Brian Rust, Mardi Gras & Needle Time

Discography research is an arcane enough hobby. But Brian Rust, despite his profile in that community, managed achieved a level of willful obscurity all his own.  He self-published a 'zine (to use the modern parlance) somewhat regularly starting in 1985 which included editorials, sales, and discographies. But the magazine was a bit hard to find. Tim Brooks at the ARSC [SOURCE] had this to say.

"Needle Time, incidentally, is one of those "secret" publications that you may hear about in passing once in a while, but seem to be deliberately hard to find. Despite the fact that it is edited by one of the best known names in discography, to my knowledge it has never advertised in the United States, has not been reviewed here, and is found in hardly any libraries. Even a direct request to Rust himself for information, a couple of years back, brought no response!"

Needle Time was published bimonthly-ish by Mr. Rust, to the benefit of we bookish discographers, writers and collectors of vintage jazz. The average issue of Needle Time was perhaps 32 black & white 6.5" x 8.25" pages, but it wasn't cheap. The cost was a rather steep at the time. In 1985 it started out at 5.00£  for a 1 year subscription (UK) or 8.10£ (US). But that had jumped by 1989 to 10.30£ per year for 6 issues overseas or 20£ for two years (12 issues). But Rust didn't take personal checks! So a subscriber had to mail physical cash or pounds sterling to his address in Dorset, England.

The dimensions of the magazine shrank sometime between issues 4 and 12 to about 6" x 8.25." While the format was a bit handier, it may have been perceived as "shrinkage." But issues got longer. The first issue is only 23 pages long, issue 22 is 40 pages long.  Though they always had varied, Rust was definitely putting out bigger issues over time. In Americana terms Rust was like Joe Bussard, but more prolific. The Guardian Newspaper called him leading the jazz discographer of his generation. More here and here.

Rust also hosted a weekly radio program on Capital Radio in London from 1973 to 1984 called Mardi Gras.  It was an hour long Sunday program that aired at 10:00 PM. (There are several episodes up on YouTube.) (Bruce Epperson puts the start of the long-running Sunday night program in 1971.) But his debut in radio was probably in 1957 playing washboard with the Barnstormers Spasm Band. Reputedly Rust left the group in 1958 after the BBC, citing conflict of interest (with his Sunday program) refused him permission to appear on TV. The program opened and closed (at least in the 80s) with The Charles Dornbeger Orchestra version of "Tiger Rag." Brian would say "You are listening to Capital Radio. Thsi is Brian Rust welcoming you to another Mardi Gras, a carnival of the best in vintage popular music and all that jazz..."

It was cancelled in September of 1984. [Strangely, we can blame Margaret Thatcher] Following the Heathrow Conference, the AIRC (Association of Independent Radio Contractors) shook out a fit of deregulation and installed notably commercial programming and sponsorship onto the British airwaves. So in September the schedule was as follows:

• 5:00 PM - Roger Scott
• 6:00 PM - Peter James (classical) 
• 8:00 PM - Tom McGuinness 
• 9:00 PM - David Castell 
• 10:00 PM - Mardi Gras with Brian Rust 
• 11:00 PM - It's Jazz 
• 12:00 Midnight - Richard Digance

Then afterward...

• 5:00 PM - Network Chart with David Jensen 
• 7:00 PM - View from the Top 
• 8:00 PM - Charlie Gillett 
• 10:00 PM - London Philharmonic Orchestra 
• 11:00 PM - Mike Allen

Sounds Vintage Magazine [LINK] reported on the end of the program writing "...The Carnival is over. Yes, Mardi Gras is being given the chop to make way for "restructuring"of Sundays on Capital, including a high fallutin' magazine program so beloved of producers and planners..." Vintage Magazine went on to write that they had been enlightened and entertained by the best program for jazz heads.

So Needle Time perhaps became the hobby that Rust took up after radio. But for Rust discography had always come first. His first publication as a discographer came in 1943 in Jazz Tempo Magazine in a 6-part series on the obscure group Goofus Five. By 1948 he was writing regularly for Gramophone. Rust appears in the book More Important Than the Music by Bruce Epperson dozens of times as the man and dozens more times as a source in the footnotes and bibliography.  In it, Rust is described in the book as having taken a boring job at the Bank of England only so he could afford his real passion - vintage jazz and dance music. He later worked at the BBC gramophone library until 1960. He wrote or co-wrote 15 book-length jazz discographies, and 31 issues of his magazine Needle Time. Needle Time was named for the BBC rule limiting the amount of recorded music that could be broadcast in a day. (I'll write about that another time.) Brian Rust died at the age of 88 in the year 2011. Below is my partial Needle Time bibliography from my personal collection.

