kwela recordings

pdunn · Post by **pdunn** » Wed Sep 18, 2002 10:36 pm

Can anyone point me to a good source of relatively older kwela music. I have a Positively testcard cd that is excellent. Looking for 50's or 60's stuff. Forgive me if this has been discussed but I couldn't find the thread. A website that sells cd's would be great.
O. T. : I saw a kora player from South Africa last week. Can;t remeber the name right now, but he was astounding. It was one of the best concerts I've been to this year.
Thanks, Patrick

brewerpaul · Post by **brewerpaul** » Thu Sep 19, 2002 5:17 am

I'd like that list of older recordings too!! Kwela is some of the best stuff you'll ever hear.
Which Testcard to you have-- the 5 cut demo, or the long one ( with the lady putting whistles in the oven on the cover)?
I've got both, and my wife and I play them ALL the time, and go around humming the tunes in between. Dave Woodhead is a simply superb whistler, doing stuff you'd never believe was possible. Every whistler NEEDs the Testcard CDs

avanutria · Post by **avanutria** » Thu Sep 19, 2002 7:19 am

Dumb question time...what is kwela?

(I got up before 6, I'm allowed one dumb question, right?)

pdunn · Post by **pdunn** » Thu Sep 19, 2002 11:45 am

I've got the longer Positively testcard c.d.. It's great fun.

Avanutria,
Kwela is South African pennywhistle music. I recently came across a long description in a ethnomusicology resource that claims often bands had three or four whistlers, one or two playing the melody and the others providing chordal harmonic accopaniment. That's what I'd love to hear. It's infectious music really can't get it out of your head.
patrick

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Tue Sep 24, 2002 3:17 am

This is my first post. Excuse me if I get the mechanics wrong.

Unless there is a revival I don't know about, Kwela is a musical form that was very popular in Sth. Africa in the 1950's but which got replaced by other forms of township jive in the early 60's. The one post here with significant information gets it pretty much right. But much more information is available.

Go to the chapter on various forms of township jive in *The Rough Guide to World Music, vol 1* (You remember vol.1, it's the volume with the section on Irish music.) There's a couple of pages on Kwela there, several recommended recordings (about two), and the style is placed in the context of township music in general. (If you like kwela, you'll probably like much of the rest unless you view saxophones, eg, with the distrust usually reserved on this board for recorders.) Not much kwela is readily available outside SA (I think) but Gallo, Sterns and Earthworks are the labels most likely to deliver. I don't have more than a handful of tracks myself, even though I have lots of SA recordings in later styles. I play township jive on whistle myself quite a lot.

Now I had been hoping that those of you who comment on just about everything would point me in the right direction for acquiring a stack of kwela recordings; if not to this board where do you go? The silence has been deafening. I even got a copy of Chiff and Fipple a while back in which a couple of readers gave lists of the best whistle recordings. I was surprised to find no kwela on the lists. (It was surely one of the most popular and prolifically recorded styles of pennywhistle music to date.) I guess we know why now but the pundits might at least have publically acknowledged their very severe limitations; there are newbies here with an interest in whistles and whistle-music as such and not just ITM.

brewerpaul · Post by **brewerpaul** » Tue Sep 24, 2002 5:13 am

I'd again strongly recommend that everyone on this board at least check out Kwela. It is the most upbeat, cheery music imaginable. Look into the Positively Testcard website-- 4 distinctly non-African guys in South London making terrific music. Dave Woodhead does the whistle playing, and he's as good as ANYONE out there. Really. Amazingly virtuosic playing that will change the way you think about your whistle.

Tony · Post by **Tony** » Tue Sep 24, 2002 5:21 am

website
http://www.btinternet.com/~adam.keelan/
reviews
http://www.earthvibemusic.com/cd/testcard1.html
http://www.zotnet.net/~dennison/Woodhead.html

Mark_J · Post by **Mark_J** » Tue Sep 24, 2002 7:04 am

I wrote to this thread http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php ... 16&forum=1 some time ago to refresh my search from this thread http://chiffboard.mati.ca/archive/whist ... 39492.html.

