutionary trend in the music. 


All of the songs have the trademarks of Luo benga: a catchy guitar riff to start off the song, followed by flowing verses sung in unison or simple two part harmonies and played over gentle guitar fingerings with a very active bass line while the percussion steadily pulses. As the verse finishes, the lead guitar follows approximating the melody just sung. In the second half of the song, the verses fade away and the song moves into elaborate guitar soloing, rhythmic jams, occasionally interspersed with a vocal chorus.


The songs of the early 70s have a lighter percussion with the beat kept by tapping on the rim of a snare drum. They also mastered a rhythmic clicking sound using the electric guitar pick-up that is heard in a number of pieces. From about 1976 this sound changes with the use of a full drum kit and the deeper sound of the kick drum, with now the high hat receiving most of the attention from the drummer’s sticks. The saxophone heard in some of the earlier songs is gone. By the late 70s, we’re into the mature benga sound  exemplified by ‘Wang Ni To Iringo’ that propelled benga through the 80s and into the 90s.


While D.O. Misiani’s lyrics might not be much of a factor to non-Luo speakers, in Kenya, his lyrics were of great interest to several million Luos and to the Kenya central government. Though Luos represent the third largest tribal group in Kenya, they were often at odds with, and felt excluded from, the Kenyatta and Moi governments. D.O. was a commentator on the state of the Luo universe, so the government was very interested in what he had to say… and in making sure he didn’t say things that put the government in a bad light. Misiani wrote songs on all kinds of subjects; matters of the heart, social conduct, politics and exploitation, as well as praise songs for community leaders, politicians, and sports teams. He didn’t live to see the election of President Barak Obama in the US, but we can only imagine that he would have had some fun with the fact that a Luo man’s son could rise to become the US President while the Presidency in Kenya has so far eluded any Luo contenders.


Misiani was a composer without fear in an environment that threatened free speech and critical thought. In his early years, it was his love songs in his home village that had got him in trouble, and in the Shirati Jazz years (essentially the rest of his life after leaving the village), he was known for biting commentary on Kenya’s political, social, and economic institutions.  

However such criticism was never direct. His songs convey meaning at a deeper level. He would use a theme such as a verse or parable in the Bible, a piece of African history, a prophecy, or an animal fable that would allow listeners to draw a meaning relevant to the current events of the day. Periodically, when one of his songs could be interpreted as presenting the government or a politician in an unflattering way, the authorities would pick up Misiani and take him off to jail. At one point he was deported to Tanzania. 


Another time he was arrested – though not convicted – of being an illegal Tanzanian immigrant. Nairobi’s Nation newspaper quotes him in 2006 as saying: “Tell me, is there anything wrong with singing about what’s going wrong in our society? I just sing about what is happening and if some people are not happy, I can do little about it.” It is in this arena, I think, where Misiani really merits his King of History title. With its multiple layers of meaning, it accurately portrays both the status and the mechanism by which he achieved that status: keep it sweet, keep it entertaining but, at all times, keep it relevant. And today, among his vast number of fans in both Kenya and abroad, I think we can still say we’re “very happy” with his songs and the deep repertoire of music he has left us.


Daniel Owino Misiani died on May 17, 2006, the victim of a horrendous road accident just outside Kisumu. He was on his way home after a band rehearsal.

We miss him.

WESTERN JAZZ BAND

SONGS OF HAPPINESS, POISON & ULULATION

DAR ES SALAAM DANCING CLUB 1973 - 1975


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“Tanzanian music of the 70s is like country music in the USA.” This popped into the mind of my Kenyan friend as we looked over the lyrics for this seventeen-song Western Jazz collection. He wasn’t talking about the music itself but, when it comes to the lyrical content of songs, there are definitely some parallels: lots of songs about relationships gone wrong; topics that provide social commentaries on love, infidelity, deceit, poverty, and the strength and determination to overcome.

