LiveandImprovised: Recent Episodes
John Thomerson
Welcome to this podcast focusing on live and improvised musics. We’ll hear rock, jazz, Hindustani, and other styles from around the world. Analysis, commentary, nitpicking—we've got it all!
You can't ever have too much Thomas Mapfumo, which explains this bonus playlist. Tracks featured here include "Vechidiki (Youngsters)," "Pidigori," "Munongotukana," two versions of "Pfumvu Pa Ruzevha," and "Mamvemne."
Enjoy this mix of music by Thomas Mapfumo! The music featured here spans Mapfumo's career and includes several incarnations of his band Blacks Unlimited, as well as an earlier group The Acid Band. Tracks here include: "Serevende," "Buka Tiende," "Shumba," "Hokoyo!," "Disaster," and "Marehwarehwa."
In this episode, we'll listen to Thomas Mapfumo, the Zion of Zimbabwe, who is one of the most popular Zimbabwean musicians internationally. Throughout his career, his Chimurenga music has combined elements from mbria music with jit, sungura, reggae, American rock, and other styles into an intoxicating blend. Mapfumo's career also illustrates the ways world musicians must navigate global music marketplaces and how musicians interact with state power. His life and music are fascinating and I hope that you enjoy!
In this episode, we'll talk more about Mbira music as a type of participatory music. Participatory music is rare in the West and common everyplace else. These performances have distinct stylistic traits, performance conventions, expectations for those in attendance, goals, etc. Understanding mbira music as a participatory music is vital for understanding how the music functions in its social context and why it sounds the way it does. On a personal note, the ideas of participatory and presentational music have deeply impacted my understanding of the world's musics. They're useful tools for hearing and understanding new and familiar musics--I liken them to a unified theory of music making, and I hope that you find these ideas as valuable as I do!
In this episode, we’ll listen to a range of performances highlighting the diversity of mbira musics. Several examples are more straight-ahead traditional performances. Other performances are less traditional in the rhythms they use or the larger ensembles they feature. The performers and songs featured include Mhuri Yekwa Zhakata playing “Nyamaropa,” Stella Chiweshe playing “Baya Wa Baya,” Erick and Mondreck Muchena playing “Taireva,” Chartwell Dutiro’s Chipindura Mbira Trio playing “Kari Mu Gomba,” Mhuri Yekwa Gwenhere playing “Masiya Ndaita,” the Matemai Mbira Group playing “Shanda Ugarike,” Mhuri Yekwa Makonese playing “Tateguru,” Garikayi Tirikoti and the Madzitateguru Edu Mbira Orchestra playing “Mazivenyika,” and the Shonhai Mbira Group playing “Nhai Baba.” Dive in and let the waves of improvisation carry you away!
Welcome to the second episode in this series devoted to Zimbabwean music. Here, we'll listen to several of stylistic conventions of Shona mbira music. We'll listen for the two melodic parts musicians play on mbira (the kushaura or lead part and kutsinhira or refrain part). We'll also listen to the hosho or gourd rattles that accompany mibra playing, to the vocal styles sung to mbira accompaniment, and to the cross rhythms that give mbira music its distinct sound.
Happy new year! This episode launches a multi-part series devoted to two styles of Zimbabwean music: mbira and Chimurenga. Mbira music is an acoustic, improvised music with sacred and healing qualities that is played on instruments of the same name. The music is listed on the "Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity." Chimurenga music adapts mbira music to electric instruments and fuses it with other global pop and rock styles. The music is associated with the Zimbabwean liberation war in the 1970s and 1980s. In this first episode, we'll hear and learn more about both styles and briefly set these musics in context.