Music is seemingly everywhere in Ghana. It’s rare to have a truly quiet moment outside of normal sleeping hours, and even normal sleeping hours don’t always stop the tunes from wafting through the neighborhood. There is a proud history and tradition of music in Ghana, particularly the homegrown genre of highlife, which is a fusion of 1950s jazz, swing and brass bands and traditional Ghanaian drumming, beats and guitar styles. But highlife wouldn’t exist without the influence of brass bands.
On Saturday, September 17, Winneba hosted a brass band festival in our local Liberation Square. Brass bands are a rather common thing in Ghana, with some brass bands even playing at funerals. The presence and popularity of brass bands is a bit of a vestigial cultural element from colonialism. With brass bands being a part of military culture, they eventually seeped out and were adopted by the Ghanaian people.
At this festival, there was a handful of bands and a variety of genres represented, including blues, jazz and highlife among others. Each band came out on stage and played a song in each genre. There are trophies awarded to the best bands at the end of the day. Sometimes, the band would play a song that was well known by the crowd members and they would jump to their feet, sing the words to the song and get to grooving.
There was also a men’s singing group that was awarded a certificate, upon the announcement of which they stood up and began performing. You can hear some of the singing and the bands in the audio clips below.
The brass band sound and aesthetic really lends itself to the joy and spontaneity of dancing, which is also a big part of Ghana and made the festival a really joyful environment.