Let me first thank the administrator for heeding our request and creating this section. BiafraNigeria world is really becoming a complete book with chapters on all aspects of our existence.
Now let me get to the topic. As a big fan of highlife music, I have always been curious as to the origin of this style of music in BiafraNigeria.While it would appear that early Igbo culture did not have much regard for music as a profession, must successful highlife muscians tend to have their roots in Igboland, what was responsible for this change?
Who were the earliest highlife musicians known in BiafraNigeria, what inspired their music and how did highlife come to gain deep roots in that part of the world ?
I ain't got no idea man. Maybe our brother Biafra will come to our rescue.
BTW, thanks for your PM. Just got it and I'll get back to you within the week. I brought a lot of work home and I'm still up at past 0100hrs Monday morning and I'm supposed to get up for 0600.
___________________ Awo's political idea was based on the assumption that any town beyond Owo was Igbo or Hausa. Awo was not socialised; he was not a good mixer because he did not have the opportunity, which the secondary school offered. ~TOS Benson, Baba Oba of Lagos
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I thought the origin of Highlife music came from the akuko na egwu kind of stuff. Or, was it copied from Congo? Where are the ikwokirikwo buffs? Shed some light, please.
___________________ Nwa Amucha Posts: 369 | From: Little Rock, Arkansas | Registered: May 2001
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Like Brother Amucha alluded Highlife has its root from Igbo folklore and story telling music. As many of you know Igbo music is made up of both war songs, Burial songs like Ese for men, and uko for women during burials, Also we have music like ekwerikwe ngba. Also music like Abigbo Mbaise, and other cultural music. All this were our type of music until the ardent of white man and christianity coming to Igbo land.
With the coming of white man, Our people started to migrate to the urban areas. When Igbos started migrating to Urban areas like Lagos, To make money they started entaining in Night clubs. They started combining our folklore Music with accustic guiters, to also entertain white men, who came with ships. Remember in the village when our sibbling goes to township and doesn't visit the village often, Our people will say Obi ha highlife, that he is living a highlife in township. meaning that he is spending all his money in night clubs with prostitutes. That was why highlife music had a negative connotation in Igbo land earlier on.
Not until Ik Dairo a yoruba and Rex Jim Lawson came along that highlife music started to evolve. When people like Rex lawson, celestine Ukwu Israel Nwa Oba, Stephen Osita Osadebe,Joe nez and many Igbo highlife musicians of the 50s and 60s come along highlife then exploded. This also coincide with coming of Music companies like Ark studios and Phillips polygrans records, and the introduction of gramo-phone that one you wind and put that big pines that are almost like nails. this contribute to explosion of highlife music.
___________________ On Aburi We Stand.
Posts: 3003 | From: Inland Empire California | Registered: Mar 2001
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Is Emmanuel Tetteh Mensah really the king of highlife? I have a very high regard for Benson Idonije but his views about Mensah is wrong.
quote:Remembering the king of highlife By Benson Idonije
EVER since Emmanuel Tetteh Mensah popularised big band highlife in Nigeria and Ghana in the early 1950s, the music has grown by leaps and bounds, fragmenting into several fusion and variants. Highlife has undergone many changes in terms of harmonic as well as rhythmic progressions; and has remained a source of inspiration to generations of musicians. Credits must go to Mensah who died eight years ago, for the cultural legacy he left behind.
Not that Mensah was responsible for introducing highlife to Nigeria or that highlife originated from Ghana, as some people believe. Far from it. Highlife has always been with us, at least since the guitar or mandolin banjo was introduced to our folk and indigenous music to bring about its very first contact with Western instrumentation and music.
Even the big band highlife which Mensah later popularised was here in Nigeria in the hands of such great musicians as Willie Payne, Sammy Akpabot who led a wonderful sextet, "consul" Anifowose, Tunde Amuwo among others. Their music just did not attract the kind of mass appeal that Mensah's Tempos band generated.
Arrangements were less involved and melodies were based on simple themes, some of which derived from the common metal, church-hymnal structure. But he made a great impact on the musicians of that period and the scene itself, as an innovator.
In Nigeria, the first aggregation to be influenced was the Bobby Benson jam session, which had the potential for identifying with the new trend. The band had been playing highlife along with dance music of jive, fox trot, waltz and all. But the sound of Mensah's Tempo Band helped n re-aligning its focus towards the Ghanaian approach to highlife.
