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Johnny Dyani’s compositional approach combined Eastern Cape Folk Music with international progressive jazz, and the musical call to freedom.
After leaving his home and his family at the age of 17, the bassist and composer never returned to South Africa and as of today is one of the greatest unsung heroes of South African Jazz.
His musical output, his works in exile, was a commitment to South Africa’s cultural memory. He met the notorious dangers of losing one’s way and one’s identity, particularly in the challenging space of exile, with a selfless service to his creative spirit.
Niklas Wilson in the book Mbizo provides a wonderful five pointed structure for the necessary future studies on Dyani’s musical output.
1.) A vocal conception of bass playing. 2.) Music as an oral tradition.
3.) Folk music.
4.) Music with a message.
5.) Multiculturality.
His compositions bridged music and society, and his harmonic approach had the effect of bringing solidarity and change to the social disharmony. It is a timeless approach.
Magdalena Dyani confirmed his deep sense of African music: “He loved African folksongs religious music and church choirs. He sang in Xhosa, chanted and danced on stage. He was aiming to develop a creative interest beyond tribal stereotypes.”
These aspects came out particularly during his period as a band-leader in the early Seventies. Poet and Heritage practitioner Vusi Mchunu wrote of the influences of amaqaba traditional religionist beats, the township mbaqanga saxophone and the Xhosa chants from ukuxhentsa (shoulder dance) and the headiness of African sorghum beer.
Folk Music Talking Bass
He called Johnny a “natural herbal healing artist” and wrote. “He ridiculed notions of primitiveness, backwardness and witchcraft that typified western understanding of African culture. It is generally accepted today that traditional medicine practice and culture remain at times the only repository of traditional song, costume dress and role playing. Johnny was at peace with this source and inspiration. His African village is a revered sacred space – a launching pad for his world healing mission.”
“His music evokes the Xhosa country side, ezilaleni, Nguni folklore, Methodist church harmony’s, foot-stamping dance beat, township and urban urgency and the improvisation of African jazz and the jazz avant-garde. Johnny belonged to that exceptional group of world musicians that were daring, bohemian, seeking to create new styles new accents and new musical connections. Grand Kalle of Congo, the wailing voice of Kippie Moeketsi, Miles Davis the jazz great, the big bass shoes of Charles Mingus and the daring figures of Ludwig von Beethoven.”
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This Afrocentric approach was witnessed at the Festac Festival in Nigeria 1977, the largest gathering of African and diasporic black artists in the world at the time. “Energetic Johnny was right here as part of the SA contingent. It was an enriching cross-pollinating experience particularly with the colourful West African traditional music and dance. From thence on his instrument was to baptised the talking bass calling and responding to the talking drums. For Johnny the jazz idiom begins with the traditional African song, the zest, the celebration, the fusion of styles – Johnny put in many interpretations of folk songs and went along way to popularise these unknown gems introducing them to a wider international audience,” wrote Mchunu.
Johnny’s Swedish girlfriend, Magdalena recalled, “Johnny always listened to people talking on the metro, the bus, the taxi and used that while chanting on stage. Singing it out against South Africa, playing it on the bass against Western governments supporting oppression. He transformed every talk into direct statements, depending on the atmosphere of the concert. He felt that Europe does not understand African jazz as yet. Europe suffers from a superiority complex. And hence Johnny referred to the discipline of SA blacks. Like we saw Winnie Mandela on the TV just a day after they had bombed her house in Brandfort, SA. By the time the reporters came, she was dressed up for the interview and talking heavy things. His discipline was being able to handle difficulties. Even when times are bad, be descent in dress, in manners and eating habits. Stay awake and clean. may not be totally ideal, but our people’s discipline is one of the reasons why we have survived oppression.”
Mchunu confirmed: “Remembering Johnny’s boyish face grimace during an interview at the 1982 Gabarone Culture and Resistance Festival, one cannot but confirm his frontline commitment to social change through culture. Johnny’s quest in the anti-apartheid phase was to seek for a larger, fuller and more lyrical music that could stand its ground in the international arena.”
Dyani’s vocal conception of bass playing began as a young child growing up in Duncan Village. His first instrument was the voice and he was a terrific singer. He then moved to piano and began singing and playing at an early age with another resident of Duncan Village Tete Mbambisa.
By the age of Twelve, Dyani took up bass and played in Dick Khoza’s group, Jazz Wizards, with Mongezi Feza, Dudu Pukwana, Pinise Saul, Pat Matshikiza and Aubrey Semane.
In July 1964, still only 17 years of age, Dyani went into exile with the Blue Notes, Chris McGregor, Dudu Pukwana, Mongezi Feza and Louis Moholo. The Blue Notes influenced a lot of musicians in Europe and created a new language of a free music built on a deep African soul. And they were extensive in their impact.
Dyani had a certain magic about his playing. He was a magician of the ostinato; the repeated musical phase. Dyani’s ostinato’s were the glue that bound his compositions together, allowing the other instruments and voices to layer their expressions on top to create a kaleidoscope of sound that crossed in and out of many genres.
Wilson nails it in his revision: “Johnny Dyani might well be dubbed an ostinato magician for his ingenuity in inventing melodically striking and rhythmically driving repetitive figures. These patterns are generally one or two bars in length, often related in tonality to the pitches of the bass‘ open strings (E, A, D, G) and form the primary building blocks of most of his pieces. Variety is obtained either by transposing the ostinato figures (mostly by a fourth or fifth), by juxtaposing sections with different ostinati or by alternating ostinato patterns and walking bass sections or rubato passages. Music examples 1-6 offer some characteristic examples of ostinato figures drawn from Dyani’s compositional output. It has to be added that repetition as a principle is also a salient feature of Dyani’s bass playing in a freely improvised context.”
Dyani’s compositions show the merging of folk music and jazz music. He took the functionality of folk music and combined it with the freedom of jazz.
