Episode 3 — Pubs, flutes, township rhythms and tape delay
This episode starts with a love letter to pubs as grassroots music engines, zooms in on baritone sax and flute with binaural mics and tape delay wizardry, and lands in South African township grooves via a gloriously hands-on Genre Tombola dive into mbaqanga.
Steve talks with Frankie and Lesley of The Eleanor Arms, home of the Old Ford Jazz Club, about running a proper community pub that champions live jazz and why free-entry gigs still cost someone. He then welcomes saxophonist, flautist and bandleader Tamar Osborn (Collocutor) for an Entertaining Noises session on baritone sax, flute physics, embouchure, harmonics and squelchy cassette tape delay. Finally, trumpeter and educator Claude Deppa unpacks South African mbaqanga and township jazz — bass drums, offbeat guitars, church organs, migration, Zulu folklore, coded politics and dancefloor joy — helping Steve build and interrogate a home-brewed mbaqanga-inspired groove.
What we cover
Pubs as venues: The Eleanor Arms, Old Ford Jazz Club and why tiny back-room gigs with world-class players keep the UK music ecosystem alive.
Musicians in small rooms: Why playing to 50 people in a pub can be more meaningful than stadium shows, and why “small” doesn’t mean “amateur”.
Entertaining Noises — baritone sax & flute: With Tamar Osborn — sax family shapes, woodwind mechanics, reeds vs air-jet, tuning, overtones and what binaural recording reveals.
Tape delay as instrument: Real magnetic tape, dirt, wobble, feedback, pitch bend and using analogue delay as a second improvising voice.
Genre Tombola — mbaqanga: With Claude Deppa — township dance bands, organ and guitar licks, call-and-response vocals, political subtext, migration stories and the line from marabi and jazz roots to modern South African pop.
Music, movement & struggle: How people on the move carry rhythm with them, and how South African music has functioned as joy, critique and survival.
Further listening & links
Full Transcript
Verbatim transcript, reflowed for readability only. No wording edits.
Hello, and welcome to the show. My name is Steve Pretty. This is my podcast, Steve Pretty On The Origin Of The Pieces. This is a show that helps you to hear and understand music in new ways and also to understand a bit about where music comes from, what it is and why it even exists in the first place. Thank you so much for all the lovely feedback about last week's show. A lot of people got in touch to say that they really particularly enjoyed hearing the harp up close with those binaural mics in and to hear the harp and trumpet duet. I really enjoyed that chat with Valeria. And also some really interesting thoughts that people had on pop rock and authenticity and all that stuff we discussed with Alexander Bennet about Robbie Williams and co. Now I should say, I know this show is coming out a bit late. I said that it will be out every two weeks on a Thursday. It was pretty much all ready to go for Thursday this week, just gone. And then I had some just finishing touches to the mix to do on Wednesday night. I came back from seeing the brilliant Daniel Kitson, his show Wilton's Musical, which of course is where you can see my show in January, January the 20th. A little mini early plug there. I came back from seeing Kitson's fantastic show. I thought, oh, I'll just finish off the edit, give it a polish and upload it. And lo and behold, my computer would not turn on my very expensive new laptop, which I invested in at vast expense earlier this year so that this sort of thing wouldn't happen. Yeah, so apologies that this show comes to you late. That is not my intention. It's only the third episode and already I've missed the deadline. I feel very frustrated about that. But anyway, hopefully it will be worth the wait. Also, I have a very robust backup strategy. That's right, people were talking about backup strategies this early in the show. But of course, needless to say, after working on it all day on Wednesday, I then just shut down the computer without backing up properly. So all of the work I've done on Wednesday, the full mix of the show, all of this recording my own bits that I'm doing for you now, that all has vanished into the ether because I had to start again with my laptop, reinstalling everything from scratch, which has been a really cool, fun few days, as you can imagine. So, excuse is over. That's why I'm afraid this show is late. Anyway, hopefully it's worth the wait. We've got a lot of really, really interesting stuff. Coming up on today's show, I have my friend and colleague Tamar Osborn, wonderful sax player and flautist, who is going to be in our entertaining noises section talking about the baritone sax, the flute, and we get a bit filthy with something called the tape delay, which is a little kind of a cassette tape basically that you can make beautiful, crunchy, squishy musical sounds with. And it's basically the kind of entropy, the chaos of that sound is something that both Tamar and I really enjoy and mess about with. So do stay tuned for that. And then towards the end of the show, I'm going to be talking about a music, which it turns out I know far more about than I thought, but still can't pronounce in any way. That is the music from South
