Diane Thram | Rhodes University (original) (raw)
Papers by Diane Thram
SAMUS: South African Journal of Musicology, 2003
Abstract: Extracted from text ... SAMUS 23 (2003) 71 BOOK REVIEWS BRUSILA, JOHANNES. 'Local ... more Abstract: Extracted from text ... SAMUS 23 (2003) 71 BOOK REVIEWS BRUSILA, JOHANNES. 'Local Music, Not From Here': The Discourse of World Music Examined Through Three Zimbabwean Case Studies: The Bhundu Boys, Virginia Mukwesha and Sunduza. ...
SAMUS Vol 34/35, 2016
No abstract published
A Legacy to UpholdBorn to follow in his father Hugh Tracey’s footsteps, Andrew Tracey has inspire... more A Legacy to UpholdBorn to follow in his father Hugh Tracey’s footsteps, Andrew Tracey has inspired countless people with his knowledge of African music. This he has done through his publications and films and his teaching and performing from the early days of his career in the 1960s through his Directorship of the International Library of African Music (ILAM) from 1978-2005; and this he continues to do in the present. Andrew’s vision for his work has always been in accord with that of his father who, according to J.H. Kwabena Nketia (1998, 51), was a leading scholar of the colonial period who saw African music as an artistic heritage that needed to be ‘shared, preserved, and promoted’ and who worked tirelessly to encourage recognition of the significance of African music in social life. Nketia notes (1998, 53):
African Music: Journal of the International Library of African Music, 2014
African Music: Journal of the International Library of African Music, 2011
In this essay, I focus on how attention to music’s therapeutic efficacy is important to the praxi... more In this essay, I focus on how attention to music’s therapeutic efficacy is important to the praxial music education philosophy espoused by Elliott and Silverman. I note, despite the use of the term praxis from Aristotle’s philosophy dating back to antiquity, there is no mention in Music Matters 2 of what historical evidence tells us about how music was valued for its therapeutic efficacy during Aristotle’s lifetime— from antiquity to the early modern era—before the rise of staged performance for an audience of spectators became the norm. Further, I note the scant attention to how music is valued in indigenous cultures. I discuss how pre-modern and—from my research as an ethnomusicologist—how indigenous African conceptions of music and its value found in Shona and Xhosa practices in southern Africa can inform and argue that these conceptions are essential to a praxial philosophy of music education.
This paper reports on recent projects of the International Library of African Music (ILAM) involv... more This paper reports on recent projects of the International Library of African Music (ILAM) involving research, community outreach and dissemination/repatriation of archived recordings. The ILAM-Red Location Music History Project addresses the lack of research on Eastern Cape jazz of the Red Location in the Nelson Mandela Bay metropolitan area (Port Elizabeth). The project combines collection of oral history data with community outreach and education in its effort to do meaningful intervention in the community that passes on to younger generations the uniquely South African style of jazz that is their heritage. ILAM’s For Future Generations museum exhibit displays Hugh Tracey’s legacy for African music. The ILAM Music Heritage Project SA seeks to fulfil Tracey’s vision for keeping the music he recorded alive in its communities of origin by developing music education textbooks that utilize Tracey’s field recordings. Outcomes of the ILAM-Red Location oral history project that uniquely ...
African Music : Journal of the International Library of African Music, 2019
International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) Journal, 2018
Digital conversion of audio, photographic and film collections in sound and audiovisual archives ... more Digital conversion of audio, photographic and film collections in sound and audiovisual archives for purposes of preservation and accessibility has been the norm in archival practice since the 1990s. As a result, analog to digital conversion of many music heritage collections, such as the field recordings of Hugh Tracey at the International Library of African Music (ILAM) in South Africa, has been accomplished. With funding secured from the Mellon Foundation, Rand Merchant Bank Expressions Fund, South African National Heritage Council (NAC) and National Research Foundation (NRF), the recordings, films, photos and documents in the Hugh Tracey Collection (hereafter referred to as the Collection) were catalogued and preserved in digital format from 2006-2008. The audio files and 1,000 images in the Collection have been accessible in compressed form via the Internet since late in 2008. Plus, Tracey’s well-known Sound of Africa and Music of Africa LP series are available as CD compilati...
