(When even the announcers were segregated)

A slight departure tonight. Music from Apartheid era South Africa. Township Jazz and Jive circa 1962, as presented by Radio South Africa's Transcription Service. The music is wonderful, the presentation is strange. During Apartheid programs like this were referred to as "Bantu Light Music" and the announcers were separated. The basic introduction announcer was white, but the program content announcer was "coloured". And it's interesting to listen to the lengths the announcer goes to let us know these musicians are all self-taught, largely illiterate and somehow miraculous they even exist.

But once you get past that and actually listen to the music itself, it is amazing and it offers further evidence the notes know no bounds or barriers. It is a slice of history, to be sure.