FEATURING - Musical Echoes: South African Women Thinking in Jazz by Carol Ann Muller and Sathima Bea Benjamin.

The Special Collections Book of the Week this week is:

Musical Echoes: South African Women Thinking in Jazz by Carol Ann Muller and Sathima Bea Benjamin.

‘Musical Echoes’ tells the life story of the South African jazz vocalist Sathima Bea Benjamin. Born in Cape Town in the 1930s, Benjamin came to know American jazz and popular music through the radio, movies, records, and live stage and dance band performances. She was especially moved by the voice of Billie Holiday. In 1962 she and Abdullah Ibrahim left South Africa together for Europe, where they met and recorded with Duke Ellington. Benjamin and Ibrahim spent their lives on the move between Europe, the United States, and South Africa. In until 1977 they left Africa for New York City where Benjamin established her own record company and recorded her music independently from Ibrahim. ‘Musical Echoes’ reflects twenty years of archival research and conversation between this extraordinary jazz singer and the South African musicologist Carol Ann Muller. The narrative of Benjamin's life and times is interspersed with Muller's reflections on the vocalist's story and its implications for jazz history.

Access: https://univofpretoria.on.worldcat.org/oclc/700406656

This book is available at Special Collections, housed on level 5 of the Merensky 2 Library, and is part of our FZ van der Merwe (ZAMUS FZ) Music Collection.

The Special Collections unit of the Department of Library Services plays a stewardship role in the acquisition and preservation of the Library's rare and valuable information resources, making them accessible to students, staff and researchers, as well as safeguarding them for future generations.