South African Jazz and Exile in the 1960S: Theories, Discourses and Lived Experiences
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South African Jazz and Exile in the 1960s: Theories, Discourses and Lived Experiences Stephanie Vos In fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Music Royal Holloway, University of London September 2015 Declaration of Authorship I, Stephanie Vos, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: Date: 28 August 2016 2 Abstract This thesis presents an inquiry into the discursive construction of South African exile in jazz practices during the 1960s. Focusing on the decade in which exile coalesced for the first generation of musicians who escaped the strictures of South Africa’s apartheid regime, I argue that a lingering sense of connection (as opposed to rift) produces the contrapuntal awareness that Edward Said ascribes to exile. This thesis therefore advances a relational approach to the study of exile: drawing on archival research, music analysis, ethnography, critical theory and historiography, I suggest how musicians’ sense of exile continuously emerged through a range of discourses that contributed to its meanings and connotations at different points in time. The first two chapters situate South African exile within broader contexts of displacement. I consider how exile built on earlier forms of migration in South Africa through the analyses of three ‘train songs’, and developed in dialogue with the African diaspora through a close reading of Edward Said’s theorization of exile and Avtar Brah’s theorization of diaspora. A case study of the Transcription Centre in London, which hosted the South African exiles Dorothy Masuku, Abdullah Ibrahim, and the Blue Notes in 1965, revisits the connection between exile and politics, broadening it beyond the usual national paradigm of apartheid politics to the international arena of Cold War politics. The final chapters present an extended case study of the South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim’s early years of exile – a period that has received little attention in music scholarship. I trace the notions of ‘home’ and ‘exile’ in the biography, musical thought and music practices of this iconic figure of South African exile. Finally, I argue that exile is a state that is always in flux, and theorize ambivalence as a key trope of exile. 3 Acknowledgments A thesis may be written by one author, but it is the product of many people’s input, encouragement and support. First and foremost I thank my supervisor, Tina K. Ramnarine for her guidance and unfailing encouragement throughout my studies. I also thank the Royal Holloway Department of Music, which provided a supportive environment throughout my studies, and our Director of Graduate Studies, Julie Brown, in particular. I gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance of the Reid and Crossland Scholarships that made my studies at Royal Holloway possible, and the University of London Grant and Butler Travel Award that enabled me to visit the Schomburg Center and Harry Ransom Center’s archives in 2013. I also received various grants from the Department of Music’s research funds that enabled me to present my research at conferences, from which my project greatly benefited. To the archivists and librarians at various institutions for their invaluable assistance and guidance through the collections, I express my thanks: the staff members at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the Jazz-Institut Darmstadt, and the British Library and its Sound Archives. I also thank the people who generously shared their memories in interviews and casual conversations. I gratefully acknowledge Dr Rob Gaylard’s assistance in proofreading the final text. For their help with various tasks that lay beyond my field of expertise or geographical reach, I thank Simthembile Xeketwana and Akhona Ndzuta for their help with translations and interpretations of the song texts; Lé-Niqué Brand for assisting me to source the Dollar Brand columns at the National Library in Cape Town; and Sophia Ivanetic for typesetting the music examples. My experiences of student life in London were enriched by friendships that were sources of inspiration on many levels. Thank you to my fellow travellers on the PhD path: Carina Venter, who was a soundboard from the very inception of the thesis, and Annika Forkert, Clare Brady, Ester Lebedinski, Simran Singh, and Laryssa Whittaker. 4 For their encouragement, for keeping me in good cheer, and for all manner of practical support, thank you to Lorita Christelis, Hesti van der Westhuizen, Tjaart van Wijck, Emile Roosenschoon, Ilze and Reinhard Streicher. To my family and especially to my parents, Deon and Beth Oosthuysen, who raised me with the maxim that I can do anything I put my mind to, and my sister Ena van den Berg and her family, who never failed to delight me with the reminder of life beyond the insularity of academia – thank you for the manifold ways in which you supported me. Finally, I express my deepest gratitude to Chris for embarking on this path with me – to whom I dedicate this thesis. 5 Table of Contents A Note on Names ......................................................................................................... 8 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 9 Chapter 1 Exile and Migration: Performing Connections through the Metaphor of the Train ................................................................................................................................ 34 Chapter 2 Establishing (Musical) Relationships: Exile and Diaspora .................................... 77 Chapter 3 The Transcription Centre as Cultural Node: A Study in the Politics of Performance Space in South African Exile ............................................................................... 108 Chapter 4 On Exile and Becoming: Departures and Returns in the Life and Music of Dollar Brand/Abdullah Ibrahim in the 1960s .................................................................. 158 Chapter 5 Towards an Interpretive Framework: Musical Thought in the Writings of Dollar Brand .................................................................................................................... 182 Chapter 6 Musical Configurations of Place: Dollar Brand’s ‘Honeysuckle Rose’ and ‘Anatomy of a South African Village’ ................................................................. 205 Retrospectives .......................................................................................................... 228 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 237 Appendix 1 Schematic Comparison of Two Recordings of Zim Ngqawana's ‘Migrant Worker Suite’ .................................................................................................................... 251 6 Table of Figures Figure 1: Transcription of ‘Mbombela’s accompaniment. ........................................ 50 Figure 2: Transcription of ‘Stimela’s accompaniment. .............................................. 56 Figure 3: Transcription of the piano riff of the main section of ‘Amagoduka’. ........ 60 Figure 4: List of music programmes recorded at the Transcription Centre. ............ 131 Figure 5: Dorothy Masuku's setlist for the BBC English-speaking Union concert, recorded on 22 February 1965. ........................................................................ 136 Figure 6: ‘Peace – Salaam – Hamba Kahle’ by Dollar Brand/Abdullah Ibrahim. ... 177 Figure 7: Fats Waller, ‘Honeysuckle Rose’, 1934 recording (00:06-00:15). ........... 210 Figure 8: Dollar Brand, ‘Honeysuckle Rose’ (00:29-00:38). .................................. 210 Figure 9: Dollar Brand, ‘Portrait of a Bushman’ from ‘Anatomy of a South African Village’, left hand ostinato (03:07 onwards). ................................................... 219 Figure 10: Dollar Brand, ‘Portrait of a Bushman’ from ‘Anatomy of a South African Village’, left hand ostinato variation (07:06 onwards). ................................... 219 Figure 11: Dollar Brand, ‘Heyt Mazurki’ from ‘Anatomy of a South African Village’ .......................................................................................................................... 221 Figure 12: Schematic representation of ‘Heyt Mazurki’’s form (in black font) and twelve-bar blues form (in grey font). ............................................................... 223 Figure 13: Patterns in ‘Heyt Mazurki’ ..................................................................... 224 7 A Note on Names The quest to reclaim and reframe identities in the wake of decolonization is evident in the number of artists and authors I mention in the thesis who changed their name. As a general rule, I use the names that the artists and authors go by today. The exception is the case study of Abdullah Ibrahim (formerly known as Dollar Brand) in the last four chapters: in this case I use the name that was in current use at the time. The reason for this is two-fold. First, Ibrahim’s adoption of his new name, Abdullah Ibrahim in 1968, occurs in the timeframe with which my writing is concerned (roughly between 1965 and 1969), and indeed Chapter Four discusses the significance of this shift. The discrepancy in the names occurring in the text betokens this transition. Second, this approach ensures consistency between the written text and the sources