Image courtesy of John Kitime

What we have here are, indeed, Songs of Happiness, Poison, & Ululation; and if you don’t know what ululation is, it’s that high pitched, extended vocalization trilled with the tongue and uvula (the thing hanging down in the back of your mouth). You hear this around the world in celebrations and times of sorrow and you hear it from Western Jazz in their hit song, Vigelegele, celebrating the great enjoyment people will have when listening to Western Jazz and their saboso style. The very first song starts off with Rosa getting some 'medicine' from the traditional doctor that poisons her lover. Other songs call out issues of trust among lovers. In others, wives can’t keep a secret, “bad friends” are talking rubbish, there is no one you can trust and a guy can’t get a break:  country music for sure.

For nearly twenty years, Western Jazz Band and Dancing Club delighted East Africans from their home base, the Indian Ocean port city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The band actually formed in 1959, two years before the end of British administration in Tanganyika. Many of the original band members came from what, at that time, was Western Province and other locations in the west. Formed as a regional association, Western Jazz was both a band and a dancing club. The idea was to give migrants to the city from western Tanzania a place to meet friends, socialize and hear good music, though members were welcomed no matter where they came from. 

Western Jazz Band - Rosa

This band and music club organisation was quite common in the 1950s but can be traced back to the 1930s with the Tanganyikan African Association Jazz Band, Dar es Salaam Jazz and Morogoro Jazz Band after 1944. However it wasn't until the 1950s that dance bands multiplied in Dar es Salaam and started appearing in towns throughout pre-independence Tanganyika. Some of the more well-known groups of this kind include Atomic Jazz and Nyamwezi Jazz (later renamed Jamhuri Jazz) whose origins date back to 1954 in the north coastal town of Tanga. In Tanganyika's largest city, Dar es Salaam, Ulanga Jazz and Rufiji Jazz Band formed in the mid-50s and Kilwa Jazz came together circa 1958.

Image courtesy of John Kitime

Western Jazz Band and Dancing Club was one of the last to take this organisational structure. At the time, only a few musicians in the voluntary clubs were getting paid but both musicians and music supporters paid dues, which supported the organizational expenses and rental of performance halls. In this spirit, Western Jazz was:  "a club band and every member would like to know clearly how the business is been run" (from a letter by George Kitali, Secretary).

The songs in this compilation were all recorded between 1973 and 1975, a very active time for the band in terms of 45 rpm releases out of Nairobi, not to mention singles and an LP release in France which were then redistributed to areas far and wide within Africa. Western's saboso style is famous for lovely crisp clear guitar work, with the second guitar often played in complex rhythmic patterns while the solo guitar is off with an enchanting melody or sparring in an equally complex counter rhythm. Although there are pictures of the group with at least a partial drum kit, that is not what is heard in these recordings. There is no thumping kick drum.  Rather, you hear a percussive stream from the conga drums, the occasional strumming on the electric guitar pickups, the staccato bass and the flow of saxophones; overall a thrilling mix of rhythm and melody.  

VIJANA JAZZ BAND
THE KOKA KOKA SEX BATTALION
RUMBA, KOKA KOKA & KAMATA SUKUMA: TANZANIA 1975 - 1980


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This was in 1975 when, as it turned out, it was a lot easier to buy Tanzanian records in Kenya where they were manufactured, than it was in Tanzania and while it wasn’t hard to find lots of great African vinyl in Nairobi, it meant I had to devote my last two days in Africa to an intensive listening campaign in record shops and sidewalk kiosks. But what started off as a favour to my friend ended up, for me, as a lifetime passion for East African music and I owe at least a part of that passion to a couple of songs featured in this collection. For more than 35 years I’ve had the songs Magdalena and Utatugomabanisha on call and playing on-demand in my head, so that now it’s my distinct pleasure to be able to share these two and fourteen more by the Vijana Jazz Band.

Vijana Jazz got their start in late 1971, an example of the emerging model of musical sponsorship through various governmental bodies that was taking hold in Tanzania. Band members were salaried employees of their sponsor-managers. The Swahili word vijana means “youth” and reflects Vijana Jazz’s management by Umoja wa Vijana, the youth wing of mainland Tanzania’s ruling political party, TANU. Two years later, Vijana Jazz acquired the services of vocalist/composer Hemedi Maneti, who took a fundamental role in shaping the group’s sound and went on to lead the band from 1982 until his death in 1990. Although Kenya and Tanzania were on divergent development paths in the early to mid-70s, the East African Community partners were still on relatively good terms (though less so with their Ugandan partner under the brutal dictator Idi Amin). Kenyans and Tanzanians could  ravel freely and work in each other’s countries. It was a time when the citizens of both countries felt a sense of brotherhood and optimism for the future. 


