The Tom-Tomcats

Hundreds of shouting, stomping Katangese surged against police lines in Elisabethville during the recent anniversary celebrations of the Congo's three tempestuous years of independence. The Katangese were not rioting against the central government in Leopoldville, they were pushing forward to hear the pulsating rhythms of twelve musicians dressed in frilled scarlet shirts and skintight black pants. It was Africa's favorite native musical group, the O.K. Jazz Band.

The group was formed in 1956 by Francois Luambo, a lean, goateed guitarist who calls himself Franco and lists his nonmusical recreations as "football, women, and driving fast in my white Thunderbird." Taking their name from a Leopoldville pub called the O.K. Bar, Franco and his crowd have since played in Europe and in every country in West and Central Africa except Ghana. When the "Okayistes" travel in Africa, the President of the host country often places a plane at their disposal. In every capital, crowds of Africans too poor to get inside the club where they are playing jam the dusty, unpaved streets outside and dance to the faint strains of their music. On one recent tour, Franco received 3,000 marriage proposals from love-smitten African girls.

Though they call their music jazz, the Okayistes lean heavily on a hypnotic beat that is traditionally African mixed with a little twist, some of Ghana's syncopated High Life, and a sizable portion of swaying Latin American rhythms. The combination earns them about $15,000 a month. "We ourselves like pure jazz best," says one Okayiste, "but our people don't like it. If we only played jazz, we'd soon go broke." Always on the lookout for old African tribal melodies, band members often go into the bush to watch village dances, rework the tunes when they return to town. Often old men appear from villages with melodies they want the Okayistes to hear. "They play it on their primitive instruments--a few strings strung across a box," says one of Franco's men, "and if we like it, we adopt it." Not one member of the band reads a note of music. "We keep our music in our heads."

The Okayistes' biggest hits have been old Congolese melodies such as Nakobanga Mangungunte (I Don't Like to Be Afraid) and Monzemba Pasi Na Elanga (To Be a Bachelor in Cold Winter Is Bad), both of which are rumbas. But they prefer what they call "educative" numbers built around an African nationalistic moral. Thus one of their biggest successes has been the Independence Cha Cha Cha.

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