Mannenberg
"Mannenberg" | |
---|---|
Song by Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim) | |
from the album Mannenberg – Is Where It's Happening | |
Released | 1974 |
Genre | Cape jazz |
Length | 13:37 |
Composer(s) | Abdullah Ibrahim |
Producer(s) | Rashid Vally |
"Mannenberg" is a Cape jazz song by South African musician Abdullah Ibrahim, first recorded in 1974. Driven into exile by the apartheid government, Ibrahim had been living in Europe and the United States during the 1960s and '70s, making brief visits to South Africa to record music. After a successful 1974 collaboration with producer Rashid Vally and a band that included Basil Coetzee and Robbie Jansen, Ibrahim began to record another album with these three collaborators and a backing band assembled by Coetzee. The song was recorded during a session of improvisation, and includes a saxophone solo by Coetzee, which led to him receiving the sobriquet "Manenberg".
The piece incorporates elements of several other musical styles, including marabi, ticky-draai, and langarm, and became a landmark in the development of the genre of Cape jazz. The song has been described as having a beautiful melody and catchy beat, conveying themes of "freedom and cultural identity." It was released under Ibrahim's former name Dollar Brand on the 1974 vinyl album Mannenberg – Is Where It's Happening. Named after the township of Manenberg, it was an instant hit, selling tens of thousands of copies within a few months of its release. It later became identified with the struggle against apartheid, partly due to Jansen and Coetzee playing it at rallies against the government, and was among the movement's most popular songs in the 1980s. The piece has been covered by other musicians, and has been included on several jazz collections.
Background
Abdullah Ibrahim was born in
Recording and production
The piece was created while the apartheid government of South Africa was forcibly removing Coloured families from their homes as part of the destruction of District Six;[4][6] this destruction of a neighbourhood that was "a symbol of resilience and creativity in the face of racial oppression" influenced Ibrahim's music.[5] Ibrahim met Rashid Vally at the latter's Johannesburg record shop, Kohinoor, in the early 1970s.[7] Vally produced two of Ibrahim's albums in the following years. The pair produced a third album in 1974, titled Underground in Africa, in which Ibrahim abandoned his financially unsuccessful folk-infused jazz of the previous albums. The new album was instead a fusion of jazz, rock music, and South African popular music; it sold much better than Ibrahim's previously collaborations with Vally.[8] While recording Underground, Ibrahim collaborated with Oswietie, a local band of which Robbie Jansen and Basil Coetzee were saxophonists, and who played a large role in creating the album's fusion style. After the success of Underground, Ibrahim asked Coetzee to bring together a supporting band for his next recording: the group Coetzee put together included Jansen, as well as others who had not worked on Underground.[9]
"Mannenberg" was recorded in June 1974 during one of Ibrahim's visits to South Africa, in a studio in Cape Town, and was produced by Rashid Vally[10] on his new label As-Shams (the name suggested by Ibrahim, meaning in Arabic "The Sun").[11] The track was recorded after Ibrahim began improvising at the piano, and gradually asked the rest of the band to join in; although Ibrahim made suggestions about the melody, the piece also contained collective improvisation. The piece was made after a few days of recording previously composed music; it was recorded quickly — Ibrahim recalled in 2014 that it took only one take.[12][13] Asked in an interview how the title came about, he said: "Because Basil was from Manenberg and for us Manenberg was just symbolic of the removal out of District Six, which is actually the removal of everybody from everywhere in the world, and Manenberg specifically because ... it signifies, it's our music, and it's our culture ..."[14][15] The township of Manenberg was considered symbolic with respect to apartheid in the same was as Soweto.[16] The track was released on the album Mannenberg – Is Where It's Happening in the same year. The album only featured two songs; "Mannenberg", and "The Pilgrim" (which was similarly long, at 12 minutes and 47 seconds).[17][18][19] The title "Mrs. Williams from Mannenberg", in reference to Gladys Williams, former housekeeper of one of the musicians, Morris Goldberg, was also considered for the album, and a photograph of her by Ibrahim was used on the album cover.[12]
Musical themes
"Mannenberg" has a "lilting melody" with a "gentle, hypnotic groove".
