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6
Contents
editorial
KEVIN DAVIDSON
“Soulbrother #1”
TESHOME GABRIEL
Ruin and The Other: Towards a Language Of Memory
MLADEN DOLAR
Singing in Pursuit of the Object Voice
Theme Graham Newcater
STEPHANUS MULLER
Sapphires and serpents: In Search of Graham Newcater
ARYAN KAGANOF
Of Fictalopes and Jictology (2018)
MEGAN-GEOFFREY PRINS
Toccata for Piano (2012): The gift of newness
OLGA LEONARD
The Leonard Street Meetings (2008-2012)
ARYAN KAGANOF
Her first concert - 15 October 2011
STEPHANUS MULLER & GRAHAM NEWCATER
Interview (2008, transcribed 2010)
AMORÉ STEYN
The Properties of the Raka Tone Row as seen within the Context of other Newcaterian Rows
STEPHANUS MULLER
The Island
GRAHAM NEWCATER
CONCERTO in E Minor Op. 5 (1958)
ARNOLD VAN WYK
A Letter from Upper Orange Street, 14th June 1958
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Concert Overture Op. 8 (1962-3)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Variations For Orchestra Op 11 (1963)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Nr.1 Klange An Thalia Myers (1964)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Allegretto e Espressivo (1966)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Variations de Timbres (1967)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
String Quartet (1983/4)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Songs of the Inner Worlds (1991)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
ETUDE I For Horn with Piano Accompaniment (2012)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
ETUDE II For Horn with Piano Accompaniment (2012)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
SONATINA for Pianoforte (2014)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
CANTO for Pianoforte (2015)
LIZABÉ LAMBRECHTS
The DOMUS Graham Newcater Collection Catalogue
galleri
TAFADZWA MICHAEL MASUDI
Waiting For A Better Tomorrow
ILZE WOLFF
Summer Flowers
NIKKI FRANKLIN
Sans Visage
BAMBATHA JONES
Below the Breadline
TRACY PAYNE
Veiled
STAN ENGELBRECHT
Miss Beautiful
ALEKSANDAR JEVTIĆ
We Are The Colour of Magnets and also Their Doing
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Augenmusik & Some Tarot Cards
EUGENE SKEEF
Monti wa Marumo!
borborygmus
PASCALE OBOLO
Electronic Protest Song As Resistance Through the Creation of Sound
AXMED MAXAMED & MATHYS RENNELA
A Conversation on the Bleaching of Techno: How Appropriation is Normalized and Preserved
FANA MOKOENA
A problem of classification
PHIWOKAZI QOZA
Choreographies of Protest Performance:
MASIXOLE MLANDU
On Fatherhood in South Africa
VULANE MTHEMBU
We are ancestors in our lifetime – AI and African data
TIMBAH
All My Homies Hate Skrillex – a story about what happened with dubstep
TETA DIANA
Three Sublime Songs
LAWRENCE KRAMER
Circle Songs
NEIL TENNANT
Euphoria?
frictions
LYNTHIA JULIUS
Vyf uit die Kroes
NGOMA HILL
This Poem Is Free
MSIZI MOSHOETSI
Five Poems
ABIGAIL GEORGE
Another Green World
OMOSEYE BOLAJI
People of the Townships
RIAAN OPPELT
The Escape
DIANA FERRUS
Daai Sak
KUMKANI MTENGWANA
Two Poems
VADIM FILATOV
Azsacra: Nihilism of Dancing Comets, The Destroyer of the Destroyers
claque
ZAKES MDA
Culture And Liberation Struggle In South Africa: From Colonialism To Apartheid (Edited By Lebogang Lance Nawa)
MPHUTHUMI NTABENI
The Promise of genuine literary stylistic innovation
ZUKISWA WANNER
[BR]OTHER – Coffee table snuff porn, or...?
SEAN JACOBS
Davy Samaai The People's Champion
KNEO MOKGOPA
I Still See The Sun/ The Dukkha Economy
CHRISTINE LUCIA
Resonant Politics, Opera and Music Theatre out of Africa
ARI SITAS
The Muller’s Parable
ZIMASA MPEMNYAMA
CULTURE Review: The Lives of Black Folk
RIAAN OPPELT
Club Ded: psychedelic noir in Cape Town
DYLAN VALLEY
Nonfiction not non-fiction (not yet)
DEON MAAS
MUTANT - a crucial documentary film by Nthato Mokgata and Lebogang Rasethaba
GEORGE KING
Unknown, Unclaimed, and Unloved: Rehabilitating the Music of Arnold Van Wyk
THOMAS ROME
African Art As Philosophy: Senghor, Bergson, And The Idea Of Negritude. By Souleymane Bachir Diagne.
SIMBARASHE NYATSANZA
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: Making Africa visible in an upside-down World
ekaya
BRIDGET RENNIE-SALONEN & YVETTE HARDIE
Creating a healthy arts sector ecosystem: The Charter of Rights for South African Artists
KOPANO RATELE
What Use Would White Students Have For African Psychology?
NICKI PRIEM
The Hidden Years of South African Music
INGE ENGELBRECHT
“Die Kneg” – pastor Simon Seekoei in conversation.
SCORE-MAKERS
Score-making
off the record
BARBARA BOSWELL
Writing as Activism: A History of Black South African Women’s Writing
MPHUTLANE WA BOFELO
MUSIC AS THE GOSPEL OF LIBERATION: Religio-Spiritual Symbolism and Invocation of Martyrs of Black Consciousness in the Azanian Freedom Songs
IGNATIA MADALANE
From Paul to Penny: The Emergence and Development of Tsonga Disco (1985-1990s) Pt.2
ADAM GLASSER
In Search of Mr. Paljas
TREVOR STEELE TAYLOR
Censorship, Film Festivals and the Temperature at which Artworks and their Creators Burn
PATRIC TARIQ MELLET
The Camissa Museum – A Decolonial Camissa African Centre of Memory and Understanding @ The Castle of Good Hope
IKERAAM KORANA
The Episteme of the Elders
OLU OGUIBE
Fela Kuti
MICHAEL TAUSSIG
Walter Benjamin’s Grave
ANTHONY BURGESS
On the voice of Joyce
feedback
FRÉDÉRIC SALLES
This is not a burial, it’s a resurrection : Cinema without the weight of perfection.
FACEBOOK FEEDBACK
Social Media Responses to herri 5
the selektah
boeta gee
Hoor Hoe Lekker Slat’ie Goema - (An ode to the spirit of the drum)
PhD
MARY RÖRICH
Graham Newcater's Orchestral Works: Case Studies in the Analysis of Twelve-Tone Music
hotlynx
shopping
contributors
the back page
DANIEL MARTIN
Stuttering From The Anus
© 2024
Archive About Contact Africa Open Institute
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    #06
  • off the record