Africa called Bunganga, Bunganga, Bunganga. It's in Mosa, the South African language. And unfortunately, I cannot speak or pronounce that in any way. So you can hear me attempting to do that with Claude later on, the wonderful guest Claude Deppa from South Africa. He's going to be taking me through how that music works and having a little jam towards the end. So stay tuned for all that. It's going to be a fun show. Here we go. But before we do any of that, I wanted to talk a little bit about pubs. That's right, pubs. I'm a big fan of pubs. I'm sure many of you will be as well. But specifically what I'm particularly passionate about with pubs is the fact that they are real community hubs. It's almost a cliche to say it now that pubs are community hubs, but I think that they really are. There is a caveat, obviously, which is that for people who don't drink, or religious people and various other groups, they're not community hubs for those people. So I totally understand that. I'm not saying they're universal. But for a lot of people, they do still serve in this country, in the UK, as real community hubs. And I think that's never more true than when pubs choose to put on live music. This is something that I feel really passionate about because it's very easy to dismiss pub music sometimes. You think, oh, there's a bloke singing covers in the pub or there's a little jazz thing in the corner. But what's misunderstood, I think, is that that grassroots music is incredibly important to the UK music scene. And to music scene more generally worldwide, given the UK's influence on it. These little gigs in pubs are really, really vital. And so I had a gig in a pub the other night. I ran a little New Orleans style night playing music from New Orleans. And we had a little jam session at the end. It was really, really fun. The great pub called The Eleanor Arms in Hackney, in sort of, well, in Bow, really, just on the cusp of the posh bit of Hackney and the quite deprived bit of Bow. Really fantastic, wonderful pub. And it's run by the landlords, Frankie and Lesley, who I think do so much to support live, in their case, jazz. They have a jazz club every Sunday night called the Old Ford Jazz Club. Yeah, so I had a really, really interesting chat with them after the gig the other night. You may be able to hear that we'd all had a couple of pints by this stage. It was 11, 11.30 on a Sunday night after the gig. But hopefully it's comprehensible. So here we go, Frankie and Lesley from The Eleanor Arms in East London. What was that? So there's this geezer, he's called the London Pub Explorer, who's got an Instagram page. And he writes this fantastic stuff about all pubs in London. And now he's branched out into a book. And the write-up of the stuff is well put together about how the East End of London has always been a place of change. And it starts with about the Huguenots, yeah? Huguenots, Bangladeshi, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, and coming into London and whatever. He says, but the one
thing that holds the East End of London together is its traditional pubs. Are you sure? It says in the text of the book, Sunday night is when the Eleanor Arms comes alive, but it's the old four jazz club. From what started you guys doing jazz in here? Ray Sandler. We're working on a Monday, so no one comes out on a Sunday. Because on a Sunday, I could probably count on my hand how many of the people who are here on a Sunday night are regulars. So there are not many of the people who are regulars. These are the only nights we've seen these people. Yeah. Some of them don't even live around, they travel. But they come specifically. For the music. Yeah, for the jazz, yeah. But I think what's interesting for me as a musician is that the narrative in popular culture is that people don't go out for music and that small scale gigs don't pull people in necessarily and that people just want to go out and have a drink. And sorry, Les, they don't want to pay. Yeah, right. That's where I see it. They don't want to pay. If I'm stood at that back door going, oh, it's three pound, five pound to get in, they just walk away, you know? Yeah, but because I'm funding it and it's free to them, all it becomes is a problem for us and we get these people to come in and just ask for a glass of tap water. Yeah, they become regular Sunday night customers, don't they? I know what they drink. Yeah, right. I think there's a huge audience out there who don't want to pay to go to a small venue and pay. Yeah. So then it releases them from the pressure that they're going, and if they're not enjoying it, they can go. I think the thing for me that's interesting, though, as a musician is playing to people who don't know what they're getting necessarily. Well, tonight they knew. But what? But I guess what I mean is, people can walk in and they don't know necessarily what they're getting. And then they're like, oh wait, I like this. And from the point of view of jazz musician, a lot of the time, if you're trying to sell jazz gigs, that's a hard thing to do, because you're selling it to people who already like that, are already into it. That is right, because some of our regulars who don't like jazz and don't stay for it, have been pleasantly surprised. Jazz is a big wide spectrum. And if you don't like that bus coming, there's another bus coming up right behind. There's something about doing a gig in a pub, as a jazz musician, that is different from doing it in a jazz club. Yeah, in a jazz club, you can be sat far back, at Ronnie's, right? You can have those tables right at the front, and then it goes back.
