JOHANNESBURG BECOMES MUSICAL CROSSROADS

Grey River Argus, 28 October 1948, Page 3

JOHANNESBURG BECOMES MUSICAL CROSSROADS

(From Reuter’s Correspondent).

JOHANNESBURG Airmail).

Johannesburg became one of the musical crossroads. of the world for one week in August when boogie woogie, Beecham and bongo bongo provided a comprehensive variety of ancient .and modern for the city’s thousands of music lovers. The Hot Club of Johannesburg, first of ts kind south of the Equator, provided the “hottest music this side of heaven”; Sir Thomas Beecham conducted the 105 members of the combined orchestra, made up of the South African Broadcastin'g Company’s Symphony Orchestra and the Johanessbu.rg, Durban and Cape Town Municipal Orchestras, with that gracious expressive twist of the wrist which has become characteristic of the movement of the Beecham batin; and visitors were entertained by the usual music of the> mines where Bantu bobby-soxers swing and sway to the jungle music which inspired Bongo, Bongo, Bongo. The “civilisation” of Danny Kaye and the Andrews Sisters is “Corny” by comparison with the rhythm of the drums and dances of these maestro's from “Darkest Africa.” Tlie advent of the Hot Club of Johanessburg is a novelty in this country, but the young organisers have long felt that there is a vital need for it and the city’s leading exponents of swing and “bepop” known in Britain as “rebop”—proved there is “freedom of speech in music.”

For more than two hours, the performers had the audience stamping, clapping and shouting in a manner which really proved, in their language, that they were "sent out of this world.” Highlight of the performance with a “scot bepop,” ably sung by the girl crooner, Artemis, who told reporters later that she sang six choruses without uttering a single intelligible word. “It is just scat,” she explained. This new jazz craze of bepop is sweeping the Union. But, in the opinion of one Cape Town enthusiast, it is not everybody’s melody. It appeals Only to the elite of swing fans, who look upon straight jazz as too syrupy and find bepop more expressive of the modern outlook on life, he explained, adding: “It is sophisticated, highly literate a.nd immensely natural.” While bepoppers are eloquent about the beautiful chord process of their music and talk enigmatically about altered intervals, they admit that bepop has a strange resemblance to the moderns in classical music such as Debussy, Ravel, Prokofev, Stravinsky and Schoenberg. One Johannesburg band leader said: “One of the chief trade marks of the bepop is the flattened-fifth effect. It is something that has been used in the classics more than somewhat.” The fierce controversy which is at present raging in the United States and on the Continent, has spread to South Africa; but the Hot Club organisers hope that their club will decide once and fop all whether bepoppers or hepcats will win the day. When interviewed after his arrival in Cape Town recently, Sir Thomas Beecham said: “If anyone says there is no melody in swing they are mad.” He did not prove his point then; but later, in Johannesburg a packed City Hall heard him prove that there is melody in the classics. His expressive baton seemed to lift the Sibelius Symphony Number One from the clarinet soloist while alternate fire in his eyes and gentle smiles impelled the stirring music of Wagner’s Flying Dutchmen from that enthusiastic orchestra.

South Africa, however, has its own native music. On any Sunday morning, a visitor may go to one of the mines surrounding -the city and watch dance teams, representing most of the native tribes swirl to the throb of drums. One visitoi’ summed up his impression after watching the dancing for more than an hour by saying: “It is amazing. The rhythm and throb of their, music deadens the senses, awakens strange emotions and makes one feel quite giddy.” It ns indeed a strange enchanting music—older than time and much, much older than civilisation.”