Too Late for the Prayers

Abstract

In his contribution to The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Music, Martin Scherzinger (2004:611) writes that African art music of the 1980s and 1990s reclaimed a ‘stake in the making of the world’s musical history’ by recentring the ‘complex intercultural negotiations of sound and meaning’ eschewed in Westerncentred narratives of music. To a certain extent, this still holds true. Much of the scholarship on African music, and especially on the type of intercultural art music to which Scherzinger refers, has emphasised these negotiations in terms of the larger geopolitical and historical frameworks of colonialism (Agawu 2011) and apartheid (Fourie 2019). What gets lost in these larger framings, however, are the smaller, more mundane negotiations of which world histories are aggregates. The new album, Too Late for the Prayers, by the Ugandan composer Justinian Tamusuza and South African Michael Blake presents us with a powerful reason to look to these minor narratives. The composers offer, through this album, an alternative model for the complex intercultural negotiations of African art music which foregrounds not transnational and state apparatuses, but the moving interpersonal exchanges occasioned by friendship. Too Late for the Prayers comprises recordings of four works: ‘Okwanjula Kw’Endere’ (1995) for solo flute and ‘Naakutendanga Emirembe Gyonna’ (2015) for vibraphone and marimba by Tamusuza; and ‘Shoowa Panel’ (2007) for vibraphone and marimba, and ‘Umngqokolo’ (2018) for solo alto flute by Blake. The works for flute and alto flute are performed by Marietjie Pauw1 and the vibraphone and marimba works are played by Duo Infinite (Cherilee Adams and Dylan Tabisher). There is a strong sense that what we hear in this album is a glimpse into an ongoing conversation between ‘two old friends’, as Stephanus Muller puts it in the liner notes, who actively draw inspiration from one another. ‘Naakutendanga’, writes Tamusuza, was ‘inspired by Blake’, and Blake states that in writing ‘Umngqokolo’ he was inspired by Tamusuza’s ‘Okwanjula Kw’Endere’, which he calls ‘the most significant solo flute piece by an African composer’. This type of creative generosity is present throughout the album, evidenced by themes of celebration, a deep caring for indigenous cultural practices and a sense of mutual admiration. This sense of generosity extends to the performances too. Pauw’s rendition of ‘Okwanjula Kw’Endere’ is strikingly visceral and lucid. She draws on a sophisticated timbral palette to colour the