Zimbabwe Nkenya (March 3, 1953 -January 13, 2022) A Life to the Beat of Jazz and Creative Music
Credit: Deborah Mashibini-Prior
Zimbabwe Nkenya (birth name William Coleman Bonds) got his first taste of Albuquerque while serving the U.S. Air Force during the 1970s. But it was in music and at KUNM where he made his major contributions in life, gaining widespread recognition as a creative music composer, player, band leader and jazz radio host. Friends and colleagues were saddened to learn that the former host of KUNM’s long-running The House that Jazz Built show passed away in Alton, Illinois, January 13, 2022, about two months shy of his 69th birthday.
“Zimbabwe personified that sector of the KUNM volunteer staff who were musicians first, but DJs too,” said Paul Ingles, who served as KUNM’s production director from 1994 to 2002. “These were individuals who could bring a very special inside knowledge and feel to the music they were spinning on the air…”
Former KUNM Reggae Show co-host Jerry “Eeyo” Thompson remembered Zimbabwe as a teacher who went about “just educating people about jazz” inside and outside KUNM. “He was strictly jazz, but kinda got us all involved with his projects,” Thompson said. “His passion for jazz was a lifelong thing, and he was serious.”
Trained on the cello and violin, Zimbabwe was also a percussionist and self-taught bass and mbira player. According to his former wife Deborah Mashibini-Prior, Zimbabwe acquired his first bass, which he named “Idi,” at an Albuquerque pawnshop.
In addition to music, Zimbabwe made a mark in the visual arts, distinguishing himself at a young age for the “Wall of Respect” mural he painted in Alton.
Born at Nellis Air Force base in Nevada, Zimbabwe once described himself as an “Air Force brat” who grew up at different military bases in the United States and in Madrid, Spain, where his father served. As an adult, he told stories of his mother holding him up as an infant so he could see “mushroom clouds” rising in the distance from Nevada nuclear bomb tests.
Zimbabwe became acquainted with KUNM during his first residence in New Mexico when he played the mbira on the late Dwight Loop’s old Ear Waves program in 1980.
After leaving military service and Albuquerque, Zimbabwe moved to his family’s home base in Alton, Illinois, the St. Louis suburb where, coincidently, Miles Davis was born in 1926.
In 1982, Zimbabwe and poet Deborah Mashibini-Prior met by the good graces of Shirley Bradley LeFlore, St. Louis’ celebrated activist, educator and writer. LeFlore was the founder of the city’s Creative Arts and Expression Lab, a vibrant center of music, art and writing where Zimbabwe and Mashibini-Prior kindled a relationship that lasted decades.
“Zimbawe’s dedication was really to the music, classical music in the Black tradition is how he referred to it,” Mashibini-Prior said in an interview. “No compromise is what comes to mind..”
Added Mashibini-Prior: “He spent a lot of time listening to recordings and reading books. He self studied that way. I don’t remember him learning from another human.. Zimbabwe’s former companion recalled that Shirley Bradley LeFlore once told her, “Deborah, he was one of the only musicians I know who didn’t have a day job. But he did have a spouse to support him.” Consequently, “because of that, he had a lot of opportunity to practice…he was known for practicing, practicing, practicing,” Mashibini-Prior said.
Spending three decades of their lives together, Zimbabwe and Mashibini-Prior resided in the St. Louis area, New York City, Albuquerque and McIntosh, New Mexico, Tucson, Arizona, and finally the St. Louis metro area again. The couple raised a daughter, Ziniswa Mashibini.
On his first dive into the St. Louis area music scene during the early 1980s, Zimbabwe played with the legendary Black Artists Group (BAG) and recorded with the late Maurice Malik King’s Emerging Forces Art Trio, which survives for posterity in the now-rare recording Time and Condition.
With Zimbabwe’s death in 2022, all three members of the combo have passed on.
In 2005 fellow KUNM jazz DJ David House (1958-2016) interviewed Zimbabwe as part of the Jazz of Enchantment radio series produced by Paul Ingles.
Probed about genre, Zimbabwe was reluctant to narrowly categorize his music, which he described as African-influenced with strands of jazz, avant garde, hip hop and even Jimi Hendrix forming the mix.
Relocating to New York City in 1983, Zimbabwe encountered another hopping musical and artistic scene. From the Big Apple, Zimbabwe performed and toured with Welcome Msomi and the South African Izula Dance Theater’s Off-Broadway production HALALA.
The New York City days “significantly influenced (Zimbabwe’s) music on the mbira,” affirmed Mashibini-Prior, who also credited South African musicians Johnny Dyani, Abdullah Ibrahim and Dudu Pukwana as well as John Coltrane, Roscoe Mitchell, and other musicians from Chicago and St. Louis for shaping her husband’s musicianship.
But as the 1980s rolled on, Zimbabwe was destined for a different scene. With special memories of land and people imprinted in his life story, the multi-instrumentalist headed back to the Southwest, this time with a family in tow.
