Livus’umoya celebrates a strong big-band sound

Cover artwork by Romy Brauteseth

Somehow, the Feb 23 release of the Lady Day Big Band’s(LDBB) debut album, Livus’umoya (https://theladydaybigband1.bandcamp.com/album/livusumoya) passed me by at the time.

But it’s a release worth celebrating.

First, new big bands on disc are always worth celebrating. The scope their generous sonic palette offers to composers and arrangers is un-matched and so they give listening audiences access to many more combinations and textures than are possible with, say, a trio.

Second, the LDBB is unique in South Africa because it’s an all-female big band.

That could be a double-edged sword. It allows anybody still hanging on to archaic prejudices to dismiss and pigeonhole the ensemble in whatever way the reactionary Right currently finds fashionable. And it lets events and venues wanting to appear gender-diverse without really trying off the hook, by ticking that box with 20-odd women all at once.

Some research I’ve been involved with – more details when it’s published – suggests that a majority of women in live music in this country experience stereotyping, lower (even than usual) fees, and a sometimes horrifyingly unsafe and hostile environment. That’s wholly consonant with a wealth of research from everywhere else, for example https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5804/cmselect/cmwomeq/129/report.html So the LDBB represents something else very important: a safer and less oppressive space for professional growth and opportunities to work.

The LDBB has been around since 2018, helmed by music names already respected in Cape Town: singer and UCT scholar Amanda Tiffin; vocal artist Lana Crowster; and trombonist Kelly Bell, all of whom also compose and arrange. Many of its members have come or are coming through the ranks of the UCT College of Music, making those professional opportunities key as a bridge between higher education and career.

Debut albums are often a calling card for the full range of what their artists can do, and the nine tracks of Livus’Umoya are no different. They range from catchy, Zap Mama-style vocal Afro-pop (Ayo Ayo) through the chilling, oratorio-like Elegy for the Forgotten Child and clubby rap (Outa My System, co-composed by Crowster and Bokani Dyer) to a rousing closing medley of South African vintage pop (Burnout, uMqombothi and more).

Along the way, there’s a beautifully raw, tender version by Crowster of the Francois van Coke/Karen Zoid Toe Vind Ek Jou (Then I found you), classic mbaqanga in Bell’s The Calling and, perhaps most poignantly, one of the last appearances on disc by the late Gloria Bosman, leading Busi Mhlongo’s Yehlisan’umoya Ma-Afrika. That track should be in everybody’s collection.

There’s plenty of the unison chorusing and horn conversations that are the meat and bread of a big-band sound: full, warm, precise and disciplined – a tribute to both Tiffin’s arranging and the players.

The Lady Day Big Band (supplied)

With an ensemble this size, it becomes impossible to pick out too many soloists. It hardly needs saying that the voices impress. If you don’t know them by now…. What stayed in my memory (probably because I love that Cape-typical, big, rounded horn attack) were Jessica van der Merwe’s robust tenor and Tracey Appolis’s bass on Tuku andClaire Rontsch’s alto and Bell’s trombone on The Calling. Faced with such diverse material, Annemie Nel on drums exercises exactly the right kind of skill in the engine room every time, including in her own brio-infused solos on that number and Tuku. Possibly because her work so far has been confined to the Cape, I reckon Nel is one of the best but most under-exposed drummers working right now.

I could have lived without the vintage pop medley. It’s joyous and well executed, and has clearly become an audience favourite over the years. But that’s space where we could have heard another original from Bell, or from another under-exposed South African jazz composer such as Siya Makuzeni, Shannon Mowday or even – if you wanted that old-school feel – Dorothy Masuka. We need more spaces for female-composed repertoire as well as women players. At the same time, this album is a calling card for a band newly on record. If I’m realistic, it’s probably that medley rather than some of the other more interesting material (such as Tiffin’s intricate, interlocking Chilojo), that’ll get them the corporate dinner gigs they need to survive and thrive.

Some of the names I’ve mentioned above will be new to you. That relates not to how well they play, but rather to the music landscape they – and all of us – inhabit. It’ll take more than buying the LDBB album to change that, but it’d be a start.

PLAYLIST: GENERATIONS OF THE LDBB

https://www.youtube.com/@theladydaybigband7870