Tukulanga
- Authors: Mzee Juma with Shirazi men , Hugh Tracey
- Date: 1950
- Subjects: Folk music--Africa , Folk music--Tanzania , Swahili-speaking peoples , Field recordings , Africa, Sub-Saharan , Africa Tanzania Zanzibar f-tz
- Language: Swahili
- Type: sound recordings , field recordings , sound recording-musical
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/179938 , vital:43252 , International Library of African Music, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa , TR171-07
- Description: The player takes some time to get into his rhythm. The first tune was played ith the instrument on the ground, the first fingers striking the notes downwards. The second tune was played with the instrument between the palms and plucked with the thumbs in the more usual manner. Instrumental tune, Marimba Madongo.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 1950
Wacheni tamaa (Do not covet)
- Authors: Ramadhani Fataki (Udi), Saidi Salum Nana (Mandoline) and Tatu Binti Jama , Hugh Tracey
- Date: 1950
- Subjects: Folk music--Africa , Folk music--Tanzania , Swahili-speaking peoples , Field recordings , Africa, Sub-Saharan , Africa Tanzania Tabora f-tz
- Language: Swahili
- Type: sound recordings , field recordings , sound recording-musical
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/179660 , vital:43130 , International Library of African Music, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa , TR170-10
- Description: The Arab influence is still strong up country particularly along the old Arab trading routes. All the seven items on this side of the disc represent an evening's entertainment spent with a Mohamedan Swahili family in Tabora whose taste in music leans towrds the Arab side of the family than the African. Two close friends who frequently play together in the evenings recorded these items. The wife of one of them provides some of the solos. They are typical, no doubt, of a musical evening at home by Swahili players anywhere in East Africa. All the items were recorded in the small sitting room of their Swahili home. The men singers sat around a table in the light of a parafin lamp and their veiled womenfolk sat on mats in the adjoining rooms, watching through the doorways. "Do not covet because there is no colour bar in jail. Even though you go to London and become a Barrister at law if you are in trouble you are in trouble just the same. I am a somebody at my home but prison they regard me as a nobody" Topical Taarab song, with 1 Udi, 1 Mandoline and 1 Duff tambourine drum (-14.91-).
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 1950
Bwana Moshi ufunguo nakupa wasia
- Authors: Moshi Ufunguo and his party , Hugh Tracey
- Date: 1950
- Subjects: Folk music--Africa , Folk music--Tanzania , Swahili-speaking peoples , Field recordings , Africa, Sub-Saharan , Africa Tanzania Tabora f-tz
- Language: Swahili
- Type: sound recordings , field recordings , sound recording-musical
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/179586 , vital:43121 , International Library of African Music, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa , TR170-04
- Description: The leader is well knon in Tabora as a cafe entertainer particularly for his humorous interjections - he starts by introducing himself by name. The record was made in a small room which serves as a club and opens out directly onto the street. The small xylophone was said to have come from the other side of Lake Tanganyika in the Congo from the Manyema people. Many members of Congo tribes have migrated into Tanganyika across the lake on account of the trade by the railway to coast used first by the Arabs and later by the railway to Dar-es-Salaam. The sons of these men who still claim to be tribesmen of the Congo were born in Tanganyika and speak and sing only in Swahili. The style is not local and perhaps originates in the Albertville region of Southern Congo. The tone of voice of these cafe singers is typical of those whose major payment is in kind, whic after a while blurs the edge of their voices and their performances. Humorous song, with Malimba xylophone x 8 and Basket rattle.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 1950
Swaluu-Alah maachini-l-imaan I
- Authors: Watoto wa Madrasa el-Hasanain , Hugh Tracey
- Date: 1950
- Subjects: Folk music--Africa , Folk music--Tanzania , Swahili-speaking peoples , Field recordings , Africa, Sub-Saharan , Africa Tanzania Dar-es-Salaam f-tz
- Language: Swahili
- Type: sound recordings , field recordings , sound recording-musical
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/179478 , vital:43069 , International Library of African Music, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa , TR169-11
- Description: All items on this disc are included as example of the African adoptation of Arabic styles of music on the coast. This choice is composed of 12 young Swahili boys with a man soloist (el-ustadh) and three teachers playing the "duff" tambourines. Arabic and the lingua franca, Swahili, are part of the inheritance of all the coast dwellers and on the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. It is interesting to note how easily these African born Swahili children appear to adopt Arabic music with far greater facility that the efforts of most African children to sing European songs Kasida, Moslem Religious chants, with 3 Duff frame drums (tambourines).
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 1950
Salumu sambusa
- Authors: Omari Saidi with Swahili men , Hugh Tracey
- Date: 1950
- Subjects: Folk music--Africa , Folk music--Tanzania , Swahili-speaking peoples , Field recordings , Africa, Sub-Saharan , Africa Tanzania Zanzibar f-tz
- Language: Swahili
- Type: sound recordings , field recordings , sound recording-musical
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/179929 , vital:43251 , International Library of African Music, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa , TR171-05
- Description: The Mkwaju dance is popular, they say, amongst the more African element of this Swahili population which also shows a tendency towards Arabian and sometimes to Indian music. The population of the island is complex and consists of representatives of several East African tribes in addition to Arab, Indian and Shirazi peoples, and their offspring of mixed marriages. The effect in terms of musical performances is equally complex without unanimity, a phenomena found in other communities of mixed tribal and national marriages. The xylophone is being used as a rhythmic and not as a melodic bass. As the singers wander away from the pitch set by the instrument and pay little or no regard to it. From the style of singing it is suspected that the melody comes from the coastal regions further south from the Makua people of Mozambique - No confirmation of this suggestion could be obtained largely on account of the fact that the performers were second or third generation of mixed marriages on the island. Mkwaju dance song for men, with Marimba xylophone box rattle (-12.61-) and 2 friction sticks (-12.61-).
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 1950