Reception and impact
Vally began to play "Mannenberg" from loudspeakers outside his store even before the album was released, and sold 5,000 copies of the recording in its first week on sale.
The song is reported to have inspired Nelson Mandela with hope during his imprisonment: Ibrahim recalled in a May 2012 interview for Voice of America's JazzBeat that the record was smuggled by a lawyer into Robben Island, where music was banned, and played in the control room over the loudspeakers, and that on hearing the song Mandela said: "Liberation is near."[24][25][26]
A few months after the release of "Mannenberg", South African police fired upon protesting children during the June 1976
Legacy and memorial
On the 40th anniversary of the album's release, Lindsay Johns praised "Mannenberg" in The Spectator, saying that the song was "threnodic, passionate and ethereally beautiful."[18] He went on to state that while "Mannenberg" was specifically about the forced relocation of Coloured people to the Cape Flats, it had also given a voice to poor, oppressed, and marginalized communities across the world. Thus, according to Johns, "Mannenberg" shared with other great music the characteristic of being "both specific and universal."[18] He added:
Today, it is still a beloved anthem of hope, resistance and resilience and a celebration of human dignity in the face of brutality and evil. We can also hear in those entrancing chords and ebullient Cape jazz rhythms a life-affirming joy and the desire to survive against all odds. Nowadays, the township of Manenberg may be synonymous with poverty, crime and violence, but Mannenberg the album stands as a musical monument to both a sublime jazz genius and the intrinsic nobility and grandeur of the human spirit.[18]
The place where "Mannenberg" was recorded is commemorated with an abstract sculpture of seven stainless-steel pipes, mounted outside the building where the original studios were. Designed by electrical engineer Mark O'Donovan and performer Francois Venter, the pipes have been tuned to correspond to the first seven notes of the melody, and are inscribed with the instruction: "Run a stick along these pipes to hear Mannenberg".[31]
Personnel
Credits adapted from AllMusic.[19][32]
- Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim) – piano
- Basil Coetzee – tenor saxophone, flute
- Robbie Jansen – alto saxophone
- Monty Weber – drums
- Morris Goldberg – alto saxophone
Other versions
When the album was first released in the United States its name was changed to Cape Town Fringe.[32] The recording was released as a CD in 1988 by Bellaphon Records.[32] A shorter version of the song, "Mannenberg (Revisited)", appears on Ibrahim's album Water from an Ancient Well, released in 1986.[33] The Mannenberg sessions were subsequently released on his Voice of Africa album in 1989, and the shorter version was included as a track on the album The Mountain in the same year.[34] It was collected on the 2002 release The Best of Abdullah Ibrahim, as well as on the 2005 collection Abdullah Ibrahim: A Celebration, in honour of his 70th birthday.[34][35]
The album African Tributes by Darius Brubeck & the Nu Jazz Connection features Ibrahim's "Mannenberg/The Wedding" as track 4.[36] The piece was also included in the collections Smooth Africa (2000) and Essential South African Jazz (2007), both of which featured various musicians.[34] "Mannenberg" was the first track on guitarist Ernest Ranglin's 2012 album Avila, which received a five-star rating from AllMusic.[37] "Mannenberg" was also on the soundtrack of Lee Hirsch's 2002 documentary film Amandla!: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony, which examined the movement against apartheid through the music of the period.[38]
References
- ^ Mason 2007, pp. 26–30.
- ^ Mason 2007, pp. 26–28.
- ^ Mason 2007, pp. 27–29.
- ^ a b Muller 2004, pp. 100–107.
- ^ a b Mason 2007, pp. 29–30.
- ^ a b "Mannenberg by Abdullah Ibrahim". Sunday Times Heritage Project. Archived from the original on 5 November 2013.
- ^ Mason 2007, p. 33.
- ^ Mason 2007, pp. 32–35.
