Moses Zamangwa: Jazz is not popular in Tanzania

The musician who plays the soprano, alto and tenor saxophone is currently attending a music teaching training course in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The course, which began last week, is organised by the East Africa Global Music Campus and sponsored by the European Union and the Goethe Institut Ethiopia, is meant to prepare Zamangwa to head a music school.

“East Africa Global Music Campus is planning to start professional music schools Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Kenya and Zimbabwe in 2019. I am one of the few selected musicians invited to attend the training for the purpose of teaching at this school,” he said.

Zamangwa said the new school will offer a new teaching model which will facilitate both academic growth and skill development, contrary to the current curriculum being offered by the few music schools in Tanzania. "There are three music school in Tanzania and all of them teach how to read music and Global Music Campus will be the only registered school music school. [We will teach students] how to read, write, document and transmit their own music cultures, therefore it will have big visible impact in the music industry."

Zamangwa has toured Indonesia, Turkey, Qatar, German, France, Switzerland, Australia and Lithuania. He has also collaborated with East African jazz artists such as Uganda's Isaiah Katuma. In 2015, he released an album titled Afrika Yetu which he plans to re-launch in 2019.

"The Afrika Yetu album is not yet known or distributed, therefore I would like to do that first before thinking of the second one. I plan to have an album launching event next year and I am in the process of seeking sponsorship because it’s my hope to feature top East African jazz musicians."

Zamangwa said that if Tanzania gets a reasonable number of musicians taking up the genre, more platforms to support it will emerge and the public will eventually appreciate it. “Jazz is not yet popular in Tanzania and it is yet to get a fan base,” he said. “However, slowly few people are starting to understand it. Having more venues will make people aware of the music and the place to find it. Several times after my performance I normally have people come and ask whether I am Tanzanian as many are yet to hear of jazz artists in Tanzania.”

At the moment, bongo flava music in the most popular genre in Tanzania and a lot of new musicians are taking it up. Zamangwa said this could, in the long run, see other genres die out.

“Our traditional music is slowly dying but fusing it with jazz will revive it, we need to promote it more, give it more airtime and promote African artists. There is also an urgent need of documenting African traditional music for the sake of our future generation.”

Zamangwa fuses jazz music with popular contemporary sounds and various traditional Tanzanian music such as mganda, chihoda vlizombe, ligambusa, lindeku and kingwangwa. He said this technique was hugely inspired by the late South Africa jazz icon Hugh Masekela, who “was my number one influencer."

"He created his own South African Jazz, his success came from him fusing South African music sound with jazz, which is what has been and is my dream, not to sound like someone else but have something so unique worthy to be called Tanzanian Afro jazz.”

To buy the Afrika Yetu album, click here.