Then it goes up into like the wings on the side, yeah? And you can be far removed from it. But here, it's in your face. And sometimes I'll go to people around the back and say, you enjoying the music? Oh yeah, it's very good. Go round the front, there's no room, but just go round the front, squeeze in and then they come back up. And the music has become live to them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It feels like there's more possibility in... The minute... I mean, I love, you know, I obviously love jazz clubs and things, for what they are, but I think when you're in a pub where people are there to do something else, like drink and mini cheddars, you know, you've got a different opportunity to bring people with you. And yeah, that's what's fun about the gig in a pub. So obviously the conversation went on in all sorts of different directions as these late night pub conversations tend to do. And they're fascinating characters, Frankie and Lesley. But before we finish this section, I just, I suppose what I wanted to say was not just to celebrate the landlords, as I hope we have today, and those people putting on live music, you know, these small venues putting on live music, it's not easy for them. So please, please, please do support your local pub or cafe or anywhere putting on live music. It's really, really crucial for us musicians, but also I would say for wider society and even from an economic point of view for the UK music industry going forward. You know, it's a really important export for the UK. And I'm not gonna make the political case for it here, but there is a political case to be made for supporting these grassroots venues. So meanwhile, support them by going and buying a lovely pint or a glass of wine or a coffee or whatever it is in one of your local independent venues. But before we leave this, I just wanted to say something else about playing in pubs. And that is, I think sometimes audiences misunderstand the nature of being a musician. If you're playing in a pub, it's tempting sometimes for audience members to think, oh well, you know, it must be kind of a little hobby because you're only playing to 20 people or whatever. And although that can sometimes be true, and as I've discussed previously in this show, absolutely nothing wrong with playing music for a hobby, quite the opposite. I think the line between professional and amateur musicians is essentially arbitrary and really as much about lifestyle choice as about ability sometimes, but that's subject for another time. But really, I just wanted to emphasize that the musicians you're seeing in these small venues, in these small independent venues, are often really at the top of their game. I'm not talking about myself here, I should say, but just taking the band I put together the other night, for example. I mean, some of those guys have played with, so the drummer for that band, a wonderful drummer called Pat LeVette, he's played with all sorts of amazing people. He has a residency with his band at Ronnie Scott's. He's played with Tom Jones. He's absolutely the top of his game, world class drummer and also harmonica player. And Jeff Miller, the tuba player, sousaphone player on that gig, he does a lot of amazing classical stuff, some
really, really high profile classical and early music as well as much more modern stuff. James Arbon on the saxon clarinet. He's a musical director for Mulatto Starkay, a great Ethiopian sort of godfather of Ethiopian jazz music and tours all over the world with various different projects. Ed Hicks, the banjo player, has done all sorts of amazing things, run big choirs. All of these people in the band are professional musicians who are doing really amazing things and just because they're playing in a small pub on a Sunday night does not mean anything about their abilities more widely. It's the fact that as musicians, it's quite hard to understand, I guess, for some people, but it's that line between it being a vocation and a profession because we need to get paid, we need to pay the rent and all the rest of it, but it also is something that we love doing. And so if someone says, are you free on a Sunday night to play some really enjoyable music to a small but very appreciative group of people, and there'll be some beers thrown in, and a bit of money for travel and for dinner or whatever, are you up for that? And most musicians, if they're available, will say yes, because it's fun to do, it's something that we all enjoy doing. We like hanging out with other musicians, we like meeting people in those environments who enjoy the music. And I suppose the ultimate example of that for me, was when a few years ago, my band Hackney Collery Band, we had a gig for the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics, which is a subject for another time. And so it's almost certainly the biggest gig we will ever do as a band, because we were playing to 80,000 people in the stadium and it was broadcast, of course, some of that worldwide. It was this enormous gig, but I was really, really clear that what I wanted to do the next night was to do a pub gig. So the next night, after we played to 80,000 people in the stadium, however many, hundreds of millions worldwide, the next day, we did a little gig in a pub quite near the stadium, actually, also in that part of East London. And yeah, we played to, I don't know, maybe 50 people. And to be honest, it was way more enjoyable for us playing to that small group of passionate people who were really into what we were doing than playing to an enormous stadium. That's not to say, of course, that it's not fun to play these massive venues. Sometimes, of course, it is, and it's a real privilege and joy to be able to do that. I just wanted to dispel the idea that your career as a musician is kind of linear. It's always upwards, and you're always building to the next bigger venue, and then the bigger venue, and then the bigger venue. It's not about how big a venue you're playing often. It's about what you're playing and the environment that you're in, what the audience are doing, that interaction between audience and musician, which for me is almost more profound in a small venue when you're really up close and personal with people than it is in a huge stadium. They each have their place. It's great. Lucky I didn't enjoy that stadium gig that much, to be honest, because I haven't been asked to do many stadium gigs since. Anyway, on with the show. That's my little ode to pub gigs over for now, but let me know your thoughts on that if you have any thoughts on pub gigs, if you have any particularly memorable pub gigs, do share them
