Each year, on 30 April, music lovers around the world celebrate International Jazz Day to 鈥渉onour jazz and its enduring legacy, as well as its power to bring people together,鈥� says Audrey Azoulay, the director-general of the United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), which works to promote global peace, justice and rule of law.
Jazz events held each year in different countries around the globe culminate in the International Jazz Day, a star-studded musical concert in a major city. This year it took place in Melbourne, Australia. Other cities have hosted the event since 2012, when the UN headquarters in New York City hosted the inaugural.
In 2020 it will be the turn of Cape Town, South Africa. While the selection could be a recognition of a vibrant and creative local jazz industry鈥攖he city has its own annual jazz festival鈥攊t is also a reminder of the role music played in South Africans鈥� struggle for equal rights, as well as the enduring legacy of jazz across Africa.
鈥淚n celebrating jazz, the world celebrates more than the music,鈥� UNESCO鈥檚 Corine Dubois told Africa Renewal. 鈥淚t also celebrates creativity, partnerships and collaborations as much as freedom of expression.鈥�
According to Ms. Dubois, jazz 鈥減romotes the Sustainable Development Goals鈥nd fosters dialogue among cultures.鈥�
But back in 2018, New Orleans, a historically and culturally renowned American city on the Mississippi River, was honoured by a special concert as the city celebrated its 300th anniversary.
Mitch Landrieu, the mayor at the time, could barely contain his enthusiasm. 鈥淥h man! It is so nice to be here,鈥� he exclaimed. 鈥淵ou know where jazz was created? In New Orleans. Right down the street, the only place in the world it could have been created.鈥�
As the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, a New Orleans group, ushered in the proceedings, making its way around the inside of the city鈥檚 Orpheum Theatre hall and filling the air with a celebratory, jolly mood, in tow was a bouncing larger-than-life mascot of a smiling Louis Armstrong, also known as Satchmo, the famous trumpeter and jazz singer.
The procession evoked the image of a grinning Armstrong being feted in L茅opoldville, now Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 1960. There he was triumphally carried into a stadium by local fans ahead of a concert.
Mr. Armstrong鈥檚 visit to the Congo was one of his many to Africa and was part of the US government鈥檚 Jazz Ambassadors programme, which was created in 1956 at the height of the Cold War to promote American values and culture abroad. Jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington were dispatched around the world as cultural ambassadors.
鈥淭he weapon that we will use is the cool one,鈥� Mr. Gillespie reportedly said, referring to his famous trumpet.
The US jazz ambassadors might not have won any war on the continent, but still, from the banks of the Mississippi River to African shores and beyond, jazz music made an enduring impact on politics, art and literature. To this day, jazz enthusiasts are many in Africa.
Jazz in Accra
On a balmy Sunday evening in Accra, Ghana, the 10-man acoustic group Takashi Band is performing in an open jazz bar and grill. In an eclectic mix that also features Ghanaian highlife numbers, they perform two well-known jazz standards, 鈥淲hat a Wonderful World鈥�.
Kojo Essa, the band leader, introduces himself as 鈥渁 banker in the day and a musician at night.鈥� He renders the first standard in an unmistakable imitation of Louis Armstrong, recalling the early 鈥�60s, when Mr. Armstrong visited the city and performed with local artists.
Jazz patrons swing along slowly in their chairs until the band plays 鈥淔ly Me to the Moon,鈥� and then almost everybody jumps up. 鈥淎gbadza style,鈥� Mr. Essa jokes, referring to a traditional Ghanaian dance that is also popular in Togo and Benin.
Jazz and liberation struggles
South African jazz developed its own sounds, styles and expressions, distinguishing itself from its American counterpart. The common thread between the two is that the activism of South African jazz culture during the apartheid era mirrors that of American jazz culture in the fight for civil rights.
In exile, during the apartheid period and later back in South Africa, musicians such as Mariam Makeba, trumpeter Hugh Masekela (affectionally referred to as the father of South African jazz) and pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim (also known as Dollar Brand or the king of South African jazz) used their performances to express a yearning for freedom and equal rights.
More in South Africa than elsewhere, music was central to the struggle for freedom. The 2002 documentary Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony, chronicles the power of music in rallying people against the apartheid regime.
The documentary features the track 鈥淢annenberg鈥� by Abudallah Ibrahim.
First released in 1974 to protest the forced displacement of colored people in Cape Town, 鈥淢annenberg鈥� would become one of the most popular songs of the 鈥�80s in Africa.
In an interview with the Voice of America in 2012, Mr. Ibrahim said, 鈥淲e had captured the spirit and the mood of the nation at that time.鈥� He explained how, after the Soweto uprising of 1976, in which more than 100 antiapartheid demonstrators were killed, the public 鈥減icked up the song, and it was played and sung everywhere鈥nd in some regards, it has become almost like an unofficial national anthem of South Africa.鈥�
According to Mr. Ibrahim, upon hearing the track in prison, Nelson Mandela once said, 鈥淭his is a sign that liberation is near.鈥�
Jazz and literature
The influence of jazz in Africa is felt in areas other than politics; just as in the US, it has inspired novelists and other writers, especially in French-speaking African countries.
鈥淣o other musical form has so consistently appeared in the Francophone African [literary] tradition,鈥� writes Pim Higginson, a professor of French and francophone studies at Bryn Mawr, an American women鈥檚 liberal arts college, in the introduction to his 2017 essay Scoring Race: Jazz, Fiction, and Francophone Africa.
Jazz et vin de palme (Jazz and Palm Wine) by Emmanuel Dongala of Congo is frequently cited as an example of jazz in literature. Mirages de Paris (Mirages of Paris), published in 1937 and authored by Ousmane Soc茅 from Senegal, was the first novel to feature jazz.
Other key literary works include Togolese writer Kangni Alem鈥檚 Cola Cola Jazz and Cameroonian Mongo Beti鈥檚 Trop de soleil tue l鈥檃mour (Too Much Sun Kills Love). L茅onora Miano, also Cameroonian, wrote Tel des astres 茅teints (Like Dying Stars) and Blues pour Elise (Blues for Elise), while Fiston Mwanza Mujila of the Democratic Republic of the Congo authored Tram 83.
The plots of these works are different, yet the writers all use jazz music to express their main characters鈥� culturally diverse identities and struggles with modernity.
For most of these writers, 鈥渢he biggest influence comes from the structure of jazz compositions,鈥� Mr. Kangni Alem, a Togolese writer, told Africa Renewal, citing Misterioso-911, a play by Ivorian writer Koffi Kwahul茅. The title of the play appears to be a nod to Misterioso, a 1958 album by jazz pianist Thelonious Monk.
These literary works are celebrations of cultural diversity as represented through freedom of expression and creativity鈥攖he kinds offered by jazz.
These writers 鈥渞epeatedly turn to jazz as an idea, a contested site, a formation, through and around which they negotiate notions of race and identity, resistance and expression,鈥� notes Mr. Higginson.
鈥淚n celebrating jazz, the world celebrates more than the music,鈥� UNESCO鈥檚 Corine Dubois sums it up, adding that jazz fosters creativity, partnerships and freedom of expression. 鈥淚t promotes the Sustainable Development Goals鈥nd fosters dialogue among cultures.鈥澨� 听 听 听
