Gwigwi Mrwebi - Mbaqanga Songs LP

Gwigwi Mrwebi travelled to London from Johannesburg in 1960, to appear in the musical King Kong - alongside the likes of Dorothy Masuka, featured on London 4. (Back home earlier that year he'd recorded with Hugh Masekela and Kippie Moeketsi in the Jazz Dazzlers; and earlier he'd played with the Jazz Maniacs and the Harlem Swingsters.)

The Blue Notes came after him in 1965, and two years later Chris McGregor, Dudu
Pukwana and Ronnie Beer joined Gwigwi for this session at Dennis Duerden's Transcription centre in Covent Garden, together with Jamaican bassist Coleridge Goode (from Joe Harriott's group), and on drums the Welshman Laurie Allan ( a Blue Notes regular, who played with Gong in the seventies). Mbaqanga Songs is a reissue of the LP which resulted (originally entitled Kwela by Gwigwi's Band, and impossible to find pretty much ever since).

Sixteen short, exhilarating jazz tracks in the dance style then captivating South Africa ('kwela' means 'get moving' in Xhosa), bursting with beautiful melodies. Carefully remastered at Abbey Road; with poignant new sleevenotes by Steve Beresford. - Honest Jons