with me at Steve Pretty on social media or podcast at stevepretty.com if you want to email me. Right, on with the show. Okay, the time has come now for entertaining noises. Now, this is the section of the show where I have someone in my studio or out and about, and I talk to them about what they do. We make some interesting music or make some interesting entertaining sounds of some description. And of course, we do that with the binaural mics in. Now, what that means is that you need to put headphones in if you can. Don't worry if you can't, if you're listening in a car or on speakers or on your phone or whatever, that's fine. It will still work, but you will get the full effect if you stick headphones in or on now. Because then the microphones that are in the ears of my guest will be picking up exactly what they are hearing. So that will mean that they will translate directly to your ears. So yeah, do pop those headphones in or on. So this episode, we have my friend and colleague Tamar Osborn on the show, AKA Collocutor, that's the name of her artist project. She's a wonderful saxophone player, composer, flautist, many other things. She has her own radio show and she's, yeah, we talk about the saxophone, we talk about the flute. This is a kind of a bit like a combined entertaining noises section and also the music theory bit that you would have heard in previous shows because we cover quite a lot of ground about how the saxophone works, how the flute works. And also at the end, we have a lot of fun with what's called a tape delay. So real magnetic tape for those of you who remember cassettes and reo-to-reos and that sort of thing. We get one of those out and make some very squelchy, crunchy, lovely noises with the flute and baritone sax. So here we go. This is Tamar Osborn, AKA Collocutor in the studio. The binaurals are on. Trying not to brush the binaurals with my hair. So tell me who you are. Who are you and why are you here? Why am I here? That's a very good question. I mean, how deep do we want to go with that question? My name is Tamar Osborn. I am a saxophonist and woodwind player. I work freelance. I also have my own project, and I'm a regular side person for one, or collaborator, depending on how you want to look at it in several other people's bands. So, speaking of making music your own, do you want to tell us what have you got with you? I have got with me today baritone saxophone, which is probably the biggest of the saxophone family that people are familiar with. How the saxophones are labelled follows a similar system to how voices in a choir are labelled. So soprano, alto, tenor, baritone. We've got more on either side. We've got a silly thing called a sopranino, which is just a tiny bit of tubing. I mean, sure. And then I also have with me a flute, which to some people will seem a very unrelated instrument, but actually they're both based on the same system of how and where you punch the holes into the bit of
metal to create sound as a hopefully short and not too mysterious way of describing it. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, because they're both obviously made of metal, different metals and things, but... But weirdly part of the woodwind family. That's a historical legacy. It's a kind of quirk, isn't it? Yeah, well, I mean, flutes were originally wood. I mean, there were all sorts of things, but people might be familiar with flutes made from bamboo from various traditions around the world. At some point in Western music, metal became more popular, more familiar. I guess it's more malleable. You can add more keys to it more easily, but you do get wooden flutes with the same key systems that have developed on modern flutes. But yeah, it's part of the Woodwind family because it used to be made of wood. Saxophones, however, have never been made of wood, but are somehow still part of the Woodwind family, controversially-ish, partly, I think, because they function on the same mechanical system as the Woodwind family does, partly because they're related to that family also because the way the sound is produced is the same as the way it is on a clarinet. So you have a mouthpiece with a single reed, and the action of blowing air over that single reed and making it vibrate is what makes the sound. Can you do that for us now? I can. Can you hold the flute, please? So maybe if you just give us just a mouthpiece. Just a mouthpiece. This will sound horrible. So the thing with any reed instruments is that if the piece of reed is too thick or not damp enough, for whatever reason doesn't want to vibrate, you will get no sound. You'll get nothing coming out of your instrument. So there's a whole system of like, should you soak your reeds? Should you not soak your reeds? How long for all this kind of thing? And all reed players wander around before gigs looking a bit weird because they're basically chewing on a random bit of wood in order to make it work. But that's basically it. You have to make it vibrate in order to get sound. Whereas with the flute, it's like making a noise from a bottle, which I'm sure is something most people have tried at some point. So you're blowing the air across the top of a hole and some of that air ends up going down the hole and through the instruments. And somehow by magic, that makes noise. So this is just on the head joint, the top bit of the flute. That's the flute without the buttons. Yes, that's the flute without the buttons. And similarly to a trumpet, there's a certain amount you can do just by changing the tension of the muscles in your face or how much or how little air you're blowing down it. So that's the same length of pipe, and you're just speeding up and slowing down the air, right? Speeding up, slowing down the air, having a little bit more tension in my face muscles to make the air more or less focused. And that so splits it into different columns and that... Physics, physics gets involved, yeah.