African Music: Journal of the International Library of African Music, 2018
This article contributes to the substantial body of publications on South African jazz with infor... more This article contributes to the substantial body of publications on South African jazz with information on jazz performance and performers in New Brighton, a township adjacent to Port Elizabeth noted for its vibrant jazz scene and outstanding jazz musicians. The article covers several decades from the heyday of swing bands in the 1940s–50s through the 1960s–70s when New Brighton’s premier jazz combo, the Soul Jazzmen, were at the height of their artistry. The role of swing bands in New Brighton and surrounding communities as the training ground for members of the Soul Jazzmen and other local musicians of note is discussed, as well as how the Soul Jazzmen in turn were tutors for musicians of the next generation who became widely recognized artists, composers and arrangers. This is followed by a focus on the Soul Jazzmen and compositions by its members that protested against the apartheid regime in the 1960s–70s. The article is informed by historic photographs, newspaper clippings and...
Oxford Handbooks Online, 2018
This chapter considers issues in repatriation of digital copies of field recordings of music obta... more This chapter considers issues in repatriation of digital copies of field recordings of music obtained during the colonial era. It is based on the Hugh Tracey Collection preserved at the International Library of African Music (ILAM). A summary of Tracey’s early life and his work throughout sub-Saharan Africa from 1929 to 1972 is followed by the reasons why, with digital conversion and online access to the Collection accomplished, digital return and restudy of Tracey’s field recordings became the ethically responsible thing for ILAM to do. Description of the return of his Kipsigis recordings of “Chemirocha” to their source community in Kenya is followed by consideration of how Tracey’s embrace of the colonial worldview—with its inherent paternalism, racism, and white privilege—mandates digital return as an act of reciprocity and archival ethics. It suggests this gesture toward decolonization of ILAM serves as a model for decolonization of ethnomusicology at large.
African Music: Journal of the International Library of African Music, 1999
African Music: Journal of the International Library of African Music, 2010
World of Music
This rather massive collection of nineteen essays, most of which either directly or obliquely dea... more This rather massive collection of nineteen essays, most of which either directly or obliquely deal with competitive dance in East Africa, is offered as a tribute, and in some cases a challenge, to Terence Ranger's (1975) Dance and Society in East Africa 1890-1970: the Beni Ngoma. It adds significantly to the ever-expanding repertoire of ethnographically based scholarship on the ngoma phenomenon throughout sub-Saharan Africa, alongside such a work as The Quest for Fruition through Ngoma: The Political Aspects of Healing in Southern Africa, edited by R. van Kijk, R. Reis and M. Spierenburg and published by James Curry (2000), a compilation of studies based on field research in Southern Africa by Dutch anthropologists, which is - like the above - offered as a tribute, and in some cases a challenge, to John Janzen's (1992) Ngoma, published by the University of California Press.
SAMUS: South African Journal of Musicology, 2003
Abstract: Extracted from text ... SAMUS 23 (2003) 71 BOOK REVIEWS BRUSILA, JOHANNES. 'Local ... more Abstract: Extracted from text ... SAMUS 23 (2003) 71 BOOK REVIEWS BRUSILA, JOHANNES. 'Local Music, Not From Here': The Discourse of World Music Examined Through Three Zimbabwean Case Studies: The Bhundu Boys, Virginia Mukwesha and Sunduza. ...
SAMUS Vol 34/35, 2016
No abstract published
A Legacy to UpholdBorn to follow in his father Hugh Tracey’s footsteps, Andrew Tracey has inspire... more A Legacy to UpholdBorn to follow in his father Hugh Tracey’s footsteps, Andrew Tracey has inspired countless people with his knowledge of African music. This he has done through his publications and films and his teaching and performing from the early days of his career in the 1960s through his Directorship of the International Library of African Music (ILAM) from 1978-2005; and this he continues to do in the present. Andrew’s vision for his work has always been in accord with that of his father who, according to J.H. Kwabena Nketia (1998, 51), was a leading scholar of the colonial period who saw African music as an artistic heritage that needed to be ‘shared, preserved, and promoted’ and who worked tirelessly to encourage recognition of the significance of African music in social life. Nketia notes (1998, 53):
African Music: Journal of the International Library of African Music, 2014
African Music: Journal of the International Library of African Music, 2011
In this essay, I focus on how attention to music’s therapeutic efficacy is important to the praxi... more In this essay, I focus on how attention to music’s therapeutic efficacy is important to the praxial music education philosophy espoused by Elliott and Silverman. I note, despite the use of the term praxis from Aristotle’s philosophy dating back to antiquity, there is no mention in Music Matters 2 of what historical evidence tells us about how music was valued for its therapeutic efficacy during Aristotle’s lifetime— from antiquity to the early modern era—before the rise of staged performance for an audience of spectators became the norm. Further, I note the scant attention to how music is valued in indigenous cultures. I discuss how pre-modern and—from my research as an ethnomusicologist—how indigenous African conceptions of music and its value found in Shona and Xhosa practices in southern Africa can inform and argue that these conceptions are essential to a praxial philosophy of music education.
