One of the renditions from the school’s brass band was called Ol’ Comrades, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the politics of the broad church, blue wave or red berets.
The Ol’ Comarades I hereby refer to was a piece blurted out by barefooted schoolboys clad in khaki, producing magic on drums and various wind instruments.
Marching along at the front were barefooted schoolgirls wearing white hand-gloves.
With this in mind, I am going to borrow a plain English phrase inspired by my personal experience in recent days.
The catchphrase is called names-dropping.
That is, I am going to boast about having re-established contact with some of my better known ol’ comrades.
It all started after The Sunday Independent — a publication targeted at the highest end of the newspaper reading market — commissioned me to pay tribute to the late Malombo Jazzmen sensational crooner and acoustic guitarist, Dr Phillip Nchipi Tabane.
In the thousand-word article, I traced back the earlier days of malombo music, whereby I observed that as a youngster in the Pretoria township of Mamelodi, I watched Mr Aphane and his Northern Transvaal homeboys taking to the streets to campaign for him to become mayor.
We the supposed klevahs (streetwise) lined up the sidewalk to laugh at Mr Aphane and company, as they hit the streets whistling and dancing to their Sepedi rural “dinaka” and “malopo” repertoire.
It was when Tabane and his malombo duet partner, Gabriel “Mabe” Thoejane, were invited to the US Newport Jazz Festival that we had to take notice.
Mr Aphane’s homebrewed dance and song had become an international hit!
As part of the pre-briefing to write for The Sunday Independent, acting editor, Lebogang Seale, nudged me to source the comment of, among others, Hotstix Mabuse, Khaya Mahlangu of Sakhile fame, Vusi Mahlasela, Sello Galane and paintbrush artist and poet, Lefifi Tladi.
Eat your heart out, dear reader, for I am about to name-drop like nobody’s business here.
I could not immediately get hold of Vusi as he was busy with rehearsals at the Johannesburg Theatre.
I dropped a voice message, knowing very well that Vusi was too humble to ignore anyone’s message, especially from an ol’ comrade.
Indeed in no time my mobile rang and it was my ol’ comrade, Vusi, on the line.
We spoke briefly about the good ol’ days in Mamelodi, when Vusi sang soprano (like a schoolgirl!) for the Moretele Primary School eisteddfod choir.
Then we got into the business of how in his boyhood he heard Tabane playing on transistor radio, and how Vusi could not believe his ears when an uncle told him the guitarist was a resident of Mamelodi.
Sello Galane chose to borrow from a doctoral thesis he did on Tabane and malombo music, dating back to the original Malombo Jazzmakers featuring drummer, Julian Bahula, and wind instrumentalist, Abbey Cindi.
I did speak informally to both Hotstix Mabuse and Khaya Mahlangu, but my two ol’ comrades could not respond in time for The Sunday Independent’s strict deadlines.
– The Beat