So if you then, if you, Lesley, now you're putting the head on the flute, so if you just give us some notes on the flute. Beautiful, beautiful. And if you just play the bari for us. Very nice. And people might be familiar with the bari, depending on their age, as you rightly pointed out earlier, from The Simpsons, right? Yes, because Lisa Simpson plays the baritone sax. So you may recognize the shape. So could you describe the shape of it? A bit curly. A bit curly. Extra curl at the top. So soprano saxophone, which is the smallest one most people will probably be familiar with, is the one Kenny G. She said it. I said it. I said it. The one John Coltrane played a lot as well. Kenny G and John Coltrane. Trying to undo what I just said, sorry. John Coltrane played it loads. That's usually straight. You do find curved sopranos, but they're usually straight. Alto is curved. So the bottom end is twisted up. That's partly just to do with the practicalities of the length of metal, partly also to do with how the sound then projects. It has what we call the crook, which is the top bit that the mouthpiece attaches to. That is straight. Tenor, the next one down looks similar to an alto, but it's a bit longer and the crook has a slight bend in it, again to do with the practicalities of the length of tube. And then the baritone has a lot more twists and turns. Basically, it's got all sorts of wiggly bits going on, which also means it can break quite easily. Well, one thing I want to say actually, we're talking about the lengths and the shapes of the instrument. So they're designed to project acoustically for other people to hear what you're playing, which for me is very interesting on the baritone because all the sound goes away from me. So I'm really curious to see what is picked up on the binaural headphones, which are for people who aren't so familiar, they're in my ears at the moment. So what they're recording should replicate as far as possible what I'm hearing. And what I hear on the baritone is not anywhere near as loud as what other people hear. But the other thing that will complicate that is not quite the same. So for example, last week we had Valeria Harpist in here with the binaural mics in, and that probably will be, I would imagine, quite similar to how she hears it, because they're in here. But when you're playing a wind or a brass instrument, you're part of the instrument. Well, yes, yeah. So you're making the sound yourself to a degree, so your lungs and your mouth and everything are physically part of the instrument. Well, and the actual shape of your skull and various other bits of your anatomy act as resonators. Exactly. So you hear the instrument also through your head, literally through your bones and stuff. So it's funny when, as a trumpet player, I think it's even more pronounced when you wear, sometimes as musicians we wear what are called in-ears, which are like little headphones where you can hear yourself and the rest of the band, as you know.
But as wind players, brass players, it's a bit strange because you're hearing what the mic is picking up, which is not how you would hear it in normal times without headphones in, because you're blocking your ears. It's the same effect basically as if you had your hands over your ears. Yes. But you're also hearing your voice if you're talking through a mic. As it's picked up through a microphone. And it's quite disconcerting. It's a very weird experience. It is, but the development of the technology is also interesting because the act of blocking your ears in any way changes your perception of pitch as well. It's partly why sometimes in a studio setting, you'll see wind and brass players playing with one ear of the headphones off, because partly it's to do with how you perceive your pitch and your tuning. And it's also partly to do with locking into how the other players you're working with are breathing, because that's part of how you articulate and how you produce the sound as well. So they're complex bits of kit. Yeah, they are. So I think we should hear a bit more though, right? I mean, we've been doing a nice session today for a little project we're working on. And do you want to play that little riff we've been playing? No, I've got to try and remember. Yeah. Yeah, something like that. Exactly. It's a really simple little riff, but when you've got such a meaty, beautiful instrument as the bari, it really responds to it. Yeah. Oh, actually, just give us a little bit on the flute as well, if you would. Just a little bit of tickling. Let's see. Now, you see there, the flute's gone really sharp because it's a much smaller bit of metal. And as the metal warms up, it makes the pitch go sharper. So what you have to do is pull the head joint out a bit. This goes across wind instruments. Pull the head joint out a bit to make the tube longer. And that has the effect of making the pitch a little bit flatter again. It's a constant, yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Beautiful, but before we finish, this, we were having a lot of fun today with the thing that's in front of us on the floor. Oh yes. I got out something I haven't used for a little while, which is my tape delay. Oh yes. The tape delay is basically a sort of a mini cassette, essentially a bit of magnetic tape like we used to use. I feel like you need to put a picture of it on the podcast. I'll link to a picture of it. They are great. Because it's beautiful. Also, for the younger generation who've never seen a cassette. It's something that, it's got its own character, it's got its own
texture. You can, of course, just repeat something infinitely and have it done perfectly, like a loop pedal or something that can just repeat exactly the same thing, will just repeat exactly the same thing, will just repeat exactly the same thing, will just repeat exactly the same thing. But it's much more interesting, I think, to have something that changes over time and has its own character and it's so, so it means you play it like an instrument. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. And what I can't do right now, you can hear me on this still. Turn the delay up. So what I do when I use my own effects sometimes, which I can't do today because I can't reach, you also have certain dials which change the speed of the delay, various other variables which when you turn them while you're playing have the effect of adjusting the pitch, adjusting the rate at which you hear the sounds come back. So that's a whole other world of fun that you can add to it as well. We'll get it set up for probably when you're in next backend and we'll knock about with some more of that. Yeah. But that's beautiful. That was, yeah, tape delay, flute. And that's something that you and I both do quite a lot of, right, effects and this, yeah. Yeah. It's just another, I think of it as another part of the color palette that you're painting with. Absolutely. And for me, quite often, I like to think of it as another instrumental voice. Yeah. So it's not just a color in the background. It's very much something that I'm interacting with and is especially in an improvisation is forming the, informing the direction of the improvisation. Lovely. Well, thank you so much. Bye Steve. It's been a pleasure. It's been a treat having you. So I hope you enjoyed those binaural entertaining noises with the