Mario
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 4,664
- Location
- Little Istanbul, Berlin, Germany
This is pushing the Golden Era a bit, but so what...
Skokiaan (a Zulu word meaning a kind of moonshine) was a hit record in South Africa that swept the world in 1954. The composer and alto sax soloist, August Msarurgwa, plays it in the original tsabatsaba style.
The Four Lads made a hopelessly derpy vocal version of it, which I'll spare you. Instead here's Louis Armstrong, with Omer Simeon on soprano sax, and Sy Oliver's orchestra in 1954. It's become a "rumba" - tho the beat is about the same.
Finally the Lawrence Welk Champagne Music in 1959. Jack Martin is the soloist in a smooth fox trot styling by arranger Joe Haymes, who banishes the clanking banjos for a tasty trombone quartet.
Great renditions all of them. The funny thing about the original version is that I can absolutely here it played with tin whistles in place of saxophones. In South Africa they made a point of the fact that they couldn't raelly afford saxophones and so used tin (or penny) whistles instead - which then developed into a new musical style. I love music from South Africa!