ADAM GLASSER

In Search of Mr. Paljas

I first heard the words Mr. Paljas back in 1961. I was 6 years old. We lived in Laundry Cottage, Durban Rd just below the Wynberg Military Garrison. My father Stanley ‘Spike’ Glasser had recently returned  from London after months conducting the King Kong band at the Princes Theatre in the West End.  

A Saturday morning: Spike on the phone for hours on end in the hallway. The day wears on. I never imagined you could talk that long. The subject? Another musical. 

In January of that year Chris Macgregor (then a composition student of Spike’s) had on my father’s request driven my mother, sister and me to Johannesburg where the King Kong cast had reassembled to rehearse for their trip to London. I remember the matinée at the Wits Great Hall, endless grey isle carpet, the knives tucked in boots for the Knife Dance. Days later standing on the balcony of Jan Smuts Airport waving the cast goodbye, my Dad amongst them. I was shocked to see so many adults towering above me weeping. All this fresh in my memory. Now talk of another musical. Would it take Dad away again? No – this show was to be in Cape Town. Something about fishermen and boats …. a magicial bergie – Mr. Paljas. 

I am put in the back of our car with my younger sister the way kids were sommer taken along for convenience. Dad is driving fast to the Cape Town docks. On De Waal Drive a combi pulls in front and signals us to stop. Traffic cop emerges – kaks Dad out in Afrikaans for speeding. Spike always an expert at conciliation in such circumstances. No ticket, only a warning.  

Research for Mr. Paljas: Small tin shed/warehouse by a quayside in the docks. Dad standing before a group of skeptical fishermen still in oilskins seated along the walls of the shed, invited at random off the trawlers moored nearby. ‘Now tell me this – what would you sing at work fishing for example? If you were at sea or hauling in nets on the beach at Muizenberg or Hout Bay?’ Half hearted raspy vocals, little appetite for song in response to this jolly enthusiam. I feel the uneasiness, awkward vibe in the room.

The orchestra pit at the Labia Theatre during a rehearsal: alone with a drum kit – sticks lying across the snare. No one around. I pick up a stick and hesitate a moment, crash it experimentally down on a cymbal. The unexpected noise deafens me. I freeze. Adult conversation nearby stops – sharp looks in my direction. A tall young man steps forward smiling, encourages me to have one more bash and then gently removes the sticks out of my reach – it was Chris MacGregor. 

If you are looking to read here the definitive solid academic account of the musical Mr. Paljas you will be disappointed. It doesnt exist yet as far as I am aware. This story is pieced together from random sources, acquaintances’ memories, and my family archive. I wish I had started this 30 years ago and interviewed those involved. 

If I have a story to tell beyond memory it is thanks to my late mother Mona De Beer (Glasser at the time) who with her Librarian/Archivist/Writer/Editor instincts kept the Paljas programme, a copy of the script, a now deleted Gallo LP and a folder of cuttings that she knew would be worth preserving for the future. Thanks also to my sister Sue Glasser

(seated on the railing of the Laundry Cottage photo) who developed her own version of our mother’s habit of meticulous preservation of anything that could possibly be of future narrative interest and importance.

Mona’s family photo archive contained a set of brilliant distinctive photos taken at a braaivleis in our back garden for members of the Paljas cast.