great Tamar Osborn. She has a lot of really cool stuff coming up. She is doing a lot of stuff for the London Jazz Festival. If you're in London in November 2023, she's got lots of stuff coming up there. Her project, which is of sort of varying shapes and sizes, is called Collocutor. That's her own project. She also does a lot of different collaborations, as she mentioned, with all sorts of people. As I say, she and I work on some music together. Yeah, so do look her up if you like that sort of thing. Right, on with the show. Now, I should say that today I'm aware we are a little bit jazz heavy. That will not be the case in all shows. Don't worry if you're not a jazz person. But as you may remember, my music that was allocated for this show to delve into in my genre Tombola, where I look at a completely different genre every episode as picked for me by a random list picker from the list of 1300 or so genres, as on Wikipedia. That picked the style of music, which as you're about to hear, I still can't pronounce it. It's called mba-ka-hanga, a ba-ka-hanga. A no-sir word, I think that's right. Which is also in some way a form of jazz. There's more modern stuff which we talk about as well, but most of
the focus of it today is on the earlier style of mba-ka-hanga, which is kind of a jazz style, as you'll hear. But of course, we will be finding out at the end of this episode which style I will be looking at for the next episode. And statistically, it is unlikely to be jazz. So do stay tuned. If jazz isn't your thing, hopefully you'll learn something along the way anyway. But yeah, do bear in mind, this is not gonna be a jazz-focused show in general. Anyway, this episode, I have another guest in the form of Claude Deppa, who is a wonderful trumpet player, who's also a trumpet player as am I. And he has been on the London scene for a very long time, playing music with all sorts of amazing people. He often leans into his South African heritage and background, which is what we're gonna be talking about today. But he's also played with all sorts of different ensembles over the years. And very importantly, is a great educator as well. He teaches a lot, but he is also very involved with the incredible project Kinetika Blocko, which is an education project in a big samba band kind of collective that's mainly run out of the South Bank these days, South Bank Centre in London. He and I actually met when Kinetika Blocko were involved in a project that I directed at the Roundhouse some years ago. And they just an incredible ensemble. They bring such energy to the proceedings and what they have achieved and as with Claude, very much up there at the head of it over the years is quite remarkable. A lot of amazing professional musicians, including people like someone who's now an international soloist, Theon Cross, a great artist in his own right these days. He has come through that project as as many others, but more importantly, it has also formed a real community backbone to lift often quite impoverished kids up and to give them a taste of working together in an ensemble context, no matter what their ability. So I really suggest you check out Kinetika Blocko if you ever have a chance, they do do public performances. Yeah, if you're in London at any stage, do check them out. Anyway, we had a very, very wide ranging conversation lasting the best part of about two hours. I've cut it right down today just to talk about the genre tombola bit of the show. But yeah, we talked about the power of music education. We talked about how musical styles transcend boundaries and the way music evolves over time, all sorts of stuff. So a lot of interesting stuff there, which I may revisit in future shows. He's a super engaging speaker and educator and a wonderful trumpet player and musician. So I'm gonna drop into the interview now where I was just explaining to Claude why I do the genre tombola. Claude is luckily a fan of the show very kindly. And so he was aware of the segment and I just wanted to explain my reasoning behind it. So let's drop into that. As I say, what I like about it, it's that when it's because you're coming from a point of, I don't know. Yeah, exactly. And the idea of doing a completely different thing each episode is that I won't know about any of them. And it's gonna put me in a really awkward position in a way, like trying to learn. And so it's me bringing a bit of my musical experience to try to
understand a little bit in order for the audience to try and understand rather than just be going, now I will give you a lecture on all the stuff I know about. So first, thanks for coming in. Just for the sake of the show, can you introduce yourself? Okay, hi, my name is Claude Deppa, trumpet player from Cape Town, South Africa. And I've lived in England since 1975. I come from a musical family. My grandfather is on brass band and choir. I conducted my first brass band when I was three. Yeah, yeah, but they were very much in the marching sense. Yeah, sort of military style. Military style, very military style. In fact, when I saw the North Korean army officer's uniform, it's bloody identical. Really? Up to the orange stripe, they have a red one. We had the orange stripe, that same brown khaki. That's what it was. It was scary when I saw it the first time, I was like, woo! So I've always done music. And then in 75, my parents decided, no. I was speaking out too much. There was a few problems that was really building up to the riots in 76. And they moved us out. And literally a year later, trouble really started shoveling everything else that row from there. But when I came to England, up till then, I played tenor horn in the brass band. Did you? I said, don't worry, I clucked it. I love tenor horn. Then I went back and you listen to it. It's there in Calypso, in Brazilian music, not so much in reggae. But in Cuba, they do that same thing. So it has that morning saxophone, and it's always alto. You know, it's the closest for me that I can hear a voice can create. But to formulate that, it used Zulu folklore stories. Now, it was more prevalent in the townships of Johannesburg. So you know, Zulus aren't in Johannesburg, they're right next to the Indian Ocean. So how does that come about? Of course, the miners, the workers in the underground, a lot of them were Zulu then. I see. And again, what's interesting about that is that so many times throughout history, and I'm not just talking about recent history, I'm talking about, it would have been, you know, stretching back thousands of years, tens of thousands of years even, that it's people moving, that the movement of people and the movement of music go hand in hand, whether it's like sailors singing, you know, shanties, that then transform into something else or even like, so I did an interview with an astronaut who was on the International Space Station, we just took him because he played music up there. He said even there, you know, this idea that where everyone's bringing instruments up, so they have a kind of jam station on the International Space Station. So, you know, even today in space, people are kind of exchanging musical ideas, but that idea that as people move around, they bring with their music and then that changes, then everyone, you know, it's an exchange of ideas, exchange of… Not to catch you, but the perfect example is jazz. Yeah, of course.
