In the winter of 1998 into ‘99, four musicians came together in New York City to play the traditional music of Zimbabwe’s Shona people. It was an unlikely gathering. The group’s leader and artistic director, Wirinai Chigonga, had played for years in Zimbabwe with one of that country’s most respected traditional music and dance groups, the Mhembero Mbira Ensemble, led by Tute Chigamba. Mr. Chigamba is a master of the 22-iron-pronged Shona mbira, an instrument used both in recreation celebrations and sacred ceremonies aimed at inducing spirit possession. As such, Wiri had made a great artistic achievement at a young age. While working with Mhembero, Wiri made the acquaintance of one of Mr. Chigamba’s American mbira students, New Yorker Nora Balaban, and in that meeting, the Glamour Boys found their beginnings.
With Nora’s help, Wiri came to the United States to teach and perform in 1998. As it happened, guitarist Banning Eyre arrived in New York around the same time, fresh from six months in Zimbabwe, where he had been soaking up mbira guitar music in the company of Zimbabwe’s greatest traditional pop band, Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited. The first time these three musicians sat down to play together, Banning discovered that the mbiras played by Nora and Wiri used a completely different tuning system than he’d grown used to with the Blacks Unlimited. The band used the common nyamaropa tuning, whereas Mhembero used the darker, and more unusual gandanga tuning. Still, the rhythms and melodies were familiar enough that he gradually found his way in the new tuning. As it turned out, there was a mysterious transference where a song in one tuning turned out to be very similar to a different song when played in the other tuning. With Wiri’s guidance, Banning gradually learned to apply what he knew and invent or learn what he didn’t, and the three found that they could play together.
But the group was incomplete without a percussionist, more specifically, a musician capable of playing the idiosyncratic rhythm of the gourd shakers known as hosho. Finding a hosho player in New York was not easy. But after a few false starts, the group discovered Maurizio Capparelli, a native New Yorker who had learned Shona music during his years living in Boulder, Colorado. As soon as these four musicians played together, it was clear to all that they had a sound, and they started to play restaurant gigs around the East Village. Nora insisted on the name, taken from the slogan of The Dynamos, a Zimbabwean soccer team. The full slogan was actually Glamour Boys de Mbare, Mbare being Harare’s poor, low-density neighborhood, the African township during colonial times. They shortened the name to Glamour Boys and went to work.
By spring time, the group was really starting to hum, but unfortunately, it was time for Wiri to go home. The recording on this CD happened almost by chance. The group had recorded at Nora’s apartment, but only a few songs came out well. On an impulse, Banning brought his recording rig to the group’s final gig at an eatery called Black Eyed Suzie’s. He set up a single mic in the middle of the band, and they played their last set. Most of the songs on this CD come from that final session. The recording has a few imperfections, including the occasional sound of a fork hitting the stone floor, but it captures the unique energy the Glamour Boys brought to life during that one-of-a-kind New York winter.
DANDEMUTANDE REVIEW:
Although I’ve not met Wiriranai Chigonga, his mbira playing and singing on this album so warmly evoke those of Sekuru Tute Chigamba and Mhembero, with whom he performed for years in Zimbabwe, that I feel a deep sense of familiarity and connection as I listen. At the same time, this album stands on its own with a great sound. Wiri Chigonga and Nora Balaban’s mbira duets are strong and clear; Wiri’s hoarse tenor mixes well with the voices of his American friends; and Banning Eyre has nimbly leapt from the mbira guitar he learned from The Blacks Unlimited to meet the challenges of Wiri’s gandanga mbira style. It’s great to hear this live jam cook (tracks Shanje and Pasi Mapindu are especially groovious) and I’d love to be present someday to hear these folks play together. I’m grateful that they have finally released this excellent album, recorded by Banning Eyre at Studio Balaban and at Black Eyed Suzie’s, New York, May, 1999.
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