Marabi

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Marabi is a style of music in South Africa . It originated in the 1920s and combines African musical styles and Afro - American jazz .

description

The music is a mix of ragtime and jazz with traditional polyphonic styles. The music is characterized by lively melodies and "striding" rhythms and was played with a few chords (mostly tonic - subdominant - dominant or tonic IIb dominant), which were repeated in changing patterns, so that long, catchy pieces emerged that you could easily dance to. Free improvisation was rather rare in music.

Origin of name

The origin of the word marabi is unclear. Possibly it comes from the Sesotho , ho raba-raba, "to fly around". Marabi is also the plural of the Sesotho word lerabi, "lawless person", "gangster". People who attended marabi parties were also called marabi . Possibly the word comes from the Marabastad district in Pretoria .

history

At the beginning of the 20th century there was urbanization in South Africa and the establishment of townships for the black population, especially in the Johannesburg area . To circumvent the general ban on alcohol, illegal shebeens were created in which musicians were supposed to provide customers. Cape Coloreds were the first to play a precursor to marabi music in the shebeens. The guitar was played in a style called tickey draai . In addition to the music of different ethnic groups, the regional influences of marabi include the vastrap dance of Boeremusiek , which blacks employed by Buren adapted in the shebeens. At first, marabi was mostly played on pianos or simple organs. There were occasional marabi parties that lasted all weekend. The dances were sexually provocative. Marabi records were not initially recorded, but this changed in the 1930s when bands like The Jazz Maniacs and The Merry Blackbirds became popular with the first black radio broadcasts. This was the first time there were black professional musicians in South Africa.

Several South African styles of music are further developments of the marabi: Cape Jazz was created around the 1950s, among others by Dollar Brand and Basil Coetzee . Kwela became popular in the 1950s and is mainly characterized by a changed instrumentation. Mbaqanga contains elements of marabi, but no longer belongs to jazz, but to pop music . Other marabi musicians played more traditional music after the height of marabi music.

Others

  • Cannonball Adderley named one of his 1968 album Accent on Africa after the Marabi music style .
  • Modikwe Dikobe published the novel The Marabi Dance in 1973 , in which he describes the situation in the townships in the 1930s and 1940s.

literature

  • David B. Coplan: In township tonight! South Africa's black music and theater. 2nd, expanded and changed edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2008, ISBN 978-0-22611567-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Description at southafrica.info ( Memento from May 19, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
  2. ↑ a b David B. Coplan: In township tonight! South Africa's black music and theater. Longman, London / New York 1985, ISBN 0-582-64400-3 , p. 94
  3. ^ Video from Ethnomusicology Explained (Video), accessed May 3, 2015
  4. ^ Music and culture forms resistance. South African History Online , accessed August 7, 2019
  5. ↑ a b David B. Coplan: In township tonight! South Africa's black music and theater. Longman, London / New York 1985, ISBN 0-582-64400-3 , p. 95
  6. ↑ Adderley: Accent on Africa at Allmusic , accessed May 4, 2015