A South African standard the world never learned
Sizwe introduces a township standard that every Johannesburg musician knows and almost nobody abroad does, tracing it through exile recordings and a new version made last year.
One ballad, six decades, six very different versions
0:00 / 0:45
This episode is for members. Sign up free or log in to hear the whole episode.
Show notes
The same tune, six ways
Sizwe starts with the melody on the piano, slowly, so there is no doubt what the tune is. Then six recordings across six decades, with a pause after each to explain what changed: tempo, chords, mood, and in one case the whole meaning.
- The melody, played plainly, and the words it was written to
- A 1940s vocal version and a 1950s trio version
- The recording that doubled the tempo and why it works
- A reharmonised version that keeps the tune and changes everything else
- Piano demonstration: one chord substitution you can hear
All six recordings are listed in the notes in order.
Transcript
Good evening and welcome to Blue Hour Standards. I am Sizwe Ndlovu, I am sitting at the piano, and this is jazz one song at a time with no gatekeeping. Here is how it works. I play you the tune first, slowly, so you know exactly what it is. Then we follow that tune through six recordings across six decades, and after each one I tell you what that musician changed, in plain words. Tonight it is a ballad you have probably heard in a film without knowing its name. Someone sang it slowly in the 1940s, someone doubled the tempo in the 1960s, and someone rewrote all the chords underneath it and somehow kept it the same song. At the end I will show you one of those chord changes on the piano. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
Open as text