Tigris video and Chechamba's music adventures

still from the Tigris video

Finally I am putting the final touch on the video for Tigris’ song Strip Song. It took a while, I had to learn a lot and by now I am a much better videographer than I was when I started it.

Next week Tigris launches a new single, so the video release will have to wait at least a few weeks, let’s keep you in anticipation.

Anyway, the last filming I did was of musicians. It took a  bit of doing to find the people who could and wanted to do it. So when I got stuck, I went to meet my old friend Wyndham Chechamba, the grand old man of Malawian Music. He teaches, and yes, we could film them at the music school!

While we were at it he taught me song Congolese guitar work, which is great. And he told me of his adventures with Congolese music: in the 1960s (that’s a while ago) He went to Kitwe in Zambia. The copper belt was even then a hive of activity, and the mine workers want entertainment. It is so close to the Congolese border that Congolese music is very popular there.

Chechamba

A Congolese band went to a bar owner to ask for work. OK< the man wanted music in his bar, so let’s hear what you can do. Well, the musicians knew how to play, but they had no instruments. So for the audition they borrowed the equipment of another band that was playing further up the strip in Kitwe. The bar owner liked the music, and here was the deal: the bar owner buys a full set of equipment, the band plays for food and lodging, and at the end of the contract the musicians own their own instruments. OK, fine. But at that time Congolese rumba music was most popular and that sounds best with horn players. And there were no Congolese horn players available. That’s where Chechamba came in: he played great saxophone even back then (he plays pretty much every instrument that you and I have heard!) so he joined the band. And for three years he played rumba music in Kitwe. Then the band went back to Congo. But there it was dangerous as it is now, so Chechamba opted to go back to Malawi. Loaded with experience in great Congolese rumba music.

Now he plays keyboards on the Tigris video, and his friends/colleagues/students play the other instruments. In the video that is, the soundtrack was done before I started.