Jamhuri Jazz Band

Like Atomic, this club was founded in Tanga town in 1954. The original name was Nyamwezi Jazz Band, as most of the members or their families had come to work in Tanga from that region in the western parts of Tanzania. At first the band just featured two box guitars, banjo and clarinet. la the mid-1950s the government forced the group to change its name and they adopted the name Jamhuri (Republic) Jazz. Besides Tanga Region the group often played in Mombasa as well. In the late 1960s two young brothers joined the band, Wilson Peter Kingonga and George Peter Kingonga, both singers, guitarists and composers. The brothers later were to gain fame establishing their bands (which included former members of Jamhuri Jazz), in Arusha, Mombasa and then Nairobi: They are the founders of Simba Wanyika-a band that fostered a number of spin-offs on the Kenyan music scene-and became one of the fixtures in East African Swahili dance band music from the 1970s to the 1990s. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.