DAY 2 IN MOSHI, I GET SHOCKED

On Friday 20^th October 2023 I woke up feeling very refreshed, at about 9 am, I got a call from Mister Mshana my host in Moshi, he was checking up on me, and we agreed to meet at a tea shop that was very near the lodge where I was staying. The tea shop was a very nice place owned by an Indian couple, who made different kinds of tasty bites that were perfect for breakfast.

At ten we met at the tea shop and discussed our timetable for the day, Mshana had arranged that we would meet a 70 years old guitar player from the 60s who surely would have a lot to tell us on the music scene in Moshi during his younger days. Also this morning we had planned to meet Kaluu who was the member of Orchestra Zaire Success, the one I had planned to give the photo of him with his old band. It was at this time that Mshana gave me shocking information; Kaluu had died five years ago!!!

I had really counted on meeting Kaluu, who I knew had long stopped playing music but had information that he now had a small workshop where he repaired electronic gadgets. The news that he was no more, and he had infact departed five years ago was so sad and so disappointing. Penaa, one of Kaluu’s son had inherited his father’s profession and was running his father’s workshop, so we decided to visit him. We got to the workshop and were told he had gone out to look for spares. And we decided to got to the second of Mshana’s contacts, this was the 70 years old guitarist. When we arrived at our meeting point, we realized that the old man was now selling traditional medicine by the side of the road, he was busy and he told us to wait for him while he attended his clients, for sure he was quite popular because it seemed like the stream of customers just didn’t seem to end. We decide to go back to the workshop and meet Penaa, we would get back to the guitarist afterwards. Penna was back in his  workshop and he was a very friendly and welcoming guy. He confirmed to us that his father had died 5 years ago. I handed him the photo that I had thought I would hand it over to his father, Penna recognized his father, and promised to give the photo to his mother. I promised that I would try to meet his mother and get to know more about the people in the photograph. We went back to the guitarist, he wasn’t there he had closed shop.

Orchestra Zaire Success - Kaluu standing second from right

It is claimed that Orchestra Zaire Success, Orchestra Super Veya and Orchestra Fauvette, came into Tanzania from Congo at around the same time. Zaire Success settled in Moshi, Super Veya Settled in Mwanza, and Orchestra Fauvette put its base in Dar es Salaam, but thats another story.

Mr Mshana had arranged for me to meet another old man whose name was Pius, we were to meet at the Uhuru Park. Mr Pius was another very interesting person, he loved reading books. He would get a book and find a quite seat at the Uhuru Park and enjoy the book in the open fresh air from the Kilmanjaro Mountain. We  talked about books that we had both read and those we wanted to read. In our conversations, Pius told me that in his younger days he wanted to be a guitarist, but his parents were completely against that, so he ended up just being a music lover. Pius asked me if I had a copy of Salum Abdallah's ' Happy New Year song, luckily a few days ago, I found a copy  and the next time I go to Moshi,   I will make sure I give him a copy.
Salum  Abdallah started his first band in 1942 and called it La Paloma. He loved Cuban music so much that he ran away from his father's home in Morogoro and travelled to Mombasa, planning to board a ship to Cuba. Unfortunately it was in the middle of the second world war, and he ended up getting stranded in Mombasa, his father had to travel from Morogoro to recue him. Two years later in 1944 he started the Cuban Marimba Band, a band which went on to be one of the top bands in Tanzania until its collapse in the 70s. Salum Abdalla himself died in a tragic accident in November 1965.
One interesting thing that Pius mentioned was that he knew the original composer of the famous song Malaika.

Fadhili Williams is officially recognized as the composer of Malaika, but many elders in Moshi challenge that and claim that a mechanic known as Salim Adam, composed the song for his beautiful girlfriend whom he never got to marry as she went on to be married to a rich Asian.
I agreed with Pius that I would get back to him as he had promised he would even show me the house that this mechanic once lived when he was alive.

