The Kwela Project » Broadcast

Shisa Phata Phata

chris — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:44:40 +0000

Its about time there was some practical, hands-on music around here, and to this end I’ve transcribed|arranged|made-up the short and sweet solo section from Spoke’s Mashiyane’s song called ‘Shisa Phata Phata’ (composed by a ‘R. Msomi’).

Phata Phata was a popular dance “down Jo’burg way” (or sometimes “down Gauteng way“) as Miriam Makeba reminds us in her famous song Pata Pata. Shisa (does anyone know what ‘Shisa’ means?) Phata Phata is a different tune to Miriam & Spokes Phata Phata (which can be found on the rather good Miram Makeba – Her Essential Recordings: The Empress of African Song album), but I strongly suspect that Miriam is singing in the original recording (New Sound GB.2975).

Shisa Phata Phata solo, played by Spokes.

More about Donald Kachamba

chris — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:40:02 +0000

Following on from my last post about the Kachamba Brothers, I decided to try and find out more.

First of all, I found some interesting photographs of Donald and ‘friends’ jamming together. These pictures were taken by Rike and Henrik Bettermann when they visited Chileka in Malawi as part of their 1996/97 tour of West and South Africa. One of the pictures is the same as the babatoni picture in an earlier post about babatoni – the kwela bass. A linked page contains a biography for Donald Kachamba, and notes that he died on 12 January 2001.

Shortly before Donald died, he was an artist-in-residence (November 1999 until July 2000) at UCLA’s Department of Ethnomusicology. Christie Burns (a.k.a Dulcimergirl) was one of the students that worked with Donald during this time, and she presents some of her memories, and a great recording of the students and Donald together, in her music blog.

You can get hold of the UCLA course material; a song/essays book, and a CD recording (including the tune in Christie’s blog). I’ll review my copies here, just as soon as they arrive from Amazon.

Babatoni, the Kwela Bass

chris — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 17:57:59 +0000

Back in June there was a blip in the visitor stats that was the result of a link to the Kwela Project from a post in the Banjoroots Yahoo group. The post was about Africa-American single-stringed instruments, and as well as mentioning the renowned ethnomusicologist Gerhard Kubik (who happens to play clarinet in Donald Kachamba’s Kwela Heritage Jazz Band), it talks of the babatoni – South African washtub (well, more accurately, tea-chest) bass. Babatoni, aka Kwela Bass, is just one instance of a vast, worldwide class of single-string bass instruments. So now, when you listen to kwela – listen to what is happening in the bottom-end, far from the wailing pennywhistle. Maybe that’s a babatoni you’re hearing!

Buskaid to play at BBC Proms

chris — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 15:26:03 +0000

The City of Johannesburg website reports that the Buskaid Orchestra of Soweto will be performing as part of the BBC Proms in London on Sunday 15 July.

Buskaid plays mainly classical music, with a fusion of classic pop and kwela.

You can find out more about Buskaid in the Kwela Project’s post “Unite with the Buskaid Soweto String Ensemble“.