THANK YOU RHODES UNIVERSITY- GRAHAMSTOWN SA

John Kitime the founder and Managing Director of the Kitime Music Archive, in the month of October 2023, has been on a two week tour covering three regions, Tanga, Kilimanjaro and Arusha Regions. The tour has enabled the archive get interviews, music artifacts like audio cassettes, video cassettes and 2 TB of music in digital format. The trip also broadened the Archive’s network. Thanks to the International Library of African Music (ILAM) of Rhodes University of Grahamstown, South Africa, for funding the research tour possible.

Founded in 1954 by Hugh Tracey, ILAM is one of the world’s great repositories of African music. A research institution devoted to the study of music and oral arts in Africa, it preserves thousands of historical recordings going back to 1929 and supports contemporary fieldwork. The majority of its collections are digitized and accessible on its website www.ru.ac.za/ilam.
Now let us hear John Kitime’s story.

“The journey began in Dar es Salaam at dawn on the 16^th October, as I live on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam; I had to find a place to sleep near the RATCO bus station. On time the uneventful journey began and at about two o’clock in the afternoon we arrived in Tanga. I have always loved Tanga, when I was young we used to hear wonderful stories about Tanga, because of the huge sisal plantations that were around Tanga, teenagers from all over East and Central Africa went to Tanga to try to make a living. Any town full of teenagers gets to be full of fun.

My first stop was the Tanga Urithi Museum, this is a museum that is working on preserving the  Tanga heritage.  The museum is stationed in house of the former German Governor of German East Africa, later to be known as Tanganyika.

The tour around the museum was interesting, but to me what was obviously missing was music heritage. Tanga has always been famous for its great music groups, Taarab groups like Lucky Star and Black Star, bands like the Atomic Jazz Band, Jamuhuri Jazz Band, White Star Jazz Band and others. In the museum there was just alone photo of the legendary  Taarab singer Shakila Said. 

The Tanga Urithi Museum management was very understanding when I pointed out my observations, we agreed to work together to give the Tanga music heritage a space in the museum.

 

 TANGA DAY 2

I had arranged to meet Mr Ziggy Saidi of Atomic Jazz Band at his home in Ngamiani ward. Atomic Jazz Band was one of the oldest bands known in Tanga, it started as Tick Tack Band in 1954 by a young man whose first name was Dismas, he was of the Bondei tribe. The WaBondei are the original tribe in the Tanga area, even the name Tanga comes from the WaBondei meaning ‘a farm’. The importance of mentioning his tribe is comes from the fact that at the time social groups were mainly tribal, as mentioned before young men from all over East and Central Africa flocked to Tanga to look for employment in sisal plantations, these young men formed social clubs based on their origin. Dismas looked for fellow Bondei musicians and in 1961, the band changed its name to Atomic Jazz Band. One of the main reasons why Atomic Jazz Band was formed, was because youths from the WaNyamwezi tribe from Tabora  by 1955 had formed their own band which was known as the  Young Nyamwezi Jazz Band.

My host Ziggy Saidi joined the band in 1965. It was a happy meeting, several years had passed before we had seen each other, even though we spoke on phones several times, and on two occasions it was on very important music matter, which involved money. On one occasion, a Norwegian film company wanted to use a piece of one old Atomic Jazz Bands’ songs that was titled Hafidha, and all ended well the few remaining members of Atomic Jazz Band got some pocket money. In another occasion a local ‘superstar’ musician had rerecorded their song and they wanted me to help them in the issue, the matter ended with the ‘superstar’ paying these old musicians what they had requested.

Atomic Jazz Band in the 70s. From left to rightJohn Mbula -Saxophone,Rodgers- Vocalist, John Kilua- Congas, Julius Kiluwa,John Kijiko-Lead Guitar, Hemed Mganga-rythm guitar, kneeling down Mohamed Mzee-Bass Guitar.

Ziggy’s health was not good but we had lots of laughs. He phoned another surviving member of Atomic Jazz, Steven Hizza to inform him of my presence and also ask him if he had any photos of their younger days with Atomic Jazz Band, unfortunately Hizza did not have any photos.  Another sad thing was Ziggy did not have even Atomic Jazz Band songs. I promised him I would give him copies of all the Atomic Jazz Bands songs that I had.