Msondo Ngoma (formerly known as NUTA Jazz Band, renamed Juwata Jazz Band, and then OTTU Jazz Band) is an influential and long-lived

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...

muziki wa dansi Muziki wa dansi (in Swahili: "dance music"), or simply dansi, is a Tanzanian music genre, derivative of Congolese soukous. It is sometimes called Swahili jazz because most dansi lyrics are in Swahili, and "jazz" is an umbrella term used in Cent ...

band. Having been established in 1964, it is the oldest active dansi band in Tanzania.

History

The band began in 1964 and was originally named "NUTA Jazz Band", after its sponsor, the National Union of Tanganyika (NUTA), which was the main Tanzanian trade union. In the early years of dansi, the NUTA Jazz Band was very influential both artistically and in terms of financial organization; namely, it was one of the first dansi bands to constitute itself into a "cooperative" of salaried musicians (a model that would become widespread in the 1970s). In the 1960s, NUTA Jazz Band was led by

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

er-singer Joseph Lusungu and saxophonist Mnenge Ramadhani, who defined the

brass Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other with ...

-centered sound of the band. NUTA Jazz Band held its position as one of the major Tanzanian dansi bands throughout the latter half of the 1960s and most of the 1970s. In 1977 it experienced a major change in personnel, with many of its most talented musicians (including Muhiddin Maalim and Hassani Bitchuka) leaving the band to form a new ensemble, Mlimani Park Orchestra. In 1977, the band changed its name to "Juwata Jazz",Perullo, p. 395 after the

Swahili Swahili may refer to: * Swahili language, a Bantu language official in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and widely spoken in the African Great Lakes * Swahili people, an ethnic group in East Africa * Swahili culture Swahili culture is the culture of ...

name of its sponsor (NUTA), ''Jumuiya ya Wafanyakazi Tanzania''. About at the same time, guitarist Saidi Mabera became the new leader of the band. He wrote several of Juwata's hit songs of the 1980s. After Mabera, both Maalim and Bitchuka (who rejoined the band in 1991) became leaders. Maalim is credited with one of the major hits of Juwata in the 1990s, ''Usia kwa watoto''. The band changed its name again in 1991 from Juwata Jazz to OTTU Jazz, when the trade union that sponsored it was renamed Organization of Tanzanian Trade Unions. The band is still active as "Msondo Ngoma" ('' msondo'' being a Swahili drum), performing regularly at the TCC Club in Temeke for example, and is the oldest active dansi band in Tanzania. This is reflected by its motto ''baba ya muziki'', "father of music".

Notes

References

* {{Authority control Tanzanian musical groups