For Dr Robert Ngobi (PhD), jazz is not just a genre; it is a method; a way of thinking, surviving, and transforming silence into meaning. He believes this method belongs to every African who has ever improvised rhythm, language, survival, or joy. His classroom at the African Institute of Music in Kampala is not only shaping instrumentalists; it is also nurturing individual voices.
In a jazz world where academic training often leads to polished imitation, his question to students is refreshingly radical: ‘There are thousands of musicians. But who are you in the music?’ Perhaps this is the true essence of Uganda’s jazz awakening: moving away from simply copying standards created thousands of miles away and instead focusing on creating new ones in our own style, with the drums still pulsating beneath the harmony.
Roots in rhythm
At the intersection of memory and improvisation, we find Dr Ngobi: the son of a traditional instrument maker, a scholar of American jazz, and the architect of a new African jazz education. Before he ever touched a Steinway piano, he discovered rhythm. In his childhood home, music did not come from sheet music but from breath, wood, and craftsmanship.
His father crafted amadinda xylophones and tuned thumb pianos, treating sound as something alive; something that could be carved and passed on like wisdom.
‘We did not say we were musicians. We just played,’ he recalls. There was no formal structure, yet everything was precise. Children learnt by ear through repetition and felt how the community resonated through sound. Jazz, though it was not named at the time, was already present, not as a style, but as a way of life.
Finding jazz abroad
Life rarely offers artists a straightforward path. After finishing Senior Six, he found that university admissions did not come together as he had hoped. He explored different options and dabbled in practicality, but the piano, along with the memories of communal rhythms, continued to beckon him. In 2004, he made a quiet but pivotal decision: to enrol at the African Institute of Music. He chose classical piano over jazz because, at the time, that was the form of music that seemed to carry legitimacy. However, that perception eventually changed. A scholarship later took him to the United States for graduate studies.
There, in practice rooms, he encountered jazz, but not the kind that thrived in Kampala’s improvisational spirit. Instead, it was codified, arranged, and meticulously annotated, having been lifted from bar stages into academic lecture halls. ‘I even asked my professor, ‘Where is the orchestra?” he laughs. ‘I came with a classical mindset. But something about jazz felt more like home.’
Reclaiming African authorship
As he delved deeper into his studies, it became increasingly clear: jazz had come full circle. The rhythms that originated in Africa with the enslaved had been refined in America and were now being returned to Africa through textbooks and educational curricula. But what if the circle did not stop there? What if Africa not only received jazz back but also reclaimed its authorship?
Dr Ngobi focused his doctoral dissertation on the formal jazz education system developed by American jazz pianist Lenny Tristano, which was one of the first frameworks to treat jazz as an academic discipline. He studied this system not to adopt it without question, but to adapt it to align with African perspectives.
“If someone can formalise our rhythms into their curriculum, then we can formalise our rhythms into ours and teach jazz in a way that preserves identity rather than promoting erasure.”
Teaching jazz
As the Dean of Academic Affairs at the African Institute of Music, he emphasises the importance of teaching jazz not merely as an American art form, but as a cultural return to its African roots. He reminds his students that improvisation is an African inheritance rather than a Western innovation. He is frank about the current state of Uganda’s jazz scene: it is small but vibrant. “We are still in our infancy. We do not have many prominent names,” he admits, but then smiles; seeing infancy not as a sign of weakness, but as a starting point.
While musicians such as Isaiah Katumwa are celebrated as icons, Dr Ngobi is more focused on the subtle yet significant movement occurring beneath the surface: in classrooms, rehearsals, and through quiet acts of bravery. In a society where pursuing music is often met with skepticism, each new student represents not just a personal choice, but a small act of rebellion, or more accurately, a small act of return.
Identity in every note
During a recent recital, the audience enjoyed well-known jazz standards such as ‘Round Midnight,’ ‘Airstream,’ and ‘Black Leaf,’ along with original compositions inspired by memories, experiments, and curiosities. Some pieces were tributes to mentors, while others were created at a kitchen sink, and some were lullabies for his daughter. All of them engaged with themes of identity.
He encourages his students, saying: ‘You can play Thelonious Monk, but what is your own note? Your own rhythm? How does your melody curve differently because you were born here and not somewhere else?’ He emphasises that jazz does not need translation to find its place; it requires memory. Young musicians should be able to say:’Yes, I studied Coltrane, but listen; this is how my grandmother’s lullaby fits into that chord, and how my family’s rhythm disrupts the typical bar line.’
The future of jazz in Uganda
The interruption and refusal to smooth out the accent are where new jazz forms are emerging in East Africa. Ultimately, this story is less about jazz itself and more about finding one’s own voice. His approach combines academic rigour with ancestral traditions.
In this musician, the amadinda (a traditional thumb piano) meets the conservatory, and oral memory intertwines with written notation. He approaches the piano not just to play, but to listen, pausing after each note to ponder a fundamental question that shapes his philosophy: ‘There are thousands of musicians. But who are you in the music?’
Perhaps this is where the future of Uganda’s jazz begins: not in volume, but in identity; not in imitation, but in accent; not solely in mastery, but in voice.