By this time it was late afternoon and we agreed to call it a day, Mshana and I  went back to the tea shop for a cup of tea. One of the clients that we met there was the owner of one of the FM radio stations in Moshi, we made an appoint for me to participate in a oldies radio program that was aired every Sunday at ten  in the morning. Mshana invited me to his home the next day promising me surprises….. I went back to my lodging and began documenting all that had passed in the last 8 hours, and wondering what surprises will Mshana have for me?

 

MOSHI HERE I COME

 ON  Thursday  19^th October 2023, very early in the morning I headed for Ngamiani bus station in Tanga, I was on my way to Moshi in Kilimanjaro Region, as soon as I arrived at the bus stop a heavy rain began, I just managed to get into the bus before the real pounding began. The bus I was to travel in had a strange name Channel One Express, right on time  at 8:30 the journey began.

 
 I have always  loved travelling, in 1974 in my younger more adventurous days, I had travelled on my Honda 125 CC motorbike from Iringa to Arusha via Chalinze and back to Iringa again, I did that twice, a distance of more than 1600 kilometers, enjoying all the way.
At about three in the afternoon I arrived in Moshi, I could clealry see the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, it was clear and cloudless. I  called my host to inform him that I had arrived, my host in Moshi was my friend  Florian Mshana. Funny even though we knew each other very well but we had never met, thanks to the internet. Mshana was a member of my very active Whatsap Group, the group members just talks about old stuff not only music, but mostly music, so quite interesting conversations arise now and then, about the music

Mshana directed me to the Uhuru Park a short distance from Moshi main bus station, and there he was waiting for me. When we met we clicked right away, it was then when I learnt that Mshana was a retired police officer, though he didn’t look very old to me. We talked a lot mostly about music, as he already had plans for my next day, we agreed on a rough timetable, the next day we would meet several Moshi elderly people. I particularly wanted to meet a musician from Orchestra Zaire Success, a band that was one of the top bands in Moshi in the 70s, I has a black and white picture of the band, I had blown it up and framed it, and wanted to personally give the musician this photo of his younger days, I knew he would love the present.
Mshana then escorted me to a nice lodge not far from there, a place I would be staying for the next three or four days. Moshi was going to be interesting

KASSIM EL SIAGI aka JOCKER BROWN A SOUL MUSICIAN FROM TANGA

 In 1969 a young boy who had just finished his secondary education in Kenya, returned to his home town Tanga. Soon after he formed a band and named it The Soul Flames. At the time youngsters all over the country were forming bands playing soul music cover songs by the likes of Otis Redding, Wilson Picket, Sam and Dave, Sam Cooke, Clarence Carter and other then great stars. These bands had more than often names like The Famous Flames, The JBs, The Comets, The Sparks, The Groovemakers, The Barkeys, The Barlocks and so on.

The Soul Flames soon made a name for itself among the already established bands like the  Atomic Jazz Band, Jamhuri Jazz Band, Ricco Jazz Band and Doldrums Band, Amboni Jazz Band etc.
Tanga  apart from being famous for rumba music bands, also had the Taarab music groups which played in the "shungwaya” rumba rhythm Melody, who made this town the giant of Taarab music in mainland East Africa up to the Indian ocean islands of Comoro.

The young boy who started the The Soul Flames was called Kassim Baaliy El Siagi, at the time he was better known by his ‘aka’  Jocker Brown. Members of The Soul Flames at the time included the late Mabrouk Hamis (Babu Njenje) on the drums,  Jumbe Magerrow playing the Lead Guitar, Mohamed Mrisho (who is now the Lead Guitarist of The Kilimanjaro Band, was then the band bassist, Mohamed Msimbazi was on the rhythm guitar and Jocker Brown was the band’s lead vocalist.
Jocker Brown who was very much influenced by Kenyan singers like Sal Davis, Ismail Jingo,  Kali The Bushman,  made the Soul Flames  music be centered mostly into soul music. Oh yes those were great days in Tanga

 

