Catalogue             Group                                                                 A side/B side                                                Year

Number

PC 7-1              Tanzania Police Jazz Band                       Madeni Ni Asara/Ulevi Ni Hatari          1972

PC 7-3              Tanzania Police Jazz Band                       Halima/Magomeni

PC 7-6              Zanzibar Police Jazz Band                       Uliuzi Wetu/Roho Ya Karume              1973

A label for recordings by the Tanzania Police Jazz Band, one of the many groups sponsored by government departments or agencies during Julius Nyerere’s long tenure as president.

The country had no pressing plant and only rudimentary studio facilities. so bands travelled to Nairobi to record their songs. In this instance, working with AIT and producer PO Kanindo.

Kelly Askew’s book Performing the Nation: Swahili Music and Cultural Politics in Tanzania (University of Chicago Press, 2002) lists a 1977 LP by the band on AIT, which suggests there must be more records in this series that have yet to surface.

PC 7-6 surfaced on eBay in June 2016 by another police-sponsored band, again produced by PO Kanindo.