Benson's first recording in this new musical direction was Tax Driver which became a hit. But unfortunately, Bobby was more interested in jazz of the swinging type and its beat than highlife. And it was Victor Olaiya who was in the trumpet section of the band at the time that was to provide the Nigerian parallel to Mensah's popular Ghanaian highlife.
Apart from influencing the course of highlife in the 50s, Mensah's Tempos Band, like the Benson Jam session in Nigeria, formed the repository and training ground for almost every musician.
Zeal Onyia who started out with the Bobby Benson Band passed through Mensah's Tempos Band before eventually settling down with the famous Rhythm Aces of Ghana as the band's lead trumpeter. Even Spike Ayanko, the alto saxophone player who led the Rhythm Aces had his apprenticeship with Mensah who was as proficient in all the instruments in the reed family as he was with brass. He was a fine trumpeter and was also a great saxophonist.
As a prime mover, Mensah nurtured the likes of Jerry Hansen whose Ramblers Dance Bank later became a phenomenon in Ghanaian highlife. Hansen later extended the survival of highlife till the 70s while other bands had gone into voluntary extinction. The leader of the Black Beats, King Bruce, learnt the saxophone at the feet of Mensah with whom he played for several years.
Mensah influenced almost all the highlife bands of the 50s and 60s. All the early bands including the Ramblers, Stargazers, Melody Aces and even Olaiya's All Stars, Chief Bill Friday's Ambassador Down Beats - all took their inspiration from E.T. Mensah. Beyond were inspirational influence, Mensah set the standard for the configuration of highlife's instrumentation and also patterned a logical sequence in which concessions were given to soloists and percussionists.
In such early hits as Esinana and SchoolGirls, he set the standards in terms of vocalisation and instrumentation. Dan Aquaye, who was the Tempos Band's singer became a reference point in terms of voice projection, courage and dynamics, singing all the early highlife songs among them Gyaesia, Trofafe and others with the kind of finesse and technique associated with such influential and towering popular music singers of that period as Nat King Cole or Brook Benton.
As a multi-instrumentalist, he set the pattern for his followers in the area of tonal conception, making sure that all the instruments of the orchestra (the horns in particular) produced clean sounds that were pleasant to the ear, without any hindrances from vibratos and such other atonalities. As a result, his trumpet sound which owed a lot of Eddy Calvert inspired a whole generation of players in Ghana and Nigeria some of whom merely used it as a stepping stone for creating their own individual identities. But some like Eddy Quansah of Ghana and Agu Norris of Nigeria stuck to this trend forever.
Mensah was a fine saxophonist who, like Johnny Hodges, Benny Carter or even the inventor of the instrument, Coleman Hawkins utilised to full advantage, all the possibilities of the saxophone. Some of his products included Jerry Hansen, Spike Ayanko and King Bruce among several others. But the saxophonist that made the greatest impact with E.T. Mensah's Tempos Band as a soloist was Rex Ofosu Martey who upon going his separate way, later formed the springbok Dance Band, an outfit that gave him the opportunity to do more choruses on his solo feat.
E.T. Mensah, the undisputed king of highlife music started playing in the 1930s and was active until the 1980s. His is perhaps the longest career span in African music.
Born in 1919, Mensah grew up in the formative years of the highlife style. The pianist and composer, Joe Kelly with Mensah on saxophone and Guy Warren, drums originally led the Tempos Band. Then, the band offered a blend of highlife and jive that appealed to both Africans and Europeans alive. But he broke away later to create a relaxed and lucid style that was easily recognisable.
The big break came when, in 1952, he recorded his first 78-rpm disc and maintained frequent, lucrative tours to Nigeria where his music enjoyed tremendous acclaim and widespread acceptance.
Incidentally, his last recording was done in Nigeria in 1986. Entitled Giants of Highlife, he traded horns and vocals with Olaiya as they both recreated some of their old hits including Omolanke and Sekondi market.
Mensah was formally honoured in 1989 by the Ghanaian government for his contribution to the country's culture. But the world of music continues to remember him as the king of highlife.
___________________ LIBERTY AND JUSTICE Posts: 18 | From: Oxnard, CA. USA | Registered: Aug 2003
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