- ^ Mason 2007, pp. 34–35.
- ^ "Farewell to a musical legend". Sunday Tribune. 15 March 1998.
- ISBN 9780826417534.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Mason 2007, p. 35.
- ^ "UBUNTU: Mannenberg". Carnegie Hall Blog. 20 September 2014. Retrieved 19 August 2017.
- ^ McDonald, Steven. "Basil Coetzee biography". AllMusic. Retrieved 16 February 2017.
- ^ Valentine, Sue (26 June 2006). "'I write what I know best' – interview with Abdullah Ibrahim". Sunday Times Heritage Project. Retrieved 8 June 2017.
- ^ a b Muller 2004, pp. 106–107.
- ^ Mojapelo 2009, p. 279.
- ^ a b c d Johns, Lindsay (21 June 2014). "The song that fought apartheid". The Spectator. Retrieved 16 February 2017.
- ^ a b "Mannenberg: Where it's happening". AllMusic. Retrieved 18 February 2017.
- ^ a b Schumann, Anne (2008). "The Beat that Beat Apartheid: The Role of Music in the Resistance against Apartheid in South Africa" (PDF). Wiener Zeitschrift für kritische Afrikastudien. 14 (8): 26–30. Retrieved 24 October 2016.
- ^ Mojapelo 2009, p. 250.
- ^ a b c Mason 2007, pp. 35–36.
- ^ Mason 2007, p. 25.
- ^ Bekheet, Diaa, "Abdullah Ibrahim, 'King of Jazz' in South Africa", Music Beat, Voice of America, 26 May 2012.
- ^ Rath, Arun, "How Nelson Mandela Inspired South Africa's Music", All Things Considered, NPR, 15 December 2013.
- ^ "Africa Day: unity through music" Archived 16 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Cape Town Partnership, 27 May 2014.
- ^ Muller 2004, p. 107.
- ^ Mason 2007, pp. 25–26.
- ^ Mason 2007, p. 37.
- ^ Mason 2007, p. 39.
- ^ "The Light Bulb Moment: The Artists' Concept". Sunday Times Heritage Project. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
- ^ a b c "Capetown Fringe". AllMusic. Retrieved 18 February 2017.
- ^ "Water from an Ancient Well". AllMusic. Retrieved 18 February 2017.
- ^ a b c "Mannenberg". AllMusic. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
- ^ "Abdullah Ibrahim: A Celebration". AllMusic. Retrieved 18 February 2017.
- ^ Brubeck, Darius (1995). "African Tributes". AllMusic. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
- ^ "Ernest Ranglin - Avila". AllMusic. Retrieved 19 August 2017.
- ^ "Amandla! (Original Soundtrack)". AllMusic. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
Sources
- Mason, John Edwin (Fall 2007). "'Mannenberg': Notes on the Making of an Icon and Anthem" (PDF). African Studies Quarterly. 9 (4). Retrieved 17 February 2017.
- Mojapelo, Max (2009). Beyond Memory. African Minds. ISBN 978-1-920299-28-6.
- Muller, Carol (2004). South African Music : A Century of Traditions in Transformation. ISBN 978-1-57607-276-9.
External links
- Abdullah Ibrahim filmed in 1987 describing how the iconic track "Mannenberg" came into being and performing it live. Taken from the 1984 Arena documentary A Brother with Perfect Timing, directed by Chris Austin.
- "Musical interlude: Abdullah Ibrahim's Mannenberg (Is Where It's Happening)", Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, 31 May 2008.
- Kalamu ya Salaam, "ABDULLAH IBRAHIM / 'Mannenberg Is Where It's Happening'", Breath of Life, 17 March 2008.
- Roper, Chris, "Great SA Songs: Mannenberg", Mail & Guardian, 28 May 2010.
- Johns, Lindsay, "Celebrating Abdullah Ibrahim's 'Mannenberg'", Cape Argus, 26 June 2014.
- Mabandu, Percy, "Landmarks in SA Jazz | Mannenberg", New Frame, 16 January 2020.