Photograph by Kevin A. Roberts
In 2009, when musician Zimbabwe Nkenya suffered a serious stroke, it stole his language, both written and spoken, and paralyzed his right side. But as he once told his wife, poet Deborah Mashibini: “I have to play music. I dream music. It’s in my head; I wake up in the middle of the night and I have to play…”
Loss of function in his right hand meant he could no longer play upright bass or violin. But one of his signature instruments has always been the mbira, or thumb piano, played in Africa for more than a thousand years. Nkenya’s use of it in has been unprecedented; it sounds both avant-garde and ancient. “In terms of using the mbira as a lead instrument in creative music, or in jazz, I don’t know of anyone else,” Mashibini says.
She and Nkenya left St. Louis more than 30 years ago for New Mexico, where she worked for arts nonprofits and he led jazz ensembles, including Black Jazz Culture, ZIYA, Contrabass Quartet, and African Space Project. He taught music to schoolchildren, as well as to the general public in other ways as the host of KUNM-FM’s The House That Jazz Built. He played music all over the country, including at New York’s Knitting Factory and Detroit’s One World Festival. When they returned here in 2007, Mashibini enrolled in a creative-writing MFA program; Nkenya began performing with BAG II (the second incarnation of St. Louis’ famous Black Artists Group) and with New Music Circle. Then he had the stroke.
“We’ve been together since 1982,” Mashibini says, “and the one thing I know about my husband—he has always lived for music.”
So just six months later, he took part in Separate Checks, a New Music Circle concert by improvisational musician Tom Hamilton. He played mbira with poet K. Curtis Lyle, percussionist Rich O’Donnell, and electronic musician Tory Z. Starbuck. And every Sunday, he plays mbira, psaltery, and bells with drummer and puppeteer Glenn “Papa” Wright, who accompanies him on kalimba. Mashibini is recording these sessions. The sound is haunting, energetic, and soothing at the same time.
“With Papa, he just comes through the door and he starts to play,” Mashibini says, laughing. “That’s the way the two of them have been working. So it’s sort of a perfect combo.”
This month, Nkenya performs at the Sheldon—his first concert as lead musician since the stroke. Joining him are Wright and O’Donnell. “The interesting thing is, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Wright says. “Whatever Zimbabwe plays, that’s what me and Rich will do, because we are going off of his lead. So he’ll play the rhythms, and we’ll play around that… It’s going to be interesting, and it’s going to be fun.”
O’Donnell says he’ll play tank drum—a percussion item made from a propane tank—a Batá drum, and his handmade “Unidentified Bowing Object,” made from a metal rod and a rice bowl. “Musically, I think it’s essentially metallic sounds,” he says. Nkenya drew a picture of what he wanted O’Donnell to play: marimba. But O’Donnell had given his away. “The last time we saw Rich perform,” Mashibini says, “he had something that just looked like a remote control, and he was walking around the room!”
Nkenya nods at his wife and bursts out laughing at this image—the stroke took everything but the words “yes,” and “no,” but left his encyclopedic knowledge of jazz and African music intact. It also couldn’t take his personality or his sense of humor—or his playing. Mashibini says his music has changed, but there’s no way it could be erased; it’s too integral to who he is.
“For the first full year after the stroke, he would not let me play any of his CDs,” Mashibini says. “He is finding his voice again. A slightly different musical voice—but a distinct and beautiful one.”
The Zimbabwe Nkenya, Rich O’Donnell, and Glenn “Papa” Wright Trio plays Sheldon Concert Hall for the Notes from Home Series on Tuesday, June 5, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $6. For more information, call 314-533-9900 or visit thesheldon.org.
