Jazz as discourse: A contextualised account of contemporary jazz in post· apartheid Durban and Johannesburg Nishlyn Ramanna Dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities, Development, and Social Sciences; University of KwaZulu-NataJ Supervisor: Professor C. Ballantine June 2005 Declaration I hereby declare that this dissertation, unless otherwise indicated in the text, is my own original work. This research has also not previously been submitted to any other institution for degree purposes. Signature: _ Student number: 901301260 June 2005 ii Abstract This study offers an ethnographically contextualised close reading of the music played by three 'jazz' groups in eight concerts held in Durban and Johannesburg between June 1994 and December 2003. These performances were videotaped and then analysed with reference to 1) the compositional and improvisational techniques employed in the creation of the performances; 2) the stage behaviour of the musicians; 3) audience behaviour, and 4) the physical contexts in which the performances occurred. The performances constitute the primary texts on which this study is based. Secondary texts, in the form of discourse produced because of the concerts, are also examined. These take the form of open-ended interviews with thirteen participant musicians and twelve audience members. The primary and secondary texts are then compared with each other and situated within their broader musical and social contexts. This exploration of the ways in which social processes inhere in musical processes draws on a notion of expressive discourse as 1) a multifaceted practice in which textuality, subjectivity, place, history, and power function as interdependent parts of a complex social ecology and 2) a dialogically-constituted system of utterances. The study then argues that musical details articulate social meanings - and thus function as utterances - because of their dual existence within 1) systems of intra- and intertextual relationships and 2) processes of dialectical interaction between texts and socio-historical contexts. Hi Acknowledgements This dissertation is a whole that is smaller than the sum of its parts. Like the music it discusses, it is a product of a web of professional associations and friendships that have impacted deeply on my thinking and writing. I am especially indebted to Christopher Ballantine for kindling my interest in this topic and for his sensitive supervision ofthis work. I would also like to thank Carol Muller for expertly guiding me through the initial stages of the research process. To St. John's College, Cambridge, I am most grateful for a six-month scholarship which gave me a break from teaching and allowed me to focus on research. At John's I was very privileged to work with Roger Parker, whose prescient comments helped me improve my writing skills. Many thanks also to David Bunn at the Wits School ofArts for generously sharing his formidable expertise in ethnography and cultural theory with me. I am deeply grateful to colleague, mentor, and friend, Christine Lucia, for many, very careful and critical readings of earlier drafts of this document. To the interviewees Ralph Adendorff, Christopher Ballantine, Michael Blake, Darius Brubeck, Kreesan Chetty, Marion Dall/Caldwell, Feya Faku, Lex Futshane, Neil Gonsalves, Siya Makuzeni, L10yd Martin, Chris Merz, Carlo Mombelli, the late Magandiren Moodley who died after a long battle with cancer on 1 June 2005, Mageshen Naidoo, Melvin Peters, Deepak Ram, Dinga Sikwebu, Bongani Sokhela, Stacey van Schalkwyk, Kerryn Scott, Jan Schoemann, Gisele Turner, Marcus Wyatt, and Seena Yacoob, my sincere thanks for sharing your time and intelligence so kindly and freely. I've really enjoyed the challenge of engaging with your thought-provoking ideas and observations. I also extend my deep appreciation to Carina van Rooyen for innumerable and highly productive dialogues, for the best digs in Jo-burg, for books lent, and for reading several drafts of this document. Thanks again to Stacey van Schalkwyk for lending me her copy of "the Berliner" as well as various other books and readings; Seena Yacoob for helping me through the first stages of the writing process; Lara Alien for her comments on chapters 5 and 6; Kelly Luck, Brett Pyper, and James Dibley for comments on parts of various chapters; Anu Idicula, Vasu Reddy, and Yusuf Vahed for assistance with proofreading and printing. Finally, I would like to thank my first piano teacher, Mrs. M. J. C. Naidoo, for introducing me to the joy of music-making and for (persistently!) reminding everyone that music matters. IV To my parents v Contents List of figures vii 1. Introduction 1 (Re)Current themes in popular music analysis 3 Discourse 6 Fieldwork 12 Overview of thesis 17 2. Fieldwork 22 Groups considered 22 