VIJANA JAZZ BAND 'THE KOKA KOKA SEX BATTALION'  - Magdalena

Tanzanian music was enjoyed in Kenya on radio, in clubs, and it was a significant component of the record industry. Tanzanian bands frequently made the 24 hour trip from Dar-es- Salaam to Nairobi to record songs that would be released on disc over the course of the year and our compilation centres around this fondly remembered time in East African history. 

As I scoured the AIT Records archive for Vijana materials, I was puzzled by a set of songs under the artist name “Koka Koka Sex Battalion.” I knew those words as a frequent shout-out in Vijana Jazz songs such as the  tatugombanisha, but this required a little more digging. As I suspected, Koka Koka Sex Battalion was indeed Vijana Jazz, but under an assumed name. This turned out to be a scheme of the studio  producer who, working with the band, tricked the label bosses into commissioning more songs than budgeted. The producer made more money with each song recorded and the band got more upfront money, but the label did not want to release too many songs from the same group so was not amused when the scam of one band for the price of two was  iscovered. Thirty-six years later their loss is our gain.


As is the case with Tanzanian dance bands, each group tries to distinguish itself from the others with its unique mtindo (style). In 1975- 76, Vijana Jazz recorded at least three studio sessions in Nairobi for AIT Records’ Moto Moto and Africa labels. This was the era of the koka koka mtindo, in its earliest form it was highly rhythmic with congas and what sounds like beating on a hollow log in something akin to a clavé beat. The instrumental, Koka Koka No. 1, is a perfect example of this. 

VIJANA JAZZ BAND 'THE KOKA KOKA SEX BATTALION' - Koka Koka #1 

In later recordings, koka koka lightens up on the ‘log’ sound and moves to a more subdued snare drum tapping out a marching drum sound in a similar beat (for example, in the last half of Pili Nihurumie). 


This is a precursor to a Tanzanian sound that came to dominate the “Swahili rumba” of Nairobi from the late 70s through the 80s with groups like Les Wanyika and Issa Juma’s Super Wanyika. Interestingly, in a song like Stela wa Kenya, I hear what might be a Kenyan benga influence in the way the lead guitar fills in at end of vocal phrases, and in later solos while the rhythm guitar is quietly but actively chording and embellishing.


Vijana Jazz seems particularly attuned to the Kenyan audience in these recordings with not only Stela but several songs referencing Kenya, Kenya’s President Kenyatta, and various Kenyan institutions. Our album focuses on songs recorded in Nairobi at the famous Hi-Fi Studios in 1975-76 where most of the great benga singles were captured. Prior to this release very little of Vijana’s koka koka era has been available anywhere. Although koka koka was Vijana’s signature mtindo, also prominent in the later Nairobi recordings were frequent references to kamata sukuma, kamata meaning “grabbing hold of” and sukuma meaning “pushing” or “moving.” I don’t think kamata sukuma ever became an official mtindo of Vijana Jazz but it did merit a shout-out along side koka koka in many songs including three in our collection: Salima Utakujajuta, Pili Nihurumie, and Kamata Sukuma No. 2. The latter actually spends the entire song talking in a joking way about the meaning of kamata sukuma.


“The Koka Koka Sex Battalion” has not only the big hits of the time, for example Magdalena and Niliruka Ukuta, but also contains songs that give one a broader sense of the group stylistically in 1975-76, something like you might hear in live performance. It includes songs in Tanzanian languages other than Swahili, together with songs that draw on folkloric tradition like Dibweze Zogolo Jangu. In addition we’ve included three songs from later periods which provide a glimpse of the evolutionary trajectory of the band in the late 1970s towards the pamba moto style that defined Vijana Jazz for the 1980s. 