You know, it's my great treat. We should probably, we should get back to Bacanga. Bacanga, yeah. Yeah, so it's very much lead. It always, even if you listen to any of them, it always has this… guitar lick at the beginning. And they each have their own… In fact, saying that, Paul Simon uses his diamonds on the shoulders of his shoes. Yeah. Well, that's because my understanding, very limited though it is, is that it kind of came about in the, around the 60s, early 60s. Bacanga, there was, as I say, there was Tones of Jazz before that. Of course. There was Marabi before that. But that really came out in the 60s. And it was a music to make people happy. People like to dance, you know. They'd be working six days, come Saturday, you want to go somewhere where you can let your hair down. Already, you can only go special places that has a license to drink if you were black. You couldn't just buy a drink anywhere. That's why Chibis were set up. It's illegal drinking places. But you went out and you want to dance. You want to let your hair down. One morning you wake up and you go to church. I couldn't even understand. It's interesting, isn't it? I've listened to a lot of it this week, both the earlier stuff and the more modern stuff, more poppy stuff. It's all sort of fairly fast-paced, very danceable, with that, as you say, the offbeat... I mean, absolutely right, it is that, but again, it's a dance thing. But it comes from a place, you know, South Africa in the 60s, of course. Well oppressed, absolutely, but where there's oppression, suppression, depression, art normally flourishes. If you look at England, early 80s Margaret Thatcher from 79, it's the first time the mines closed, people were suffering, yeah, but we were playing. But then that's why Mbakanga was really helpful because it made people happy. Because they were going through some serious trouble, even just being at the concert, you know what I mean? Boom, so you're running the wrist all the time, but it is music that helps people deal with the suffering. And to be fair, it's music that really, South African music that really brought the struggle to the forefront. The person who went up to the United Nations, Maria Makeba, she wasn't a singer, she was a singer. And because people recognize how healing the music is, and because it was such a strong help during the struggles, it was really relevant of the struggle. It was part of the struggle, it was the struggle. Yeah, it sort of symbolizes the struggle. Something I've talked about in the past on this show, and something I'm a bit obsessed with, is this idea that music, we think of few emotions like happy or sad, or depressed or uplifted or whatever, but that's not really happy emotion as well. It's way more complicated than that. So you can have a mournful instrument in a really happy music. In a happy music, no, no. I shouldn't say mourning. It's a yearning. And you just want to go, let me help. So I've just been trying to do as much research as I can, just listening to playlists that people put together. A lot of more
modern stuff especially, it's very vocal led. So it's often about saxophone of course, but it's mainly a lead vocal, often a male vocal and a group of female vocals. And in fact, if you look at that form formula, it's what Maclattini had, and he's Zulu. He's the lead vocal, and then the Mahotala queens, they were there. And he always had a guitar, not always a saxophone, but he always had that guitar in. But the thing is, with three of them, and they just went into harmony. So he could create that sound. And if you listen to the modern stuff, it really stems from him. But it's just faster. It's faster and more upbeat. But I mean, his voice. And I've tried to imitate him. And ten seconds of doing it, your throat just says, stop. Stop. If you want to talk tomorrow, stop. And as I say, it's Zulu folklore. So if you understand the words, there actually is a message in there. Suppose there were some messages about bringing down of apartheid. But most of them are happy tunes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they're sort of sneaking a political message in these kind of uplifting interest tunes. And only certain people would know. But it was mainly to heal. To make people feel, ah, yeah, ooh. And again, for me, that's what music's got to be. If you're not making people happy, okay, make them cry then. But nobody can make music that will make people angry. So obviously the show is about music. I try and put as much music in it as possible. Now, I'm going to put a million caveats to this. With this bit of the show, if I've got time, my intention, whatever comes up is to try and certainly listen to it and analyse it, but then also try and make some very crappy copy of it in my own way. And so whatever I'm doing is always going to be a very pale imitation of it. But it's just a way of trying to understand it, I suppose. I like it because I think it's a way of letting people understand it rather than people walking up to a wall going, oh, what's this? You're finally saying, yeah, look, there's a brick there, there's a brick there. There is a way to get through and understand it. There's a way to just start trying to understand it. And again, I would never claim any degree of authenticity or anything. But it's just a way of me coming to something with fresh ears and going, okay, so this is the way I think of this. Might be completely wrong, but then talking to someone who knows much more about it. So I've put together some very basic and probably very inaccurate grooves. I'll see, okay. I wondered if we could... Play over that. Yeah, let's... That's what Makanga is. Well, exactly, exactly. I mean the other thing is you can tell me what we should change and what should be wrong. You know, things that... The bass drum, all the bass drum, I'm noticing the snare, but boom, boom. So at the moment we've got the bass drum, it's four to the...
