Die Verarbeitung von Kwela
, Jazz und Pop in der modernen Musik von Malawi
The paper is based on the author's research in Malawi and adjacent areas in 1962, 1967 and 1972. A major source of information are two Malawlan musicians, Mr. Daniel J. Kachamba and Mr. Donald J. Kachamba, with whom he has maintained close contact since February 1967 and who are now with him on a concert tour in Europe. The paper is subdivided into fourteen sections.
1. The evolution ot modern music in southern Africa
An importart stage was Kwela Khwela (Zulu language), it means: to climb, ascend, mount. The musical application of the word can be traced back to the "bombing" vocal style in South Africa. Basis of the KweIa groups were American dance bands playing commercial swing, jive and since 1955 rock 'n' roll. The flute set in the Kwela bands represented the saxophon set. Why did Whites like Kwela? There are musical and non-musical reasons. Kwela gradually disappeared in South Africa about 1962/1963.2. Expansion of the southern music forms
Though forgotten in the area of origin, Kwela music still flourishes on the periphery of its distribution area, particulary in Malawi, where it has assumed new forms. The political entity of a large territory in the 1950's comprising Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe was one of the causes why Kwela has a characteristic distribution area which is delineated by the combined borders of South Africa and the former Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.3. Sampling ot Malawian Kwela groups, February to October 1967
During a survey of Malawian traditional and modern music carried out on behalf of the German Africa Society in 1967, the author recorded and studied seven Kwela groups in various (often remote) parts of the country.4. Some common trends
Songs are mainly in Malawian vehicular languages, such as Cicowa and Citumbuka. Local languages are occasionally used. Songs in foreign languages such as Shona or Zulu are learned phonetically from records. The band leader is usually the guitarist or banjoist. Malawian Kwela is instrumental and vocal. Songs are topical and refer to current events of personal, communal or political interest. Band names were found in four out of seven cases. The founder of a Band often receives his principal inspiration from a journey outside Malawi. The age of band members was mainly between 10 and 25 in 1967. The instruments, Kwela-flute, guitar, banjo, one-string bass and rattle show remarkable conformity in outlook and techniques of manufacture throughout Malawi. Guitars were played with five strings. While Kwela bands in remote villages are usally poor in quality, the standard of performance is high in near-town areas.5. Daniel J. Kachamba and his Brothers
The personal history of the two brothers Daniel and Donald, who were living with their parents in Salisbury between 1957 and 1961, corresponds in many respects with the migration route of the new musical forms.6. Origin, adaption and transformation of musical material in a Malawian group: The Kachamba Brothers' Band
Popular music from America reached Malawi in the South African adaptations, which were already strongly reafricanized. Though popular music in Malawi shows Jazz influence, the impact of American music was not direct, but through the South African intermediary. Malawian musicians in the social milieu of Kwela music were rarely confronted with Jazz. Records from South Africa heard on the friends´ grammophone were the main influence. An analysis of the title "Chipiloni", played by the Kachamba Brothers, shows various stages of transformation of Glenn Miller's "ln the mood". The 12-bar Blues form is reduced to a 10-bar form in Kachamba's version. Donald's variations on the flute are jazz-idiomatic and more improvised in the Jazz sense of the word than those of his South African counterparts. The title "Shabanje ukili mama" in Kachamba's repertoire can be traced back to a record by Dorothy Masuka. An example of adaptation and transformation of Pop music is Atha Cornell's "Sweet Soul Music" which figures in Kachamba's repertory. Sometimes only a short motif from a record is sufficient to inspire Daniel Kachamba to compose a new song; a short melodic pattern in "Hula Mahula" by Spokes Mashiyane and the Melody Sisters was the starting point for Kachamba's "Malawi motto". Most songs in Kachamba's band are, however, composed by Daniel himself. Various events of personal concern, i. e. a concert in a girls' secondary school, an accident of his young brother inspire him to invent new songs.7. Show and relations with the public
Show has been suppressed in Jazz, whose promoters were often striving for its "emancipation" within European musical culture. But show is most important in Africa. It reflects a conception where drama, music and dance can form an entity. When African musical traditions that are based on intensive communication between musicians and dancers are transferred into a concert hall with a physically non-participating audience of "listeners", the show element can become increasingly important and assume a compensatory function.8. Forms of motion and dance terminology
The new dance styles are essentially a modern tradition. There are few direct links with traditional dancing. The motions of Jive, Twist, Rock and other dances were employed, but the American dance patterns were reafricanized and new motions were integrated. Dance names and terminology are not consistent over wider areas. Terms like Twist Sinjonjo, Shake-shake have a variant meaning in different areas. The modern shake seems to have originated in South Africa and not in America. Saba-Saba was one of the oldest forms of modern music in Malawi. Then came Jive in the Fifties, finally Simanje-manje .9. Malawi as a borderland of overlapping influences
Modern traditions from South Africa and Central Africa overlap in Malawi. There were two waves of Congolese influence: from the Copperbelt in the fifties and from Kinshasa after about 1964. Rumba and Chachacha items have been integrated into the Malawian Kwela repertory, maintaining Kwela instruments. With Rumba (pronounced Lumba), "time-line" bottle patterns have also been adopted in the Kwela context. Merengue is unknown.10. Musical instruments
This section gives a detailed description of the Kwela-flute, the guitar, banjo, rattle and one-string bass, with reference to the etymology of local names, tuning and playing techniques. Daniel Kachamba uses eight different tunings for his guitar: Key G high six, LG, Hauyani, Spanish, Full C, Half C, Key G and Paina. Breaking of strings No. 1, 3 and 5 is considered to be a bad omen.11. Learning and teaching within the new Malawian tradition: oral notation, short harmonic patterns, multi-part singing
For teaching guitar the teacher employs syllabic patterns to characterize sound and accentual units in the rhythmic-melodic patterns taught, i. e. ke-nje-nge-nje ke-nje-nge-nje for a guitar pattern to accompany Jive and Twist. An analysis of the sound structure of such patterns shows consistency of this oral notation system over wide areas in Black Africa. The guitar basis is linear in concept and cannot be interpreted as "strumming the three common chords". The "chords" unravel several inherent lines which are offen fragments of voice parts. Multi-part singing in the Kachamba Brothers' Band is basically traditional and shows reminiscenses of an equiheptatonic tone system, as well as links with musical bow harmonies.12. Older forms of acculturated music in Malawi
They include Saba-Saba, Makwaya and Hauyani. Ndiche Mwarare is one of the most importart exponents of the Hauyani style. His life story is typical of a generation of musicians in the fifties who played bottle-neck guitar in the "Hawaiian" (Hauyani) style.13. Simanje-manje
This Zulu term, meaning "things of now-now", "things of today", refers to the new popular music in South Africa. It is not a name for a dance; there can be simanje-manje lumba, simanje-manje sinjonjo etc. Kachamba has played simanje-manje before 1967 in Malawi, but he used to refer to the rhythm employed as "double-step". In Malawi simanje-manje is characterized by a certain (harmonic) ostinato bass figure.14 . Conclusions
There is now a trend towards employment of electrically amplified guitars. Musicians of the Kwela tradition in Malawi now take to Simanje-manje. Radio small audience surveys have shown interest in Jazz and Highlife. They are, however, only representative of minority tastes, of the minority which answers radio questionnaires. It is characteristic of the Malawian scene that musicians were confronted with reafricanized versions of North and Latin American music, coming in mainly from South Africa and the Republic of Zaire. An analysis of the Malawian repertory of Rock, Twist, Rumba and Simanje-manje music shows a long-way process of adaptation, modification and transformation.