Sterns Classic Guinean Orchestra Series

In 2004 Sterns embarked on a project to bring to the world one of the most important musical movements in Africa's post-independence history, the prodigious output of Guinea's state run record label Editions Syliphone Conakry. With the help of veritable expert Graeme Counsel and the permission of the Guinean government 5 anthologies of the giants of this musical movement have been released with another due out later in 2011. Here is an edited article encompassing the many essays produced by Graeme Counsel to accompany the CD releases where the full detailed notes and exclusive photos appear.

Guinea's Syliphone record company produced some of the finest and most important recordings of Africa's independence era.  The core of Guinea's Orchestres Nationaux include the now legendary Bembeya Jazz National, Horoya Band, Keletigui et ses Tambourinis, and Balla et ses Balladins as well as the Orchestres Federeaux, including Syli Authentic, Sombory Jazz and Camayenne Sofa. These groups battled for honours against more than 30 other Federal Orchestras in Guinea's renowned arts festivals, where a 1^st Prize in the competition could launch a band to stardom.

The story of the Syliphone label is a remarkable tale of music in an era of revolutionary politics in Africa. Since its independence from France in 1958, Guinea's artists had been radicalised by an official cultural policy that sought to modernise the arts while still being faithful to the traditional roots. It was a policy called authenticité, and music was its prime focus. Under the policy each region in Guinea, some 34 in total, were represented by artistic troupes. These consisted of an orchestra, a traditional music ensemble, a choir, and a theatrical group. The government purchased new musical instruments for the orchestras, at a huge cost, and encouraged the groups to write songs about topics such as African nationalism, anti-colonialism, and anti-imperialism.

Horoya Band National 'Were were' from Authenticite: The Syliphone Years 


These regional orchestras were known as Orchestres Federaux, and together with Guinea's Orchestres Nationaux they were at the vanguard of musical production in Africa during the independence era. The Syliphone label's fame grew from these orchestras, and was elevated by the high calibre of the musicians who appeared on the recordings – artists such as Sékou "Diamond Fingers" Diabaté, Demba Camara, Kouyaté Sory Kandia, and, from South Africa, Miriam Makeba. Guinea's musicians toured all over the continent, as well as to Europe, the USA, Russia, Cuba, and South America.

The Syliphone label thus captured a moment in African history when a new nation asserted its voice and placed music at the forefront of its cultural identity. Their’s is a story that is intertwined with the political struggle for independence in Africa.

Authenticité

The independence movement commenced in Guinea before World War 2 aided by Sékou Touré, a young employee of the post office in Conakry. As the independence movement gathered strength President Charles de Gaulle visited the capital and in 1958 offered Guineans an opportunity to vote in a referendum on their nation’s future. With De Gaulle standing beside him Touré declared to the crowd “We prefer freedom in poverty to riches in chains”. Spurred on by this defiance Guineans were to vote overwhelmingly “non” to the referendum and on the 2^nd of October 1958 Guinea became an independent nation with Sékou Touré elected as the first president.

Sékou Touré was resolute in his determination to revitalise Guinean culture, and set about introducing the radical cultural policy of authenticité. Touré ordered that the government radio station cease playing all “foreign” music and that all orchestras throughout the nation be disbanded. Prior to his decrees, Guinean bands played French and Cuban music only, but Sékou Touré told them that if they couldn’t play the music of their own country then they should stop playing altogether. “Our music should rise up from a world which once degraded it through the practice of colonial domination", he stated. Under the authenticité program, Guinea’s musicians were instructed to create a new and modern musical style, and to draw their inspiration from the nation's rich cultural heritage.. Musicians such as Balla Onivogui, Keletigui Traoré, Momo Wandel and Kerfala “Papa” Diabaté travelled far and wide teaching the new orchestras how to play the trumpet, saxophone and electric guitar, and how to arrange and write original compositions. By the early 1960s the authenticité program was in full swing.

Bembeya Jazz National

Feted by Presidents, lauded with awards and prizes – not many groups in the world can boast such a legacy that of Bembeya Jazz. Their’s is a story that is intertwined with the political struggle for independence in Africa.