Four to the floor. But if we just change the drum... That's the one. The first one? That's the first one. That's right. Yep. And what would you say the next is in terms of the priority order of instruments? What's the bass guitar doing? Just bring them all in. I think they will all sit in fine. I see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, oh, oh, eh, eh, eh, eh, two, three, oh, oh, five, two, three, go, four, five. And so how come it would be organ, just in terms of the history of it, is that because there would be churches? There would be churches that wouldn't have a piano, and it used to be organ, so you had to pump. Right, right, right, yeah. That's sort of the basis of the groove. Of the groove and that's it. Guitar, bass, a little bit of organ filling in. Yeah. And then the melody on top. Melody on top. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course, it's usually lyrical, it tends to be a short repetitive phrase. I love these heavy trumpets, but man, do they get cold. Oh, okay. Vowels feel like bubble gum when it's cold. Well, speaking of bubble gum, I did a bit of research about the contemporary pops known as bubble gum in South Africa, right? Actually, it comes from, you know, me, rock and roll. Everybody should get bubble gum. Right, right, right. Aren't you going to blow? I can blow? Yeah, yes, yes. I can blow. You've got so many instruments in your house. You've got to blow something. I'll play something that's true. The bass can come in. Thank you Thank Bye So I'm gonna leave this playing out as I talk to you here. That was a real pleasure to have Claude in the studio with me. What a fascinating guy he is. Giving me a real insight into that beautiful music. So I do suggest you go and check out some Kanga. There we go, give it another go. I've put a playlist in the show notes, so do go and have a listen on whichever streaming service of your choice. There's lots of great stuff out there, there's lots of fun stuff on YouTube as well. It's really beautiful, uplifting music. Some of it's a bit more poppy than the stuff we're doing today, but there's also this earlier jazz style stuff as well, so do go and check it out. Really, really interesting stuff. But the time has come for this week's lucky dip into the genre tombola to mix
gambling-based metaphors. So I have copied and pasted that list of 1300 or so styles from Wikipedia into my random list picker. And here we go, return. Okay, next episode, we are gonna be looking at Death Grind. That's right, Death Grind, people. We're gonna go from Anger to Death Grind. That's the sort of show we are. So do stay tuned for that. It's gonna be a lot of fun, I'm sure, looking into that. I am trying to get my head round how I'm gonna produce a piece of Death Grind music, but it'll be fun trying. I think it only remains for me to say thank you so much to my many guests this show. So lots of guests on this show. We had Lesley and Frankie from the brilliant Eleanor Arms Pub. Thank you very much to them for chatting to me about pubs. And once again, please do celebrate your local pub, your local independent live music venue. They need you more than ever. Speaking of which, I'm gonna be back there with a fantastic band on the 17th of December. So a little New Orleans Christmas special. So do come along to that if you are in the area of East London. And then of course we had Tamar Osborn. Do check out her stuff on the web. You can listen to a lot of her music that she's released. And she also has a radio show of her own, I believe. And also her project Collocutor and lots of other things she's doing at the London Jazz Festival. And of course, Claude Deppa, who you can still hear behind us here talking about his background in South Africa and Mbeka Nkanga. There we are. Thank you very much for listening. Do get in touch with your thoughts on the show if you've got any suggestions. A lot of great interactions with people so far about what they liked, different directions that people think we could go in in exploring music in all its myriad forms. So do hit me up on the social medias at Steve Pretty in the usual places or podcast at stevepretty.com. And just a reminder that I have my podcast recording and gig with all sorts of different musicians. Valeria from the last episode on Harp will be there. And some of the Hackney Colliery band guys will be there. We're gonna be doing a little mini Hackney Colliery band gig. Talking to Valeria, talking to my friend Chris Lintott, the astronomer about music and space and all sorts of stuff. That's at Wilton's Music Hall on the 20th of January. So please do rock up for that. It's gonna be a really, really interesting night. Right, thanks once again. The theme is by Hackney Colliery band and me and of course, Angelique Kidjo, wonderful Angelique Kidjo. We're working hard on some new Hackney Colliery band music. And we're gonna announce some new shows soon. So keep an eye out for that. Meanwhile, thank you very much for tuning in and we will see you in two weeks time. I'm gonna stick to the same release schedule even though this one's come out quite late because of factors that I mentioned in the beginning. So we're gonna be coming out on Thursday, the 16th of November. So look out for that. Thursday, 16th of November, 2023. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll see you next time.