Go well music legend Green Jangano The late Greenford Jangano
The late Greenford Jangano

The late Greenford Jangano

Fred Zindi Own Correspondent
I expected calm after the storm of one academic after the other passing on in the last month. First it was Dr Lawton Hikwa, followed by Professor Lindela Ndlovu, both of The National University of Science and Technology (NUST). Before we could breathe a sigh of relief, another bombshell was dropped when Professor Sam Moyo died in a car accident in India. That same week, Dr Vimbai Chivaura also died in Harare.

As if it is not enough, the wind has moved from fellow academics to fellow musicians. This week, Louis Mhlanga is in Harare burying his brother, Shaft, who died in Johannesburg last week.

More devastating news also came this weekend when we heard about the passing on of music legend, Greenford Jangano, founder of the Harare Mambo Band who will be buried at Warren Hills on Saturday. Mourners are gathered at 52 Spruit Road North in Hatfield.

Death is the least we should have to fear as it is inevitable. All of us will die some day. However, when the living have lost people close to their hearts, the sadness is always unbearable. These are the dynamics of life.

Greenford Jangano was born on January 13, 1935 at Old Umtali Mission in Manicaland where his parents Reverend and Mrs Jangano worked.

He had four siblings, Booker, Lovemore, Christian and Shepherd who also formed the Tornadoes Band in Mutare. Green attended primary school at Old Umtali Mission (now known as Old Mutare or Hartzel) where he was taught to drive by his cousin, Kawadza.

He used his driving skills to gain employment at a White farm in Chipinge but left when the white farmer doubled his driving duties to include looking after his pigs.

He then moved to Harare in pursuit of employment and temporarily worked for Glen Transport before moving to Lusaka, Zambia. With help from his father, he bought a truck in Zambia.

He moved back to Zimbabwe where he met his first wife at Nyadire Mission where his father was now working as a Methodist minister. He became self-employed as he used his truck to ferry goods for people for a fee.

In 1958, he started his musical career with a band he had met while in Zambia called the Afro-Cuban band whose leader was George Mlongoti.

Green played the lead guitar in this band and with a mate called Agrippa, their main music genre was known as cha-cha-cha.

Later, he met William Chiguma, another musician, while he was doing some work at Portland Cement, who joined them.

Jangano started off as a lead guitarist in 1958, then a bass guitarist in the 1960s and finally as a keyboards player in the 1970s. Green, as he is affectionately known by fellow musicians, met West Nkosi, a South African music producer, at Cyril Jennings Hall, Highfield in 1959 where he was scouting for musicians to record. There was stiff competition among the musicians present, but Green’s band won the contest and thus became known as the Harare Mambo Band. The song “Zvanhasi Ngezveduwo” sometimes known as “Tenderera Tenderera” came immediately after.

After that he began to take music seriously and took over as the manager of Afro-Cuban Band which had failed to make an impact in Harare. He took the Harare Mambos to places like The Federal Hotel (ku Fed) and Queen Elizabeth Hotel (ku Liz) where he secured contracts to play for patrons in pubs.

He later worked for British American Tobacco (BAT) a company which also gave him the opportunity to advertise their product, players gold leaf cigarettes and later Lever Brothers where he took the band around the whole country to advertise sunlight soap from a mobile van.

The Harare Mambos were involved in the promotion of many products for private companies in Zimbabwe. Companies such as BAT and Lever Brothers, have got the Harare Mambos to thank for the promotion and publicity of their products and the profits they made during the early sixties before television and before most people could afford radios.

The band used to travel nationwide on a publicity campaign with Green at the forefront. They were also the first local band to appear on a white dominated television when television was first installed in Zimbabwe.

The Mambos had a lot of line-up changes in the late sixties and at some stage due to an increase in the number of work contracts they became so busy to the extent that smaller bands known as The Mambos A, The Mambos B and The Mambos C were formed.

Names such as William Kashiri, Elisha Josamu, Friday Mbirimi, Newton Kanengoni, Paul Silla, Virginia Silla, Ernest Tanga wekwaSando, Louis Mhlanga, Clancy Mbirimi are associated with the Harare Mambo Bands.

However, by 1985, only one band remained with Green and William Kashiri as the only two original members. At one stage, apart from Newton Kanengoni, the keyboards player, and Clancy Mbirimi, the bass player, The Mambos had become a family affair. Members included Green himself on second keyboards, Green’s second wife, Virginia, on vocals, Green’s son, Charles on piano and the late Paul Silla, Green’s brother-in-law on lead guitar. The hit song “Mbuya Nehanda Kufa Vachishereketa” came out of this latter outfit.

In 1990, Green and the Harare Mambo band signed a contract with Zimbabwe Sun Hotels to give performances at Monomotapa Hotel in Harare and the band stayed there until 1992 when the same Hotel group moved the band to Elephant Hills Hotel in Victoria Falls where Green had established a home.

Green, was at one time in the early 1980s also the president of the Zimbabwe Musicians Union where he showed good governance and administration skills. He was a highly intelligent man who demanded strict discipline from his band members in the way they behaved in public and in the way they dressed. His survival as a musician who managed well mainly on music alone over the years is proof of his shrewdness as a music businessman.

Although the Harare Mambos played a lot of copyright music, they laid down some good original tracks such as “Mbuya Nehanda” (sometimes titled ‘Tora Gidi Uzvitonge’) which has become a classic Chimurenga song in Zimbabwe since 1980. For all his achievements I am of the opinion that Greenford Jangano should be granted the National Hero status.

Green, you taught us good lessons without which the music industry would be in the doldrums. May your soul rest in eternal peace.

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