ISSUE	MONTH	YEAR	COVER
1	NOV/DEC	1985	Henry Levine
2	JAN	1986	Vivian Ellis
3	MAR	1986	Fred Elizalde
4	MAY	1986	The Savoy Orpheans
12	SEP	1987	Paul Whiteman
13	NOV	1987	Seger Ellis, Josie Miles & Nathan Glanz
14	JAN	1988	Sid & Bert Firman
15	MAR	1988	Pee Wee Erwin
16	MAY	1988	All Bowlly
17	JUL	1988	Norman Payne
20	JAN	1989	Art Hickman's New York London Five
21	MAR	1989	Leslie Jeffries & His Rialto Orchestra
22	MAY	1989	Violet Essex
23	JUL	1989	Greta Keller

Radio Free Zimbabwe

I first heard the three words Radio Free Zimbabwe as the title of an album by the band Okapi Guitars. Ironically they are an Australian, not African Afropop group. Their lead singer Paul Mbenna is from Tanzania, not Zimbabwe. So let us examine the relevance of Radio Free Zimbabwe, and perhaps why a Tanzanian ex-patriot living abroad in Australia might make a reference to an underground broadcaster living under an authoritarian regime.

In the Republic of Zimbabwe there is exactly one state broadcaster: ZBC. It operates two television stations and 6 radio stations: National FM, Power FM, Radio 3, Radio Zimbabwe, Spot FM, and SW 24/7 which operates only on shortwave. In 2000 a court ruling ended the monopoly of state-only broadcasting. It repealed a law that prohibited the private ownership of radio transmitters and created a framework for the state to allocate frequencies.

But the victory did not allow the plaintiff to being broadcasting. Capital FM was instructed to wait for the government to draft new laws to regulate this new media. Capital FM jumped the gun and began broadcasting six days later. They were promptly shut down by police and their equipment was seized. The Mugabe regime did act quickly and draft a law by April 2001. But it too forbid the private ownership of transmitters. Only the state owned company, TransMedia was permitted to do so. Nonetheless, the new licensing entity BAZ (Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe) began receiving applications. The ZBC rejected them all. Effectively only the state can broadcast legally in Zimbabwe. It is also illegal to act as a journalist without a permit from the (MIC) Media and Information Commission.

In 2004 the first BAZ chairman, Nhlanhla Masuku was quoted as saying:  "Who do we issue licenses,when people have not applied." This media-vacuum created a need for independent communications that is fulfilled largely by pirate broadcasters and shortwave operating outside Zimbabwe. The owners of Capital Radio moved to the UK and began broadcasting as SWAR (Shortwave Radio Africa) on 6145Khz. Except for correspondents, all of it's staff were in the London.  The U.S. Government funds a similar service on Shortwave and AM Studio 7, which has a repeater in Botswana.

There are numerous other pirate broadcasters. VOP, (Voice of People) broadcasts on 610 kHz in English, Shona and Ndebele since about mid 2000. Their offices were bombed in 2002. In 2005 they were shut down by the police and 3 reporters were arrested. VOP continues to record programs, but now from South Africa. These are broadcast on Radio Netherlands. A community group named Radio Dialogue operates (ZCR) Zimbabwe Community Radio broadcasting from the United Arab Emirates and South Africa. The book Public Broadcasting in Africa Series: Zimbabwe covers this in excellent detail .My go-to text on this topic Broadcasting in Africa by Sydney Head is out of date such that it still listed Zimbabwe under Rhodesia. But the book details a long tradition of radio going back to 1932.

But in 2008 the Mugabe regime began jamming even those few independent shortwave frequencies. And whenever anti-Mugabe sentiments sneak onto the state-owned broadcasters... there are reprisals. Gerry Jackson, the founder of SWAR was fired from Radio 3 in 1997 for insubordination. He had aired live phone calls from people being beaten by police during food riots in the city of Harare. The government of Zimbabwe has forbidden six SWAR staff from ever returning to Zimbabwe. In a speech to Parliament Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa stated "They would be welcomed back... Welcomed back to our prisons."  [LINK] In 2014 SW Radio Africa shot down due to funding issues. [LINK]  Gerry Jackson wrote

“It is with regret that SW Radio Africa announces that it is closing down. We recently stopped our shortwave transmissions but have continued to provide broadcasts via our website and other formats, but these too will cease. We’d like to thank the organisations and individuals who have supported us for the past 13 years and the contributors to our programs who have given so willingly of their time and expertise. In particular we’d like to thank our listeners, who have shared their lives, hopes and dreams and helped us to tell the story of Zimbabwe’s sad decline to the world. We hope that one day Zimbabwe finally has a government who understands that its sole responsibility is to ensure a safe, healthy, prosperous life for every man, woman and child in the country.

When the colonialist Ian Smith regime of Rhodesia was collapsing in the 1970s they cracked down on dissent. Radio broadcasting was restricted, and even individual songs were banned. The Smith government even stopped making shortwave radios to limit access. So the end of the story is that there is no Radio Free Zimbabwe, because Zimbabwe is not free. But President Robert Mugabe is 93 years old. In February 2016, Mugabe said he had no plans for retirement and would remain in power "until God says 'come'."