Music: Moers Jazz Festival: A place of understanding

The exhibition “Stolen Moments. Namibian Music History Untold« through several European cities, Berlin, Bayreuth, London, Stuttgart, until it was shipped to the Namibian capital Windhoek in 2022, where it will remain permanently. The fact that even there the country’s popular music from the period before independence in 1990 is apparently rather unknown is one of the surprising findings that we owe to the Moers Festival.

It is quite remarkable that the search for undiscovered treasures of music from the most remote regions of the world, which has been rampant for decades, seems to have largely bypassed the country in southern Africa. In a panel event as part of this year’s Moers Festival, the filmmaker Thorsten Schütte, who was involved in the “Stolen Moments” project, and the Namibian musician Jackson Wahengo reported on how the exhibition came about. The reasons for the gap in music history probably lie in the special history of the former German colony, which was administered by South Africa from 1915 to 1990.

In the African states that had gained independence, whose borders were, as is well known, largely due to the colonial balance of power, popular music was a widespread means of creating national feeling. In South West Africa, as Namibia was called until 1968, the laws of apartheid applied, as in South Africa. This also meant that the different peoples in the country were segregated. National radio, introduced in the early 1970s, did record local musicians, but only for broadcast purposes; was then sent to the relevant population groups. Since there was no record industry, it was hardly possible for musicians to become known beyond their region, let alone internationally. Wahengo brought another aspect into play: popular music often had a bad reputation because it was associated with cheap bars, while the traditional playing styles were suspected by many of the Christianized Namibians as pagan.

As part of the “Stolen Moments” project, the music of singer and guitarist Ben Molatzi, who died in 2016, has now been made available again. It had been lying dormant since the 80s until the deserving Bear Family label released it on CD around five years ago LP released. And songs by the Ugly Creatures, who became the house band of the then banned communist resistance movement SWAPO in the late 70s, were also reissued. Otherwise the material layer is thin. This is not due to a lack of music. Schütte reports that the project team is currently working on a compilation of music from those years. Around 9,000 songs from the archives have now been digitized. However, it is a lengthy and complex job to clarify the rights, contact the surviving artists or the family members of the deceased and share in the proceeds. Of course, this is not only necessary because the musicians once received no compensation for their radio recordings. So we have to wait a little longer for the treasures from the archives.

After all, there were a whole series of live acts from Namibia to be seen in Moers, including a concert entitled “Stolen Moments”, in which Wahengo and a few colleagues played songs from the stolen time, including a piece by Molatzi. An undisputed highlight of the festival was the ensemble Ju/’Hoansi from the north-east of Namibia, which triggered unexpected emotions with dance and fascinating polyphonic singing and was seen at the festival a total of three times, with the performance with the singer Shishani and band being particularly notable Rodelberg on Saturday exuded an elusive, magical energy. The fact that the San, who preserve their pre-colonial culture, were able to arrive at all was no small Whitsun miracle. Shishani, who has been working with the ensemble for years, reported on a panel on Sunday about the enormous difficulties in issuing visas, which reflect the power and dependency relationships between the so-called global south and the industrialized countries, even long after the end of the colonial era let. In Namibia, explains Shishani, 80 percent of the arable land belongs to Germans. The descendants of those who committed genocide against the Herero and Nama in what is now Namibia more than a hundred years ago. While the German government still seems to be in no hurry to pay compensation.

Also traveling from Namibia were the composer and baritone Elson Hindundu, who is considered the creator of the first Namibian opera, Vilho Nuumbala, who works at the intersection of techno, metal and punk, and Angelina Tashiya Akawa, who illustrated how exciting today’s music scene is Namibia is. No question: it was a wise decision to replace the “Africa focus” announced three years ago with an annual focus on individual countries.

The second focus also had a lot to offer: The Japanese scene, which has long been a regular part of the program, was this time represented by, among others, the pianist Satoko Fuji, koto virtuoso Michiyo Yagi and the brutal minimalists Goat. For example, Yagi played an intensive free set with harpist Zeena Parkins and also impressed in his interaction with Christian Lillinger and bassist Takashi Sugawa. In total there were around a dozen program items with Japanese participation. And there was also a lot to experience and discover outside of the main focus: the legendary Arto Lindsay was a guest, the delicately percussive electro-dub duo Burnt Friedman & Joao Pais Filipe, the Italian-Senegalese collaboration Ndox Electrique, the Korean ensemble Jambinai, which is under Incorporation of traditional instruments, heavy drones relocated; Amirtha Kidambi’s Elder Ones from the USA played in ecstasy with colleagues from Japan in the schoolyard, scene greats such as Conny Bauer, Liz Allbee and Erwin Ditzner cavorted in the various large and small ensembles, with a joint project by the Brit Rian Treanor and Ocen James from Uganda also breathed a bit of Nyege-Nyege spirit across the grounds.

It remains to be hoped that this place of communication will remain intact even in times of dwindling funding.