Search
In township tonight! : South Africa's Black city music and theatre / David Coplan.
Coplan, David B.
Call Number: ML350 .C6665 I5 1985
ISBN: 0869752286 (pbk.)
Pub. Info: Johannesburg : Ravan Press, 1985.
"A unique social history of over three centuries of black South Africa's city music, dance and theatre. Against the harsh background of the apartheid system black popular culture is a dynamic force which continues to give life and hope to the people of the townships such as Soweto and Sharpeville. It has produced artists of international reputation - Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar Brand), Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela - but they represent just a small fraction of this rich, vibrant and diverse urban culture. Every night musicians and other performers draw enthusiastic audiences to dance halls, jazz clubs and shebeens throughout the townships. It is a culture which has a long and complex history. This book explores that history, taking us from indigenous musical traditions into the world of the slave orchestras, penny whistlers, clergyman-composers, the gumboot dances of the dockers and mineworkers, and the touring minsterlsy and vaudeville acts. It traces the emergence of the first jazz bands - the Darktown Strutters, the Merry Blackbirds, the Jazz Maniacs - and the marabi, kwela and mbaqanga dance styles. It records the development of black theatre from the first all-black musicals, to the popular drama workshops and the internationally successful Market Theatre, Johannesburg. At the same time the author, a distinguished social historian, anthropologist and musicologist, examines the social, political and economic environment within which these developments took place: slavery, diamond and gold discoveries, the industrial explosion in the Transvaal, the boom and destruction of Sophiatown, and the consolidation of apartheid. In Township Tonight! is a tribute to the resilience and achievements of black South African artists who, in the author's words, have 'humanised a wasteland of oppression and neglect'. It is a book which will be of great interest to social historians, musicologists, jazz enthusiasts and all those concerned about contemporary South Africa and its development." - back cover.
Coplan, David B.
Call Number: ML350 .C6665 I5 1985
ISBN: 0869752286 (pbk.)
Pub. Info: Johannesburg : Ravan Press, 1985.
"A unique social history of over three centuries of black South Africa's city music, dance and theatre. Against the harsh background of the apartheid system black popular culture is a dynamic force which continues to give life and hope to the people of the townships such as Soweto and Sharpeville. It has produced artists of international reputation - Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar Brand), Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela - but they represent just a small fraction of this rich, vibrant and diverse urban culture. Every night musicians and other performers draw enthusiastic audiences to dance halls, jazz clubs and shebeens throughout the townships. It is a culture which has a long and complex history. This book explores that history, taking us from indigenous musical traditions into the world of the slave orchestras, penny whistlers, clergyman-composers, the gumboot dances of the dockers and mineworkers, and the touring minsterlsy and vaudeville acts. It traces the emergence of the first jazz bands - the Darktown Strutters, the Merry Blackbirds, the Jazz Maniacs - and the marabi, kwela and mbaqanga dance styles. It records the development of black theatre from the first all-black musicals, to the popular drama workshops and the internationally successful Market Theatre, Johannesburg. At the same time the author, a distinguished social historian, anthropologist and musicologist, examines the social, political and economic environment within which these developments took place: slavery, diamond and gold discoveries, the industrial explosion in the Transvaal, the boom and destruction of Sophiatown, and the consolidation of apartheid. In Township Tonight! is a tribute to the resilience and achievements of black South African artists who, in the author's words, have 'humanised a wasteland of oppression and neglect'. It is a book which will be of great interest to social historians, musicologists, jazz enthusiasts and all those concerned about contemporary South Africa and its development." - back cover.