Afrikanische Elemente im Jazz
– Jazzelemente in der populären Musik Afrikas
Today's musical developments in Africa show, from the viewpoint of social psychology, many parallels (Analogievorgänge) to earlier events on the American continent. Systematic study of musical acculturation in Africa therefore opens new possibilities for comparative jazz research. The encounter took place, however, mainly between musical forms of their own period. For this reason, and also for others, it would be misleading to compare contemporary Afro-American forms of music in North America with the music of particular populations in today's Africa. The author exemplifies his argument with a few cases of precedent: blues voicing in Yoruba fairy tale songs, "ragtime" elements in the malimba (lamellophone) music of the Azimba in the Zambezi Valley, and seeming "blues harmony" in the music of two mbira-players of the Ndau tribe recorded in 1969. What has influenced jazz is not so much the effect of particular ethnically distinct forms of African music as a common denominator of various African musical forms of the 17th and 18th centuries. This is the mainstream, the constant factor, that runs through Afro-American music and can still be traced in the most recent forms of black jazz. For comparative research in African and Afro-American forms of music, ethno-historical methods are being recommended.
Basing himself on the results of his own field work, the author finally contributes various data on the history of the influence which European (and also Sudan-Arabic) military music has exerted in Africa, with particular reference to Malipenga and Kamsoloti in Malawi, Mganda in Zambia and the flute orchestras in the Nile region, for instance the Azande.
He then covered the genesis and evolution of newer musical forms in Southern Africa, from Kwela and Phata-phata to the contemporary jazz of the Malombo Jazzmen etc., by providing data and record numbers for them.
Finally he traced the meaning and etymology of some terms of the newer African forms of music by reference to his field material. Words like "Kwela", "Highlife" and "jazz" appear to belong to similar regions of imagination.