http://www.kwela.co.uk Pennywhistle jive from South Africa Sun, 26 Jul 2009 09:10:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 http://www.kwela.co.uk/babatoni-the-kwela-bass/ http://www.kwela.co.uk/babatoni-the-kwela-bass/#comments Sat, 04 Aug 2007 17:57:59 +0000 chris http://www.kwela.co.uk/babatoni-the-kwela-bass/ 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!

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