This paper reports on recent projects of the International Library of African Music (ILAM) involv... more This paper reports on recent projects of the International Library of African Music (ILAM) involving research, community outreach and dissemination/repatriation of archived recordings. The ILAM-Red Location Music History Project addresses the lack of research on Eastern Cape jazz of the Red Location in the Nelson Mandela Bay metropolitan area (Port Elizabeth). The project combines collection of oral history data with community outreach and education in its effort to do meaningful intervention in the community that passes on to younger generations the uniquely South African style of jazz that is their heritage. ILAM’s For Future Generations museum exhibit displays Hugh Tracey’s legacy for African music. The ILAM Music Heritage Project SA seeks to fulfil Tracey’s vision for keeping the music he recorded alive in its communities of origin by developing music education textbooks that utilize Tracey’s field recordings. Outcomes of the ILAM-Red Location oral history project that uniquely ...
African Music : Journal of the International Library of African Music, 2019
International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) Journal, 2018
Digital conversion of audio, photographic and film collections in sound and audiovisual archives ... more Digital conversion of audio, photographic and film collections in sound and audiovisual archives for purposes of preservation and accessibility has been the norm in archival practice since the 1990s. As a result, analog to digital conversion of many music heritage collections, such as the field recordings of Hugh Tracey at the International Library of African Music (ILAM) in South Africa, has been accomplished. With funding secured from the Mellon Foundation, Rand Merchant Bank Expressions Fund, South African National Heritage Council (NAC) and National Research Foundation (NRF), the recordings, films, photos and documents in the Hugh Tracey Collection (hereafter referred to as the Collection) were catalogued and preserved in digital format from 2006-2008. The audio files and 1,000 images in the Collection have been accessible in compressed form via the Internet since late in 2008. Plus, Tracey’s well-known Sound of Africa and Music of Africa LP series are available as CD compilati...
African Music: Journal of the International Library of African Music, 2018
This article contributes to the substantial body of publications on South African jazz with infor... more This article contributes to the substantial body of publications on South African jazz with information on jazz performance and performers in New Brighton, a township adjacent to Port Elizabeth noted for its vibrant jazz scene and outstanding jazz musicians. The article covers several decades from the heyday of swing bands in the 1940s–50s through the 1960s–70s when New Brighton’s premier jazz combo, the Soul Jazzmen, were at the height of their artistry. The role of swing bands in New Brighton and surrounding communities as the training ground for members of the Soul Jazzmen and other local musicians of note is discussed, as well as how the Soul Jazzmen in turn were tutors for musicians of the next generation who became widely recognized artists, composers and arrangers. This is followed by a focus on the Soul Jazzmen and compositions by its members that protested against the apartheid regime in the 1960s–70s. The article is informed by historic photographs, newspaper clippings and...
Oxford Handbooks Online, 2018
This chapter considers issues in repatriation of digital copies of field recordings of music obta... more This chapter considers issues in repatriation of digital copies of field recordings of music obtained during the colonial era. It is based on the Hugh Tracey Collection preserved at the International Library of African Music (ILAM). A summary of Tracey’s early life and his work throughout sub-Saharan Africa from 1929 to 1972 is followed by the reasons why, with digital conversion and online access to the Collection accomplished, digital return and restudy of Tracey’s field recordings became the ethically responsible thing for ILAM to do. Description of the return of his Kipsigis recordings of “Chemirocha” to their source community in Kenya is followed by consideration of how Tracey’s embrace of the colonial worldview—with its inherent paternalism, racism, and white privilege—mandates digital return as an act of reciprocity and archival ethics. It suggests this gesture toward decolonization of ILAM serves as a model for decolonization of ethnomusicology at large.
African Music: Journal of the International Library of African Music, 1999
African Music: Journal of the International Library of African Music, 2010
World of Music
This rather massive collection of nineteen essays, most of which either directly or obliquely dea... more This rather massive collection of nineteen essays, most of which either directly or obliquely deal with competitive dance in East Africa, is offered as a tribute, and in some cases a challenge, to Terence Ranger's (1975) Dance and Society in East Africa 1890-1970: the Beni Ngoma. It adds significantly to the ever-expanding repertoire of ethnographically based scholarship on the ngoma phenomenon throughout sub-Saharan Africa, alongside such a work as The Quest for Fruition through Ngoma: The Political Aspects of Healing in Southern Africa, edited by R. van Kijk, R. Reis and M. Spierenburg and published by James Curry (2000), a compilation of studies based on field research in Southern Africa by Dutch anthropologists, which is - like the above - offered as a tribute, and in some cases a challenge, to John Janzen's (1992) Ngoma, published by the University of California Press.