There are 5 recent kwela recordings available here http://www.oneworld.co.za/display.cfm?Cat=Pennywhistle for around $41 US if you get them all together and the rand (SAR) hasn't made up much ground on the dollar (USD) since the last time I checked.

http://www.oneworld.co.za/

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Mark_J on 2002-09-24 09:09 ]</font>

TelegramSam · Post by **TelegramSam** » Tue Sep 24, 2002 7:44 am

fatveg · Post by **fatveg** » Tue Sep 24, 2002 9:46 am

This is such wonderful stuff -- although Ms. Veg is complaining that it sounds like the stuff they used to play on the testcard -- which is how they got their name, I guess.

There is a good background piece on their beautifully-named 'Anoraks' page (ask a Brit to explain) at http://www.btinternet.com/~adam.keelan/ ... oraks.html

Also, for those of you in the business, note the comment on the ordering page: <i>As far as we know our recordings aren't available at retail outlets or any other mail order companies outside the UK. Of course, if someone would like to distribute them....we'd probably be only too delighted to have a chat.</i> Any takers? perhaps C&F could start a Kwela revival!

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Tue Sep 24, 2002 10:06 am

Great work folks. This is precisely the kind of dust I was hoping to stir up. (I take it that was pdunn's original idea too.) Keep the info coming in please. Kwela is sublimely beautiful music that should be well-represented in every whistle lover's collection—if only we could get our hands on the reissue CDs that must exist.

Wombat will burrow around for more information. (Burrowing is what wombats do best.)

Mark_J · Post by **Mark_J** » Tue Sep 24, 2002 11:11 am

Here is a link to this stuff

on some web site I don't know anything about wrote,

pam 103 donald kachamba donald kachamba, born in blantyre, malawi, on october 18th, 1953, is considered on of the outstanding musicians-composers of the middle generation in southeastern africa. over the years he has developed compositional techniques and a very personal music with his group. the donald kachamba's kwela jazz band, liberating himself from the constraints of current african pop music styles. his music is deeply rooted in his childhood experience of kwela, sinjonjo, saba-saba, hauyani, simanje-manje and other southern african urban dance music genres of the 1950's and 1960's. this album , amply documented by prof. gerhard kubick, features his solo work where he overdubs himself on his nagra tape recorder.

It was a link on the Donald Kachamba web page on Scientific African's web site.
http://home.t-online.de/home/pamffm/seite12.htm

ChrisLaughlin · Post by **ChrisLaughlin** » Tue Sep 24, 2002 1:03 pm

I bought a stack of Kwela CDs from that Oneworld website a while ago. I took their time getting here but they are great CDs, in great condition, at a great price.
Best,
Chris

Martin Milner · Post by **Martin Milner** » Sat May 31, 2003 3:59 pm

brewerpaul wrote:Dave Woodhead does the whistle playing, and he's as good as ANYONE out there. Really. Amazingly virtuosic playing that will change the way you think about your whistle.

He certainly made me change the way I thought about Shaw whistles!

After seeing TPT play live (Limuhead & BrewerPaul turning green with envy!) I added a Shaw C and Bb to my D for kwela practise, because that's what Dave was using throughout. I asked him about them, and he said they give him the best performance for Kwela (Hohner whistles no longer being made).

LimuHead · Post by **LimuHead** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 1:32 pm

Martin Milner wrote:
He certainly made me change the way I thought about Shaw whistles!

After seeing TPT play live (Limuhead & BrewerPaul turning green with envy!) I added a Shaw C and Bb to my D for kwela practise, because that's what Dave was using throughout. I asked him about them, and he said they give him the best performance for Kwela (Hohner whistles no longer being made).

I'd love to see them play live! Oh well, maybe one day. And of course I will have to get the new CD whenever it becomes available.

p.s. Thanks for bringing this thread up again (I was unaware of its existence). I've enjoyed reading it.....