With the assistance of the local governor, the Orchestre de Beyla formed to act as their region’s orchestre moderne. The core of the band was its brass section, which featured the talents of Sékou Camara and Achken Kaba on trumpets. Other members included Sékou Diabaté on guitar, Hamidou Diaouné on bass and Mory “Mangala” Condé on drums. Orchestre de Beyla received their first break in 1962 when the group were recorded by Voice of America’s Leo Sarkisian for the Tempo label. President Touré had granted Sarkisian unfettered access to Guinea’s musicians and Tempo released a total of ten LPs.

Shortly after the release of their debut LP Orchestra de Beyla became more widely known as Bembeya Jazz, taking their name from the local river which ran through Beyla. The group increased its membership by adding two carpenters to the line-up – Demba Camara and Salifou Kaba, who shared the vocals. Bembeya Jazz did not have to wait long to find new successes, which came via the national arts festivals and competitions. Bembeya Jazz were the first orchestre moderne to win the competition twice, in 1964 and 1965, a feat recognised by the awarding in 1966 of the coveted title of National Orchestra. Bembeya Jazz National thus became the first of the regional orchestras to be nationalised. As a National Orchestra they were re-located to Conakry, where, as the newest member of Guinea’s select group.

The fourth Syliphone LP was to be Bembeya Jazz’s debut for the label, and their LP featured 10 tracks. Their first Syliphone LP, however, demonstrated a maturity which their Tempo release lacked, as expressed in the confident arrangements. The classic Bembeya mixture of bold brass lines transposed with sinewy guitar solos (not to mention the sublime vocals of Demba Camara) was only a year or two away…

Bembeya Jazz followed their Syliphone LP release with a number of singles including “Armée Guinéenne” which is without doubt one of the great African recordings from the 1960s. 

Bembeya Jazz National 'Armee Guineenne' from The Syliphone Years  

Leo Sarkisian played it frequently on his VOA programme “Music Time in Africa” and it still sounds fresh after 40 years. Sékou Diabaté’s guitar once again introduces the song, being supported by a rhythm guitar-like arrangement being played on the balafon, a traditional musical instrument akin to a xylophone. This is one the first examples of a balafon being used within modern orchestration in Guinean popular music and is thus emblematic of the authenticité campaign and cultural policies of Guinea’s government.

Not to be outdone, however, Bembeya Jazz were further propelled towards superstardom when in 1969 they released their seminal LP Regard sur le Passé, their second LP for Syliphone. Regard sur le Passé is surely one of Africa’s classic LPs, being both innovative musically and thematically. Containing just one track spread over both sides of the LP, the album is dedicated to Samori Touré, the resistance fighter who died in a Gabonese prison in 1900.

By 1973, and after recording many classics, Bembeya Jazz was now at the height of their popularity. The band had toured widely internationally and had recorded for 13 Syliphone LPs and 14 singles – more than any other Guinean group.

Bembeya Jazz National 'Mami Wata' from The Syliphone Years 

1973 also marked the year that brought great tragedy upon the band. Arriving in Dakar for a series of concerts several members of the group were transported from the airport in a chauffeur-driven car. En route their vehicle was involved in an accident, overturning and seriously injuring Demba Camara. Camara died later from his injuries, plunging Guinea into national mourning. Bembeya Jazz and Africa had lost a great artist and musician. As a tribute Syliphone released Mémoire de Aboubacar Demba Camara – a LP containing many of the singer’s finest tracks. His untimely death had a deep effect on the other members of the band and for three years Bembeya Jazz neither toured nor recorded.

Balla et ses Balladins & Keletigui et ses Tambourinis  

Balla Onivogui was born in 1938 in Macenta, a small town in Guinea's south-east near the border with Liberia. As a child he played the banjo and sometime in the early 1950s he took up the trumpet. His interest in music was formalised at the conservatory in Dakar, but while on a break from his studies he was swept up by Guinea's independence celebrations and, as a trained musician, was asked by the government to contribute to Guinea's cultural regeneration.

