South Africa: Jazz, Apartheid, King Kong
Thunder in their Hearts - South African Jazz in Britain - Francis Gooding
Francis Gooding [+]
Writer
Francis Gooding is a writer and researcher who has published widely on art, music and film. He worked as author and researcher on the Colonial Film: Images of the British Empire project (colonialfilm.org.uk), and is a member of the British Empire at War Research Group. He is a contributing editor to Critical Quarterly magazine, and is the author of Black Light: Myth and Meaning in Modern Painting (Blackwells, 2009).
Description
This introductory chapter that introduces the background to SA jazz in exile; providing important musical context, and tracing the complex link between South Africa and Britain and examining South Africa within and without the British Empire. It looks at early musical (and political) South African visitors to the UK (e.g. Thomas M) and discusses race and segregation pre & post 1948, the birth of oppositional African politics and the ANC, and the beginnings of their message abroad, the international roots of SA jazz and popular music, political theatre in South Africa, genres such as jive and mbaqanga; most significantly, jazz developments up and including to the Jo-burg triumph of the King Kong musical.