Routledge

Chapter Notes

Chapter 10 Post-World War II Cape Town

Cape Town

  • Cape culture has always been a Creole culture: people English, Germans, Dutch, Portuguese, Indian, Indonesian, Ceylonian, and ‘African’ (both the indigenous Khoikhoi and slaves brought from East and West Africa and most importantly Madagascar) descent have intermingled here since the early nineteenth century.
  • Cape people are quite diverse racially, ethnically, and religiously as well (in addition to significant numbers of Christians, there are large populations of ‘Coloured’ and black Cape Town Muslims).
  • Sexual relations across cultural and racial groups were an integral dimension of the first European settlements in the Cape. ‘Cape Coloured’ were some of the first inhabitants of this new culture.
  • The Apartheid government restricted such mixing by controlling where people of certain racial heritages were allowed to go and be (through the Population Registration Act) and by illegalizing interracial marriage (through its amendment of the Immorality Act).
  • Musicians were exposed to diverse musical styles and were able to hear and replicate almost any musical repertoires. Slaves played popular dance pieces such as waltzes and quadrilles on both European and indigenous instruments for social occasions.
  • American Minstrel shows became popular among Black, White, and Coloured audiences and influenced performance on the Cape.

Sathima Bea Benjamin

  • Sathima Bea Benjamin is a South African-born jazz singer of mixed race known originally as Beatrice.
  • Her family's classification as ‘Coloured’ in 1950 both forced a racial identity upon them (whereas previously they had identified as immigrants from the island of St. Helena) and greatly restricted their economic and social opportunities.
  • Benjamin began to sing at an early age, and through singing she could identify with and imitate singers in places far away but also make people around her listen (not always easy for a young Coloured girl in Cape Town).
  • She and her husband Abdullah Ibrahim left South Africa in 1962 because they could no longer perform jazz there due to the social and legal changes that had been developing in the area since 1950.
  • They settled in the U.S. and eventually made New York City their permanent home after the Soweto uprising in 1976, openly declaring their opposition to the Apartheid government (and subsequently having their South African passports withdrawn).
  • Both critics and Benjamin herself have noted parallels between her voice and Billie Holiday's: vocal timbre/intensity; the importance of words; and the conception and use of the voice as a horn (a saxophone in particular).
  • Sathimea Bea Benjamin's also sounds particularly South African, demonstrating many of the techniques of contemporary saxophonists there: scooping instead of hitting pitches; playing with pitch; maintaining smooth vocal lines and adding small catches at the end of some words; ornamenting with slides, slurs, microtonal movements, glissandos; varying intensity; hoarseness; discreet vibrato; playing with timbre in subtle ways.
  • Benjamin expects musicians not to accompany her so much as weave a musical fabric together with her; each voice must find an equal place and be heard.
  • The Apartheid government and radio stations severely limited the ability of South Africans to listen to jazz recordings, and Carol Muller only came to know Benjamin's music when she pursued graduate studies in New York City and began to study her husband.