Matthew Krouse On the air in Johannesburg
In the 1920s, when radio transmitters were switched on for the first time all over the world, live music was the main attraction. The immediacy of the medium made people feel so modern, so in-with-the-times. Suddenly, you didn’t actually have to be there, to be part of what was going on.
The early studio orchestras of the airwaves became the gods of modern music, and everybody clamoured around their little wooden “wirelesses”, hoping to catch them live. Careers were made and lost through radio, and musical styles evolved exclusively for radio -think of Ella, Benny, Dizzy, Bing .
An early jazz writer called it “the wow of static”, referring to the lethal mixture of radio, percussion and horns. So lethal was the mix that, by the 1950s, bebop was unconditionally banned for promoting “narcotics and double talk”.
Sound familiar? Radio of the early Nineties was also characterised by a wave of bannings, of musical groups who promoted drug-lust, and hate- speech. Remember the flack that Public Enemy and other rappers got back then for their politics and language?
That aside, in present day Jo’burg, the power of the medium lives on. On Sunday nights, one can catch a rare glimpse of live radio doing what it does best – live music – when Sandton’s premiere jazz venue, the Blues Room hosts a weekly slot on Khaya FM.
Called BluesRoomRadio, it’s an hour of contemporary African music, programmed to satisfy a diverse range of tastes. Besides showcasing the best of the best, there’s also the newest of the new, opening doors for budding talent. It’s reminiscent of the old days, when radio had the power to manufacture careers.
Innovative mastermind of the combo, the Blues Room’s Michael Canfield, says: “For the first time African music is being presented, in a large venue in the northern suburbs, with great production values.”
Last Sunday the scheme kicked off with a promo of Bayete’s new CD Umathimula.
The inimitable Jabu Khanyile did a session of some olds and some news, that carried on long after the transmitter had shut down.
Beginning promptly at five – when the queue swifts into the venue, in eager anticipation of the big switch on – the whole thing has an old fashioned ballsy, bluesy, ballroom feel to it.
You can book a table and munch on your dinner, bugging the waiters while knowing that, because of live radio the “do” is an open window to the wide, static world.
Next week, Canfield reports, audiences can see the Zimbabwean outfit Music Ye Afrika, and in a fortnight they present the local outfit Africa Maroon.
It’s something to liven up dreary Sundays. Even if you can’t make it there, tune in. Remember what they say about radio: it’s the theatre of the mind.