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I always wondered about the identity of the photographer. But did not get the answer until earlier this year when visiting South African actor/writer/poet Ruth Rosen (née Abromowitz) – a friend of Mona’s from way back. Resident in London for many years Ruth was fully involved in Mr. Paljas as the Speech Coach. Photos and cuttings she shared at our meeting included fragments from a magazine article “Mr Paljas Cuts a Disc” – text by Yvonne Bryceland (later acclaimed for her role in Athol Fugard’s play Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act) and photographs by Cloete Breytenbach. 

You cannot tell which magazine it was because the title is cut off. Yet these photos provided stylistic certainty that the photographer at the cast braaivleis was Cloete Breytenbach (who I then noticed was credited with the band photograph on the back cover of the album).   

Further confirmation came when google led me to herri #2 which features Cloete’s sublime photos of the Eoan group, all shots displaying the characteristic genius of his observational eye, sense of composition, distinctive textural delicacy creating sublime tones of light and shade. I was certain that there must be other cast braai photos I had not seen. The ones we had (which feature all the Glassers – Mona, Spike, Adam and Sue) were clearly only those given to the family. Surely there must have been many other photos taken that afternoon.

I wrote immediately to Aryan Kaganof. Where might I look for the missing Paljas cast braai photos? Aryan replied with an invitation to write this piece and put me in touch with Dr Hilde Roos (herri contributor and Acting Director of the Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Stellenbosch University). A correspondence with Santie De Jongh (Special Collections Librarian at the Stellenbosch University Music Library’s Documentionation Centre for Music (DOMUS) led to further cast photos from the show to which Cloete’s son Leon Breytenbach gave his blessing to be used for this article.

Leon confirmed that there is still a large trove of his father’s photos unsorted amongst which the cast braai photos might exist, yet to be discovered. 

The flurry of correspondence early this year uncovered more photos of the Paljas production via the Eoan Group archive as well as piano parts and leadsheets of the original songs composed by Spike Glasser and lyrics by Beryl Bloom, wife of Harry Bloom, the author of the book, who had come up with the script and basic plot for Mr. Paljas. 

The story was based on a magical figure – Paljas – who transforms the lives of a fictional Cape fishing community at the fictional location of Abrahams Bay. Produced by Ian Berhardt’s Union Artists (the multiracial production company behind the success of King Kong‘s nationwide tours and subsequent move to London’s West End) Mr. Paljas the musical opened on 12 January 1962 at the Labia Theatre in Cape Town. I know the exact date thanks to Steve Bloom the son of (Harry and Beryl) now a distinguished photographer based in England who has memories and a collection of scrapbooks and cuttings relating both to King Kong and Mr Paljas. My gratitude to Steve for sharing some of these with me earlier this year.

While Mr. Paljas brought together a talented ensemble of mainly Cape Town based artists, from children and first timers on stage to top contemporary jazz musicians and experienced members of the Eoan Group (as well as former King Kong cast members Thandie Klaasen, George Tau and Josh Makhene), the exclusively white creatives developed only a lightweight engagement with the community whose cultural identity they appropriated naively for the show – but creative bonds and personal relationships developed between members of the production from all backgrounds. One example of which was the romance between lead singer Maud Damons and Spike Glasser who were forced to flee the country in late 1962 after being charged under the Immorality Act. 

The Paljas script reveals the artistic limitations of a plot and characters in which well meaning white creatives, embedded in apartheid South Africa caricature without awareness the lives of a Cape coloured fishing community to which they have little real connection.  

But Spike Glasser’s lifelong love of township jazz caused him to make a brilliant call, giving a key musical role to one of his young composition students Chris Macgregor, an experienced  jazz pianist fully active on the Cape Town scene. The future leader of the iconic Blue Notes as well as The Brotherhood of Breath was to have a massive influence on the show’s music, getting deeply involved in the arrangements and bringing into the pit band cutting edge musicians such as trumpeter Dennis Mphale and alto saxophonist Dudu Pukwana. 

Spike’s songs and Beryl Bloom’s lyrics are in my ‘biased objective opinion’ strong compositions of considerable charm and quality on their own, but the legacy of Mr. Paljas the musical derives solely from sound track LP being repackaged and illegally distributed as a ‘Chris Macgregor and the Blue Notes’ type product. Listen to it any time on Apple Music or Spotify. The horn section and rhythm section pack the kind of punch only capable of being produced by great South African jazz musicians.

Chris du Toit as far back as 2009 wrote an honourable and well informed piece for that precious treasure trove of  South African jazz and popular music which is Electric Jive Blogspot. Though you can listen to Mr. Paljas any time on Apple Music or Spotify thanks to Mr. Paljas being commercially released by ‘Black Cat Productions’ based in Skopje Macedonia. I’d like to know if they have done this legally or not.  

CODA

‘In Search of Mr. Paljas’ is designed to connect up and put in touch any of the cast still around or members of their family and descendents. Please feel free to write to Adam Glasser harmonicastories@gmail.com The story is ongoing…

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Archive About Contact Africa Open Institute