© Kamla-Raj 2014 J Soc Sci, 39(1): 59-65 (2014) The Anatomy of the South African Jazz Appreciation Societies Madimabe Geoff Mapaya 1* , Joe MabacaMalinga 1# and Tsoaledi Daniel Thobejane 2 1 Music Department, 2 Institute of Gender and Youth Studies, University of Venda, Limpopo Province, South Africa E-mail: * <geoff.mapaya@univen.ac.za>, # <Joe.malinga@univen.ac.za>, 2 Daniel.thobejane@univen.ac.za KEYWORDS South African Jazz. Jazz Clubs. Vaudeville. Sophiatown. Marabi ABSTRACT This paper dwells, in the main, on jazz appreciation societies in urbanised South Africa; particularly their origin, role and meaning. On the continent of Africa, South Africa stands out as the country that has a globally recognised jazz tradition and that the tradition is linked to the origins of jazz in the United States of America, which dates back to the early 1900. Yet South Africa jazz has seen different styles come and go, creating a strong tradition of listening to jazz by fashionable audiences who gather on weekends, traditionally Sundays, to listen to their beloved jazz recordings. This ritual is accompanied by specific dress codes, intriguing city language and improvised dance styles. Mostly, not musicians themselves, these people have kindled the jazz tradition throughout times when commercialism has threatened, and continues to threaten the very existence of the art. Drawing from jazz interviews with appreciation society members and jazz radio programme anchors in Gauteng area of South Africa, the study documents the jazz appreciation society phenomenon. INTRODUCTION The concept of South African jazz refers to jazz music that is composed and performed with adaptation to the tendencies of vernacular South African cultures. It is based on common South African harmonic structures, which are in fact relics of the missionary hymnody, but heavily influenced by the rhythmic attributes of tradi- tional music. Its precursor is a music style called marabi, an exclusively Black city music genre honed in the ghetto, wrought from suffering and struggle (Ballantine 1997). In discussing South African music of the 1930s and 40s the concept of marabi and South African jazz (Coombes 2004) are used inter- changeably. Similarly, the concept of jazz appre- ciation club is used interchangeably with the concept of jazz appreciation society or jazz col- lector’s society. Although literature on South African jazz exists (Allen 2003, 2008; Ballantine 1991; Ballan- tine 1993; Muller 2001), very little is available on the jazz appreciation societies, a thriving sub- culture that has been supporting jazz and its development for almost a century now. While others mention the societies in passing, Brett Pyper (2011) is keen to document this urban South African subculture. Objectives of the Study The objective of the study was to research and document the origin, role and meaning of jazz appreciation societies in South Africa. Amongst their value, the societies have served as social clubs, but most importantly their lis- tening session ensured the sustenance of jazz as an elitist brand of music. METHODOLOGY Research that yields this paper is qualitative in nature. Interviews, desktop research and par- ticipant observations were fused in order to forge a multiple perspective to one of the underdocu- mented phenomenon in urban South Africa. In- valuable insight was also obtained through in- terviews with anchors of jazz programmes from radio stations. We cannot claim to have inter- viewed them all, but we are confident that the few that took part in the study presented an authentic voice of those who are at the cold face of the phenomenon. Nonetheless, the following is a discussion on some of the key issues. Musicological Foundations of Jazz Appreciation Societies The development of jazz in South Africa has always mirrored that of its counterpart in the United States of America in many respects, es- pecially after World War 2 (Ballantine 1991; Co- plan 1982). From New Orleans in what were known as the ‘houses of amusement’, later to be popularly dubbed jazz clubs, jazz ‘went up the