On January 15 1959, just a few weeks after independence, the Guinean government created the Syli Orchestre National, an orchestra which contained the best instrumentalists and which was led by “dedicated musicologists who were prepared to research and advance Guinea’s musical cultural heritage”. The orchestra were placed at the forefront of the authenticité program and among its founding members were Balla Onivogui, Pivi Moriba and Keletigui Traoré. The government assigned the orchestra's personnel the crucial task of training young musicians throughout the country in the basics of composition and technique. The Syli National Orchestre taught many of the groups who would go on to form the basis of Guinea's network of regional orchestras, and were thus fundamental in the creation of a West African modern orchestra style.

The government’s commitment which began with the Syli Orchestre National had quickly expanded, and Balla Onivogui was flown to Italy where he purchased instruments for no less than 60 orchestras. The Syli Orchestre National had also expanded, to the extent that the government split the group into smaller formations. For many years to come, however, the orchestra would be reformed for significant events, notably for the First Panafrican Cultural Festival held in Algiers in 1969, where they won the silver medal.

The split resulted in two new groups: Balla was nominated as the chef d'orchestre of one, while Kélétigui Traoré was assigned control of the other. Balla's orchestra took their name from one of Conakry’s best “bar dancing” venues, the Jardin de Guinée, a venue which still exists today. As the Orchestre du Jardin de Guinée they held a residency for 20 years, and it was here they honed their skills and competed with Keletigui's orchestra, their local rivals at the Bar de la Paillote.
Keletigui et ses Tambourinis 'Famadenke' from The Syliphone Years 

Both groups commenced recording at the Voix de la Revolution studio in Conakry in the mid 1960s, and when the Syliphone label was launched in May 1968 in the midst of a cultural revolution, their early recordings featured among the first releases. Known as the “intellectuals of Guinean music”, due to their "obsessive approach to musical research and performance", Balla et ses Balladins and Keletigui et ses Tambourinis were both a major force in Guinean music.

Balla et ses Balladins 'Sara '70' from The Syliphone Years

In 1970 a new group was formed, the Quintette Guinéenne, and were assigned to Miriam Makeba (who lived in Guinea from 1969 to 1986). All of the Quintette Guinéenne’s personnel (Sékou "Le Docteur" Diabaté, Kemo Kouyaté, Famoro Kouyaté, Amadou Thiam and Abdou Camara) were taken from Balla et ses Balladins, and they accompanied Miriam's concerts and recordings for the next two years. 1970 also saw Balla's orchestra being assigned a new lead singer, Emile "Benny" Soumah, who originally performed with Bafing Jazz, the Orchestre Federeaux of Mamou.




Miriam Makeba 'West Wind Unification' from The Guinea Years 


In the early 1970s Guinean music was at its peak. As the decade progressed, however, Sékou Touré’s rule grew increasingly despotic. His measures to silence opponents were both bloody and lawless, and coup after coup, both real and alleged, beset the nation. Attempts to regain control by closing borders and banning all private trade failed, and by the 1980s Guinea had become a pariah state. The nation’s dire economic situation forced a re-think of government policy. State monopolies and socialism gave way to a gradual privatisation of government enterprises, and in 1983 President Touré offered the national orchestras the choice of continuing as state-sponsored groups or being self-funded. The orchestras chose the latter, and so after 25 years of performing as civil servants with full sponsorship they were set free to follow their own course.

The following year, however, Guinea’s liberalisation came crashing down. On March 26 1984 President Sékou Touré died quite suddenly following a heart operation. A few days after his death a military coup led by Col. Lansana Conté successfully installed a new government. Conté’s régime dismantled Guinea’s policy of authenticité and funding for the arts was slashed. Most of the orchestras and arts troupes never performed again. Balla et ses Balladins disbanded and the musicians pursued their own careers.

Guinea's golden era of musical production, an era which saw Guinean orchestras tour the world and Syliphone release over 700 songs, had come to a close. The legacy of Sékou Touré, if one can possibly ignore the gross human rights violations, is one whereby Africans regained pride in their culture after decades of neglect under colonial rule. The songs which constitute the Syliphone catalogue are a remarkable testament of a nation which proclaimed its voice and the rights of its people through the policy of authenticité. Bembeya Jazz National, Balla et ses Balladins and Keletigui et ses Tambourinis were at the forefront of this cultural revolution, and their music continues to inspire audiences around the world.