THE GHANA JAZZ FOUNDATION STORY
1914
Ghana has had a brush with Jazz since 1914 when music and score sheets of the early Jazz artists became available in the country and musicians began to gain access to a variety of wind, string and keyboard instruments from abroad.
1950's
The Divine drummer, Kofi Ghanaba, created his own profoundly African approach to jazz and was known for his powerful pounding on the unique set of our local Ghanaian ‘fontomfrom’ drums, which he switched to after abandoning the conventional Western drum set. He met and befriended many jazz legends when he lived and worked in the United States in the 1950s. They included Max Roach, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Young and Billie Holiday. Ghanaba’s albums, known widely in international circles, include ‘Africa Speaks, America Answers’; ‘Themes for African Drums’; ‘Emergent Drums’ and ‘Afro-Jazz.’
It took the visit of American jazz trumpeter and singer Louis ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong and the All-Stars band to this country in 1956 for the opportunity to be created for local musicians to jam with a live Jazz great and pick up some useful points. Well-known musicologist Prof. John Collins, who has researched and written a lot on popular music in Ghana noted: “Though Jazz had been known in Ghana for some time, it was more of the ragtime and later the swing variety. It was Louis Armstrong who brought in Dixieland Jazz and many Accra trumpeters started using his phrasing and singers copied Satchmo’s voice.”
2000's
+233 Jazz Bar & Grill
Venues sprung up for Ghanaian Jazz lovers in Accra, such as the Harmattan Club at the Shangri-La Hotel, which used to host the clarinetist and flutist Jimmy Beckley and his Combo. Singer Rama Brew and pianist Charles Duwor played regularly at the Golden Tulip Club, which also sometimes brought in bands like Full Steam and The Lagoon Jazz Quartet from Togo and Cote d’Ivoire respectively.
As a result of the consistent efforts of the +233 Jazz Bar & Grill, Accra-Ghana is fast becoming a center for jazz from Africa and the diaspora. To keep Jazz alive in Ghana +233 has encouraged the setting up of the Ghana Jazz Foundation (GJF). GJF is the culmination of efforts by Jazz musicians as well as aficionados to help put Ghana on the African Jazz landscape.
Singer Toni Manieson held sway at the Jazz Tone near Labone Junction and the Baseline, predecessor of the +233 Jazz Bar & Grill, hosted bands such as Butubutu, Jazz Friends, Little Heroes, Fabeja and Zed Kankari.
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Our mission is to sustain, promote, and elevate Jazz music in Ghana and Africa.