Green Jangano – The Music Bedrock of Zim ( Harare Mambos Band )

Green Jangano-The Music Bedrock of Zim

21/9/2022

Green Jangano-The Music Bedrock of Zim

By Tapfuma Machakaire

His humble looking face with his neat now ancient afro hairstyle would not deceive anyone. He was indeed a cool musician, son of a pastor who delivered harmonious melodies in mature fashion without having to jump around in crazy dance moves to try to impress the crowds.

Green Jangano’s music was ideal for the affluent customer enjoying a sumptuous meal at a five star hotel and that he did with perfection at the height of his career as a musician.

And yet he still appealed to the ordinary citizen through radio and television with his soothing sounds in a genre that has been described as Folk, World, and Country.

Jangano was born on January 13, 1935 to Reverend and Mrs Jangano at one of the oldest mission schools to be established by the United Methodist Church in Manicaland Province-Old Umtali also known as Hartzel. He did both his primary and secondary education at the mission school now called Old Mutare.

His upbringing at mission schools probably helped him instil the virtues of discipline and smartness among his band members. He would not use alcohol or drugs as an inducement before going on stage. His band members were always smartly dressed and he preferred to provide uniforms that would suite the occasion. One would not observe the common habit by some band members of begging for cigarettes and alcohol from revellers while on stage.

He had four siblings, Booker, Lovemore, Christian and Shepherd who also became musicians forming their own band in Mutare known as Tornadoes, but none of them would rise to the level of their brother Green in the music world.

After obtaining a driver’s licence with the help of a cousin only identified as Kawadza, Jangano was employed as a driver by a white farmer in Chipinge. He, however, decided to quit the job after he was allocated additional duties of looking after the white man’s pigs.

Jangano then moved to Harare in search of employment where he briefly worked for Glen Transport. The adventurous Jangano left Harare for Zambia where he was assisted by his father to acquire a truck. He began his music career in 1958 while in Zambia when he joined the Afro-Cuban band as a lead guitarist. The band leader was George Mlongoti.

In the late fifties Jangano returned to Rhodesia and joined his family at Nyadiri mission where he met his first wife. Nyadiri is another United Methodist centre in Mashonaland East Province where his father was then working as a priest. He embarked on the business of transporting goods using the truck he had brought from Zambia.

The multitalented Jangano who could play the lead guitar, bass guitar the key board as well as writing songs and singing met renowned South African music producer West Nkosi at Cyril Jennings Hall in 1959.Nkosi had travelled to Harare scouting for groups that he could record. It is said there was tough competition to win the heart of Nkosi, but Jangano and his band which he had formed with William Chiguma clinched a recording contract and this saw him naming his group the Harare Mambos. Mambo is a local Shona language word for king and Jangano’s band name roughly translated to the Kings of music in Harare. Established in 1907, Harari was the oldest township situated in the capital city which was called Salisbury. Harare is now called Mbare while the capital assumed the name Harare.

Shortly after the encounter with Nkosi, Jangano produced the song Zvanhasi Ndezveduo (Today is our turn). In the song Jangano urges Susan to dance in a celebratory jovial mood-Tamba Suzana, Tenderera. The song must have been a celebration of the breakthrough that Jangano had made with Nkosi. And from that time on Jangano never looked back.

The Harare Mambo band began to clinch performing deals with popular joints that include the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, (Ku Liz) Federal Hotel (Ku Fed) among other places.

Jangano later worked for the British America Tobacco (BAT) which gave him the opportunity to advertise their products through music and jingles. He would provide a similar service to big companies such as Lever Brothers whose products Jangano promoted on radio and on television in the early sixties.

The Music of the Harare Mambo’s was so polished that the band became the first to be allowed to appear on the white dominated television after its launch in 1969.

At one stage the Harare Mambo’s were so inundated with business to the extent of having to set up three branches named Harare Mambo band A, B and C.

Among the famous characters who worked with the Harare Mambo’s are William Kashiri, Elisha Josam, Friday Mbirimi, Newton Kanengoni, Paul Silla, Virginia Silla, Earnest TangawekwaSando, Luis Mhlanga and Clancy Mbirimi.

The popular song Bohera  a celebration of a marriage to a woman from rural Bohera district was produced by the Harare Mambo’s under the leadership of  Green Jangano, with Virginia Silla on vocals and trombonist and singer Ernest Tanga wekwa Sando.  Tanga later did his own solo rendition of the song Bohera which became one of his most successful hits.

The song Ngatigarei Tese – Iets live together was released soon after the attainment of independence as a timely call for peace and tolerance, celebrating Zimbabweans’ diversity. It resonated with the call for reconciliation by the late Prime Minister Robert Gabriel Mugabe.

By 1985 there were only two original members of the Harare Mambo band, Green Jangano himself and William Kashiri. And at one stage the band was composed almost entirely of the Jangano family members who included his second wife Virginia on vocals, Green on second keyboards, Green’s son Charles on Piano, the late Paul Silla, Green’s brother in law on lead guitar. This is the group that produced the popular touching song Mbuya Nehanda Kufa Vachishereketa.The song is, however, said to have originally been produced by two sisters at Nyadzonia ZANLA training camp in Mozambique. The sisters were from Manicaland province.

The Harare Mambo’s Mbuya Nehanda Kufa Vachishereka video on Youtube with touching pictures of the liberation struggle became so popular that the lyrics had to be translated into English on the request of some viewers who do not understand the Shona language in which it was produced.

A comment from one of the viewers reads: “I uploaded this song to my channel ten years ago and that video was quite popular.  There were many comments wanting to know the words both in Shona (the language of the song) and the translation. There were also many comments asking for historical information. Some of the comments seemed to show a family reunion between relatives of the band members! “

From 1990 until the mid-nineties, the Harare Mambos had a contract with the African Sun Hotel Group which saw them performing as a resident band at Monomotapa Hotel in Harare before later moving to the Elephant Hills Hotel in Victoria Falls where Jangano established a home.

In the eighties Jangano was president of the Zimbabwe Musicians Union where he is said to have provided mature leadership. Green Jangano died at the age of 80 in Harare in November 2015. One Harare Mambo’s fan by the name Jivy wrote, “The song has ended but the melody lingers on isn’t it a pity all things must pass so sorry to the Janganos.”

Band member William Kashiri said It’s a great loss to the music industry.

“He was just a good man who was not selfish. He had passion for music and that explains why we were a successful band.”

Such is the story of the man they called Mukoma (brother) Green.