Concerts 25 Counterculture: Howard College Theatre; 3/6/94 26 Counterculture: Rainbow Restaurant; 5/6/94 33 Mosaic: Durban Art Gallery; 21/3/95 36 Mosaic: Centre for Jazz and Popular Music; 26/5/95 43 Mosaic: Centre for Jazz and Popular Music; 10/12/95 45 . The Prisoners of Strange: Bassline; 3/8/03 47 The Prisoners of Strange: Queenies; 2/11/03 58 The Prisoners of Strange: Wits Theatre; 11/12/03 60 Interviewees 62 3. Local jazz as musical discourse 68 Genre 68 Genre as a horizon of expectations and field of aesthetic possibilities 68 Local jazz, 'mainstream' jazz, and African American musical culture 75 Improvisation and composition 88 Composition as improvisation 89 Improvisation as composition 90 ~m ~ Chorus forms 93 Complex forms 94 P~ 00 Tonality, modality, and atonality 96 Melody 101 Harmony 105 Rh~hm 111 Beat, metre, and tempo 111 Four-beat; two-beat; backbeat; double-time; break; stop-time 115 Timbre and texture 120 Timbre 120 Texture 122 4. Local jazz as idiocultural discourse 128 Generic space as Idiocultural space 131 On being 'into' jazz 132 'Jazz' as a subjectively-defined horizon of expectations 135 Textual space as idiocultural space 139 Genre, text, and (musical) taste 141 Text as metaphor 152 vi 5. Local jazz as spatiotemporal discourse 159 Architectural space 160 Venue as socio-historical space 161 Genre, text, idiocultural context, and venue 164 Geographic space 170 Locale as socio-historical space 171 6. Local jazz as political discourse 188 Power/idiocultural contexts 194 Actors 195 Actors/Subject position 209 Power/spatiotemporal contexts 227 Actors/Subject position/Theatres 228 Actors/Subject position/Theatres/Capital 239 Actors/Subject positionlTheatres/Capital/Scripts 243 7. Turnaround 253 Bibliography 255 Primary Sources 255 Video recordings 255 Scores/Lead sheets 255 Interviews 257 Programmes 258 Archival sources 258 Secondary Sources 258 Discography 268 Appendix 270 Notes to accompanying CD 270 vii List of figures 1-1: Overview of thesis 21 2-1: "Ngu Makazi" opening melody 28 2-2: "Ngu Makazi" bass ostinato 29 2-3: "Give five" - opening of piano a/ap 30 2-4: "Give five" - main theme 30 2-5: "Sui Zen" - bass ostinato 31 2-6: "Give five" - bass ostinato for flute solo 38 2-7: "Beaton Way" - opening melody and groove 39 2-8: "Child's play" - opening 41 2-9: "A tribute to my friends" - opening 42 2-10: "Sunlove" - opening loop 48 nd rd th 2-11: "Sunlove" - 2 , 3 , and 4 loops 49 2-12: "Sunlove" - main theme 49 2-13: "Sunlove" - beginning of head out 50 2-14: "King Ferd the third" - bass groove 51 2-15: "King Ferd the third" - opening melody 51 2-16: Opening of "I drank my coffee and dreamt" 53 2-17: Final bars of "I drank my coffee and dreamt" 54 2-18: "Ethical Sam's cookery class" 55 2-19: Conclusion of "Ethical Sam's cookery class" 57 2-20: Subject positions of interviewees 66 3-1: Dual accentuation scheme 80 3-2: The beat as an elliptical figure 80 3-3: Improvised calls and responses 81 3-4: "Beaton Way" - composed calls and improvised responses 82 3-5: "Take the A Train", bars 29 - 2 83 3-6: "Blue in green", bars 8 - 6 83 3-7: "All blues" bass groove 83 3-8: "Sui Zen" bass groove 83 3-9: Stratified, percussive musical texture 85 3-10: "Gismonti" 85 3-11: "Autumn leaves" 93 3-12: "Satin doll" 94 3-13: "Quite candidly" 94 3-14: "Infant eyes" - underlying harmonic structure 97 3-15: "All these worlds" - underlying harmonic structure 97 3-16: "Pentatonic" and "hexatonic" versions of raga 100 3-17: "Up and down" - modality and functional harmony 100 3-18: "How high the moon" 102 3-19: "Ornithology" - irregular phrasing 103 3-20: "Up and down" 103 3-21: "All these worlds" 103 3-22: "Morning sprite" 104 3-23: "A tribute to my friends" 105 3-24: "The Midwest coast" - melodic fourths 105 3-25: Chick Corea's (1968) "Now he sings, now he sobs" 108 viii 3-26: "Child's play" - irregular rhythmic structure 112 3-27: "Mango picker" 113 3-28: "I drank my coffee and dreamt" 114 3-29: "Four-beat" 115 3-30: Two-beat bass-line 116 3-31: Two-beat 117 3-32: Double-time four-beat 118 3-33: Overview of chapter 127 4-1: Overview of chapter 130 4-2: Overview of present section 141 4-3: "Sui Zen" - 5th-mode harmonic minor and Japanese scale 144 4-4: "Give five" 145 4-5: G7 Altered chord and G Diminished whole-tone scale 154 4-6: "G Force" 155 4-7: The musical text as metaphor 155 5-1: Variously consonant and dissonant instances of text/context interaction 166 5-2: "Child's play" 178 6-1: Overview of chapter 190 6-2: Vectors expressing power relations within a particular theatre 193 1 1. Introduction What does it mean when this performance (of this work) takes place at this time, in this place, with these participants? (Christopher Small, 1998: 10) You can't help but smile to yourself - and I think the audience does ­ and you say, "This is South Africa.