Morogoro Jazz Band, also known as K.Z. Morogoro Jazz Band (K.Z. standing for ''Kuliko Zote'', Swahili for "better than the others"), was a seminal

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 from

Morogoro Morogoro is a city in the eastern part of Tanzania west of Dar es Salaam. Morogoro is the capital of the Morogoro Region. It is also known informally as "Mji kasoro bahari" which translates to “city short of an ocean/port." The Belgian based ...

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 ...

. The band originally played live at the clubs and bars of Morogoro and became very popular in the 1960s and 1970s, receiving considerable airplay from Tanzanian radio stations.Mbaraka Mwinshehe & Morogoro Jazz
/ref> The leader of the band was guitarist Mbaraka Mwinshehe, who dropped out of school to join the band in 1965. Coincidentally, the band was formed the same year Mwinsheshe was born, in 1944. The original lineup of the band featured Makala Kindamile, Joseph Thomas, Seif Ally, Daudi Ally and Shaabana Mwambe. Salim Abdullah, who would later found Cuban Marimba Band, was also an early member of the band. Mwinshehe left Morogoro Jazz Band in 1973 to found another very successful muziki wa dansi band,

Super Volcano A supervolcano is a volcano that has had an volcanic eruption, eruption with a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 8, the largest recorded value on the index. This means the volume of deposits for such an eruption is greater than 1,000 cubic kil ...

. The Morogoro Jazz Band created a sound that was a fusion of many different influences, including

taarab Taarab is a music genre popular in Tanzania and Kenya. It is influenced by the musical traditions of the African Great Lakes, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent. Taarab rose to prominence in 1928 with the advent of the ...

, Kenyan

benga Benga may refer to: Ethnonym * Benga people, an indigenous ethnic group of Equatorial Guinea * Benga language, spoke by the Benga people * Benga music, a genre of music originating in Kenya Places Romania * ''Benga'', the old name of Mo ...

Cuban son Son cubano is a genre of music and dance that originated in the highlands of eastern Cuba during the late 19th century. It is a syncretic genre that blends elements of Spanish and African origin. Among its fundamental Hispanic components are th ...

(through

soukous Soukous (from French '' secousse'', "shock, jolt, jerk") is a genre of dance music from Congo-Kinshasa and Congo-Brazzaville. It derived from Congolese rumba in the 1960s, becoming known for its fast dance rhythms and intricate guitar improv ...

, also known as Congolese rumba),

rhythm and blues Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly ...

, and British

pop music Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former describe ...

. Although the band was originally acoustic, it was the inclusion of the electric guitar that catapulted the band to the forefront of the Tanzanian music scene.

Partial discography

* ''Ujamaa: The 1960s Sound of Tanzania'', Buda Musique 860142 * ''Mbaraka Mwinshehe Mwaruka Soloist National 1968-1972'', Tamasha CD TAM501 * ''Mbaraka Mwinshehe & Morogoro Jazz Masimango (Best of Tanzania 1969-72), Dizim

Footnotes

Tanzanian musical groups Morogoro {{Africa-band-stub