The Triple Door Presents

 

Monday / February 1, 2016

 

7:00pm Show - 5:30pm Doors open and dinner service begins in the Theater {All Ages} 

 

$45 Advance

$50 Day of Show

$55 Front Row Seating

Purchase tickets online or by calling our Box Office at 206.838.4333.

 

Suites are also available for private parties and special events. Call our Private Dining department at 206.838.4312 to reserve a private suite for the show.

 

Assembled in the early 1960s in South Africa by Joseph, then a young farmboy turned factory worker, the group took the name Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Ladysmith is the name of Joseph’s hometown, about three hours west of Durban and 3 hours east of Johannesburg; Black being a reference to the oxen, the strongest of all farm animals; and Mambazo being the Zulu word for chopping axe, a symbol of the group’s ability to “chop down” any singing rival who might challenge them. Their collective voices were so tight and their harmonies so polished that by the end of the 1960's they were banned from competitions, although they were welcome to participate as entertainers.

A radio broadcast in 1970 opened the door to their first record contract – the beginning of an ambitious discography that currently includes more than fifty recordings. Their philosophy in the studio was – and continues to be – just as much about preservation of musical heritage as it is about entertainment. The group borrows heavily from a traditional music called isicathamiya (is-cot-a-ME-Ya), which developed in the mines of South Africa, where black workers were taken by rail to work far away from their homes and their families. Poorly housed and paid worse, the mine workers would entertain themselves after a six-day week by singing songs into the wee hours on Sunday morning. When the miners returned to the homelands, this musical tradition returned with them.

During the 1970's and early 1980's Ladysmith Black Mambazo established themselves as the most succesful singing group in South Africa. In the mid-1980s, Paul Simon visited South Africa and incorporated the group's rich tenor/alto/bass harmonies into his famous "Graceland" album – a landmark recording that was considered seminal in introducing world music to mainstream audiences. A year later, Paul Simon produced Ladysmith Black Mambazo's first worldwide release, "Shaka Zulu", which won a Grammy Award in 1988 for Best Folk Recording. Since then, the group has been awarded two more Grammy Awards ("Raise Your Spirit Higher (2004) and "Ilembe (2009)") and has been nominated a total of fifteen times.