Revisiting Dorothy Masuka’s Hamba Nontsokolo: tales of women, migrancy, and Jazz in the 1950s

Abstract

How does a classic song like Nontsokolo, discussed and newly imagined, tell us a larger musical story that South African jazz history has forgotten? This paper revisits the “classic” vocal jazz piece Hamba Nontsokolo, which was composed, performed, and recorded by the late Dorothy Masuku in 1954. In contrast to the focus in the existing literature on the lives of black jazz singers and the socio-political contexts of their time, this paper examines the music of the song and offers a new arrangement, as a process of creative research, suggesting how the “classic” may be re-imagined today.