From Left: Jumbe Magerrow, partly hidden Mohamed Msimbazi and Mohamed Mrisho, Sal Hero and behind the microphone is Jocker Brown (1970)

TANGA DAY THREE...I MEET THE WAGOSI

 I woke up in the morning of day two, very excited, I was going to meet the 'Wagosi wa kaya'- the men of the house. Before coming to Tanga I had contacted some old comrades and told them about my trip, one of the comrades I had contacted was Kassim Siaggy whom we had met and played soul music together at Klerruu Teacher’s college in 1972, you will know more about him later in this blog. I was later told by the elders that Kassim’s father was a great football player in the 60s.

I also contacted Clement Mang’enya who was my class mate when we still children in Mbeya in 1964. His father was then the Regional Mines Officer, his uncle Erasto Mang’enya was the chief of the Wabondei, one of the major tribes from Tanga,  and he  was also the first African Deputy Speaker of the Parliament in 1960.  Clement is a publisher of a magazine known as Sauti ya Tanga . His contacts were going to be valueable to my trip.

I also contacted Wallace Mkello another collegemate in the 70s. Wallace’s father Victor Mkello was one of the earliest politicians in Tanga, one of the first members of TANU Party (Tanganyika African National Union) back in the 50s, he later became an Area Commissioner in various districts in the country. Wallace, himself now a retired teacher, is the CCM Party Chairman of Kisosora South Ward in Tanga. Wallace had organized for me to meet several elderly people who were music fans in the past. Wallace and his comrades were waiting for me under the shade of a tree, it was a hot day. I was introduced to Oliver Waziri, Azaria Mwinde who was also a radio presenter on a Christian local radio station, Godfrey Chowa  and later Frank Sekihota, after the introduction, what followed was an amazing experience of knowing Tanga and its people before 70s.  I concluded that these elders knew so much about Tanga and would add great value to the Tanga Urithi Museum, and so we also discussed how best they could help Tanga Museum collect more information on Tanga. By the time were through with that very informative meeting, they had elected their chairman and were ready to work with Tanga Urithi museum, I was to talk to the museum on how this could start taking place. In the afternoon I went to Ziggy Said’s place and gave him the flash disk with about 54 Atomic Jazz Songs.
And then I went to Tanga Urith Museum and gave  a feed aback about my meeting with the Tanga elders and also presented to the museum a framed photo of two famous musicians from Tanga, Mabrouk Khamis, who was famously known as ‘Babu Njenje’ and Tatu Said Msengi who was better known as Bi Shakila.

Mabrouk Khamis (Babu Njenje) - Tatu Said (Bi Shakila)

Both these musicians were born in Pangani on 14^th June 1947.  Mabrouk’s mother breasts were not producing milk, so Mabrouk began life being breast fed by Tatu’s mother. And they all went to become famous singers. Tatu Saidi Msengi, Bi Shakila died on 19^th August 2016 and Mabrouk Khamis Omar died on 24^th May 2020.  I definitely had to come back to Tanga  there was still so much to work on. Next stop Moshi, Kilimanjaro Region. Thank you ILAM

 

 

ROB HOOIJER VISITS KITIME MUSIC ARCHIVE

 

Rob Hooijer

ON the 9th November 2023, the archive had a suprise visitor, it was an old friend Robert Hooijer. It was an honour to have been visited by such a great figure in the intellectual property ream in Africa. Robert Hooijer is an expert in the administration of copyrights, music business management and serving developing countries across the diaspora. A retired CEO of SAMRO, former Director for African Affairs of CISAC (International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers) and former Interim Director General of CISAC, he currently serves as a Senior Consultant Sub-Sahara Africa for IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) in their development initiatives for the collective management of performance rights in sound recordings, music videos and related matters, as well as part-time Consultant to AISGE (Artistas Intérpretes, Entidad de Gestión de Derechos de Propiedad Intelectual) in their Sub-Saharan Africa collective management support endeavors.

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.

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.