ASSANAND & SONS MOMBASA LIMITED -A RECORD COMPANY THAT LEFT A MARK IN TANZANIA MUSIC HISTORY

 ASSANAND & SONS MOMBASA LIMITED was a hugely important recording company for Tanzanian musicians in the 50s and 60s. Hundreds of songs were recorded  and distributed by this company. The Assanand  label would even travel miles to get to musicians and record them. In one incident, sometimes in the early 60s, one of the Assanands  travelled to Morogoro to record the great Salum Abdallah of the Cuban Marimba Band. On arriving in Morogoro he was told the band was in Korogwe, so he began driving to Korogwe, the roads were bad then and  his car got stuck in  the mud. Confused and in desperate need for help, a group of women passed by decided to help him, they pushed the car out of the mud and he was able to continue with his journey. In Korogwe he met the band and told Salum Abdallah about the women who helped him, Salum came up with a song, 'Wanawake wa Tanzania' (Women of Tanzania). The song is still popular with women today. It is not possible to measure the full impact of Assanand's contribution to Tanzanian music .

Above is a letter from Assanand to Mr Francis Kitime, my father. He is being given instructions on the length of a song. The 78s records could only  fit songs shorter than 2 minutes 45 seconds.

FROM KITIME MUSIC ARCHIVE FILES -GALLO AFRICA KENYA BRANCH

 

I have always wondered how East and Central  African musicians released their music under the South African Gallo label. Here is a letter from Gallo South Africa to my father in reply to a letter which he wrote them from Iringa Tanzania on 19th November 1959, wanting  to released his music under the label. Now we know that Gallo Africa did have a branch in Nairobi. Fortunately I do also have a copy of the reply my father received  from the Mr. H. Hattersley of Gallo Africa Nairobi Branch.
Its fortunate that these documents are still available. History is a good teacher.

EDDY DETERMEYER, VISITS KITIME MUSIC ARCHIVE

 

Eddy Determeyer and John Kitime

On September 21, 2023, Kitime Music Archive received a very high profile visitor. Mr Eddy Determeyer. Mr Determeyer is a Dutch music journalist who mainly writes about jazz , improvised music and rhythm & blues , but is also active on the radio. Between 1964 and 1976 Determeyer organized many  jazz concerts in the Netherlands. Since 1972 he has written articles for newspapers, magazines and websites such as Jazzism and Doctor Jazz Magazine . He is also the author of several jazz books, including a biography of the American big band leader Jimmie Lunceford .

It was a pleasure being interviewed by Mr. Determeyer

EVERY GENERATION HAS ITS STANDARDS

When you listen to elderly music fans talking about music, you will hear them complaining about the standard of music, in terms of compositions and arrangement. And they will take you back to the times of Patrick Balisdya and the Afro 70 Band, David Musa and the Safari Trippers, and so on. But here is an article written during Balisdya's time, let us see what they thought of the music them.
The article was put together by Franklin Mziray a respected journalist of the time. PAMPHIL JOSEPH MARIJANI of Muhimbili had this to say, 'Music is passion. A musician must have a passion to be able to entertain his audience. Not everybody who plays a musical instrument is an entertainer. The status of music in our country is now very bad, in a few years there will no longer be talents as it was before. Let us take the example of Iddi Amin's invasion of our country, musicians then took a big part in encouraging everybody in the war efforts., but now in the last ten years, no song has been composed to show Tanzanians the importance of patriotism. This is proof that the older generation musicians had greater talent than the present musicians.

Our bands lack patrons who will permanently take care of them, they are left to wander about till they die'.

Another contributor was NDIBALEMA ALPHONSE a student at the University of Dar Es Salaam, who said the whole country understood the importance of music in bringing harmony among the people, but music must also be used to encourage people in development, something that had disappeared in the music'

What can you say about these observations?

KAROLA KINASHA VISITS KITIME MUSIC ARCHIVE

Veteran musician Karola Kinasha, this week visited the Kitime Music Archive. Apart from checking out the various articles in the archive, Karola contributed a copy of a VHS tape that has a video of her band's performance that was held in  1989 during the TOP TEN MUSIC competition, her band was called the Shada Group. The VHS  tape also had a video of a live performance by the late  Ndala Kasheba and his group. Zaita Musica.  

TANZANIA MUSIC ARCHIVE GETS IMPORTANT VISITORS

On August 16th 2023, the archive got a group of really high profile visitors. These visitors were highly learned people from different top universities. a two hour long discussion on various aspects of Tanzania music history took place. It was a great day.

The delegation included

1. Prof James Ogunde - University of Pretoria

2. Dr David Kerr - Oxford University

3. Dr Justin William- University of Bristol 

4. Thabita -University of Nairobi

5. Prof Shani Omari - University of Dar es Salaam

6. Prof Tom Mboya - University of Nairobi

7. Tabu Osusa  -  Ketebul Music Nairobi

8. Paul Kalembe - Ketebul Music Nairobi

9 Hashim Lubanza

10 John Kitime - Kitime music archive (the host)

John Kitime - first left with a cap talking to the delegation

From left Prof Shani, Thabita, John Kitime

From left - Paul Kalembe, Prof Tom Mboya, Tabu Osusa

 

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME

 My name is John Kitime, I first tested the sweet feeling of performing in front of a crowd in the mid-sixties when I was about 10. I participated in a school talent competition and sang a Harry Belafonte song called Jamaican Farewell. My father wrote me the lyrics of the song and I went on to win the competition. The feeling was awesome. I have never stopped performing.
In my life as a musician, I have been in several top bands in Tanzania, Orchestra Mambo Bado, Orchestra Makassy, Tancut Almasi Orchestra, Vijana Jazz Band, and the Kilimanjaro Band. I have also been a recording studio manager, chairperson of two Tanzanian music associations, the Secretary General of the Tanzania Musician Federation, and board member of the National Arts Council and the Copyright Society of Tanzania. 
To date I still have a weekly column every Saturday in the Mwananchi newspaper, I have been contributing for the last ten years, and I also run a weekly oldies radio program with the EFM Radio, the program has been on air since 2014.
In the years I have collected more than 200,000 songs, a lot of cassette tapes, reel tapes, VHS tapes, newspaper cuttings, radio recordings, and photographs related to music and musicians in Tanzania.
I have recently began creating a music archive, which is presently housed at the Nafasi Art Space, Eyasi Road, Mikocheni, Dar es Salaam.
This blog will be a window to the archive that I am creating. I welcome any contribution towards making the archive a place to enjoy for everyone.