Zim Ngqawana: Sound, Song, and Humanity

AAJ: It's interesting that you talk about orchestration and European musicians. Chris McGregor and his Brotherhood of Breath had something really unique and new to say within that context. He brought together some sort of formal structure with total freedom, in a way. His big band was allowed to go where it needed to go.

ZN: A lot of things, like the Brotherhood of Breath... I am told... they used to tell me that when those cats landed in Europe—the sextet became a quintet when the tenor player died—they changed the scene in the UK. It was catching on, playing that way. People were playing straight, but these guys were playing inside/outside. And the people who understood that...

Well, again, Ornette [Coleman] and Don Cherry were going through London. They had Mongezi Feza on cornet and Dudu [Pukwana] on alto. And Don Cherry sounded like Mongezi—the same thing with Dudu and Ornette. They went mad! They said, "where are you from?" They didn't delay—they went into the studio the next day...these guys, they were never playing anywhere. So, it's the same thing I was talking about... what we need to rediscover.

AAJ: I hope it works. I hope you make those connections.

ZN: Again, this should be initiated by the government. It has to understand these things. Already we had our own orchestra here. That is not functional—they have stopped funding it. And the question is: what is it that they are going to fund now? Because they said that this orchestra is not reflecting the changes in the country. Why fund it? Because they are not creative people, they don't know how to fund.

We are here. We can be commissioned. Instead, we have to go and start material with our own funds so we can do this, so we can make a contribution to a growing country. To a dying continent. To a dying world. See, the world has used all of the status quo to mess up people—that's the problem. We have to find ways. It's a big problem, my brother. We have been made to believe that the problem is with Africa and all of this nonsense. The problem is with humankind, forever you will find this problem. All over, and difficult.

AAJ: I think you have a particularly difficult viewpoint, from the standpoint of the history of apartheid and the colonization of South Africa. That's a very heavy weight. It will take a long, long time for South Africa to lose that weight. It takes time. It's taken us a long time here.

ZN: You see, I'm also trying to move away from this kind of issue that is taught based on our history of slavery and all of it. It has a place. I understand and I can appreciate that. But that shouldn't blind us to modern slavery that is taking place right now. We have to address that to deal with it. And as I say, we are affected in many ways—most of South Africans. We have to deal with it. Because history can continue to divide us. You say, "you have a different history with slavery and all of that." But we have slavery going on right now! Other people say that "I and ours enslaved you and yours"—not knowing that we are all being enslaved right now. It's a problem. We have to find a way to elevate the arts and go through this lifetime and honor this.

We have a very very energetic personality in New York. And he's planning to do something substantial about it. My interests are to really work a lot in the States with musicians who have the same vision. And they are capable. Great composers, great arrangers who have been trained in both traditions—Western and African. We're talking about the great Yusef Lateef—who has written for orchestra, and he studied in Ghana and West Africa for years. We're talking about Randy Weston here. A lot of people who are capable.

I'm really marveling at what Wynton [Marsalis] is doing with the Lincoln Center. I wish we had a platform like that, my goodness, to address this in our small way. Government, again, should create such things.

AAJ: Wynton is quite controversial here.

ZN: We understand, we understand. But at least something is happening. It may be controversy, but something is happening. And it's not for wealth—it's for the betterment of everybody. He cannot hurt people that much. It may be controversial, but it's happening.

AAJ: I think that if you are a young musician in this country and you want to find opportunities, you usually go to New York.

ZN: Right. You have some good things happening in Chicago, though. Interesting music there.

AAJ: Yes. And historically, too. Chicago has been a great place for the music.

ZN: Yeah. That gave birth to the whole AACM movement. I managed to make contact with those folks there. And these are things that we need to work on, you know?

We managed to make a contact in the UK through the Brotherhood of Breath—Chris McGregor's movement. So yeah, we now have all these contacts we want to make to understand. We have to go out there to get that book, the Brotherhood of Breath book. Because that was our legacy. So I did a whole tour there with British musicians who had lived and played with those musicians, so we got a history from them. We got the book back home. And I'm told John Tchicai is now in LA, in California. We need to get in touch with him. All of this will be brought together and we can continue, now that we have the freedom to tap into this legacy.

That's what our independence means to me: that I can move freely and interact with the people I want to interact with in order to understand my legacy. I'm just taking advantage of it.

7. (Re)Inaugurating Drums, Dance, and Song

AAJ: Speaking of independence, let's go back to the inauguration. You led a group of drummers?

ZN: We had drummers and dancers. A troupe made of a hundred people: drummers, singers, and dancers. I conceptualized the whole thing. And I got the principles from every section. Drummers—I would choose in principle someone who understood the tradition very well. And they would lead that section. At that time I was also working with drummers, people who used to visit the country. The djembe, a highly refined drum sound of this continent—it has the widest range you can think of! So he'll be invited to lead that section when it comes to the instrumentation of that orchestra.

AAJ: How did you come to play this role?

ZN: At first they wanted a band. And I said to them: "What's going to happen to the traditional people? How are we going to tap into that?" There's about twelve different ethnic groups in South Africa. That became a problem. That is why we ended up with a hundred people.

I said that every ethnic group should bring their own drums, their own dancers, and their own song. And then we will combine that into a very very colorful thing. That is where we are now—trying to tap into that. I had never seen anything like that. Women playing drums... drums I'd never seen before. It's close to us! We were ignorant! We didn't know what we were dealing with. It was a serious education for us. So there is so much happening in this country that you won't believe. The kind of sounds I'd never heard before. Just imagine that now—if that gets notated properly—how it can advance so-called "jazz" theories, rhythmically and harmonically speaking.

AAJ: The drums are an obvious point for rhythm.

ZN: And dance! Dance is something! That's why you have to see dance. You see, that's why you have to see the whole thing in context: you have to see the drummers, the dancers, and the song. Then you understand that we're dealing with totality.

AAJ: It's too bad you don't have a recording of that.

ZN: That's a pity. They should have documented that. But, as I said, it can be recreated. It can be.

So we have a lot of work to do. But we're trying not to complain and do what we can do in our own small capacity. Personally, I would like to be dealing with that right now, but I don't have the right infrastructure or facility to do that. So with all of this constraint, I ended up working from the nucleus of a quartet. What can I do? I cannot do much. People are not prepared to lay down money for arrangements. More time in the studio, you know. Concerts. That is the issue with record companies that they have to start understanding: we wish to participate within the so-called "African Renaissance" context.

Zim Ngqawana Discography:

San, San Song (Sheer Sound, 1996). Zim Ngqawana (s, fl), Bjorn Ole Solberg (as,ts), Ingebrigt Haker Flaten (b), Andile Yenana (p), Paal Nilssen-Love (d).

Zim Ngqawana, Zimology (Sheer Sound, 1998). With Andile Yenana (p), Ingebrigt Haker Flaten (b), Paal Nilssen Love (d).

Zim Ngqawana, Ingoma (Sheer Sound, 1999). With Andile Yenana (p/v), Ingebrigt Haker Flaten (b), Paal Nilssen Love (d), Lefifi Tladii (poetry/art/chorus), Dumakude Msuthwana (tpt/chorus), Zim Ngqawana Jr. (chorus).

Zim Ngqawana, Zimphonic Suites (Sheer Sound, 2001). With Andile Yenana (p/v), Herbie Tsoaeli (b/v), Kevin Gibson (d).

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