Credit: Deborah Mashibini-Prior
Settling into Burque’s Southeast Heights in late 1987, Zimbabwe plunged into New Mexico’s creative musical and cultural worlds. Fellow musician and deejay Mark Weaver invited the new player on the block to try out KUNM, where Zimbabwe began co-hosting The House That Jazz Built in 1989. “I thought that would be a good thing to do,” Weaver said.
Weaver and Zimbabwe alternated as the principal hosts of the Sunday evening show for many years, with Zimbabwe ultimately emerging as the main host after Weaver departed KUNM in 2002. Zimbabwe’s distinctive voice and playlists were heard by listeners of The House That Jazz Built until his final departure from Albuquerque in 2005.
Rolled out as part of KUNM’s debut schedule in 1966, The House That Jazz Built continues airing to this day.
“I think he brought valuable things with both the musical performance and the radio. A lot of people remember his radio shows,” reflected Weaver, who also played trombone in Zimbawe’s Black Jazz Culture group. The band performed at venues like the Kimo Theater in downtown Albuquerque and El Farol in Santa Fe. By the mid-1990s, Zimbabwe’s African Space Project was another noted band on the New Mexico music scene. A recorded product of Zimbawe’s New Mexico years can be found on Zimbabwe Nkenya and The New Jazz, produced by Carlos Santistevan and High Mayhem of Santa Fe.
In comments accompanying the recording, former KUNM DJ and Zounds! columnist David Prince defined Zimbabwe as “pretty much synonymous with authentic and uncompromisingly creative jazz in New Mexico.” The late music critic continued, “Zimbabwe’s unerring ability to gracefully aid and abet the musicians he is sharing the moment with, while at the same time making manifest the ongoing interior dialog between his own heart and soul, is nothing short of miraculous.”
Many of Zimbabwe’s early KUNM shows concentrated on a theme. For instance, a November 1989 show featuring the sounds of “the unique Mal Waldron” was billed as a special program on the cello in “creative, improvised music.” In the January 1991 edition of the KUNM program guide Zounds! readers were invited to tune into one of Zimbabwe’s shows and explore the music of Ornette Coleman and his “harmolodic concept in creative, improvised music.”
According to Mashibini-Prior, Zimbabwe “always” recorded his radio shows and listened to them afterward.
One media ritual that irked Zimbabwe was February’s designation as Black History Month, “Well, on my flyer and in the press releases (for an upcoming musical performance) I made a point not to put “Black History Month”, because this country has a lot of problems, a lot of racial problems, and the things that are said during Black History Month should be said every day of the year,” Zimbabwe was quoted in an interview published in the March 1991 edition of Hype magazine. “So, on the poster it’s Black History – period! There’s truths that have got to be spoken, and not just during Black History Month.”
Zimbabwe performing with the Rob Brown Trio at the Outpost Performance Space on Yale SE in Albuquerque. Credit: Deborah Mashibini-Prior
Away from KUNM’s control room, Zimbabwe was immersed in music, music and more music. Tom Guralnick was among the numerous New Mexican artists who played with Zimbabwe. The former KUNM DJ and founder of Albuquerque’s Outpost Performance Space dates his first meeting of Zimbabwe to about 1979, when Gurlanick was managing the New Mexico Jazz Workshop and Zimbabwe was still in his first Albuquerque life.
Guralnick recalled how a conversation with an enthusiastic young man in the bandstand of the Madrid ball park before a Jazz Workshop show planted the seeds for musical collaborations spanning decades. “He was a great musician,” Guralnick mulled. “He was totally dedicated…and after all, how many African-American DJs have there been?”
Guralnick said he and Zimbabwe kept in touch during the time both men separately moved to the East Coast. As the stars seemingly charted, the two musicians found themselves back in Albuquerque later on in the 1980s and soon played together as part of the Tom Guralnick Quartet.
“To me, some of the most interesting experiences I had was listening to Guralnick and (Zimbabwe) ” said Placitas, New Mexico poet Larry Goodell. “I’ve always regretted that the (group) stopped what they were doing. They were great.”
On his creative journeys, Zimbabwe frequently collaborated with poets in New Mexico and other places he lived, including Goodell, who recalled a joint performance at the first Outpost Performance Space on Morningside SE in Albuquerque’s East Nob Hill neighborhood.
“I thought he was an astounding bass player, just essentially creative all the time..I’d read a poem or something and he’d improvise.”
KUNM’s monthly Zounds! publication once described the Zimbabwe-Goodell duo as consisting of a “supreme jazz bassist” and a “voice magician and word rhythm specialist.”
Other poets Zimbabwe shared a stage with included Mary Redhouse, Qunicy Troupe, Eugene Redmond, K. Curtis Lyle, Arthur Ray Brown, and Burque’s own Mike “360” Ipiotis. His credits featured gigs with future U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo and Shirley Bradley LeFlore and Michael Castro, the first and second poet laureates of St. Louis, respectively.
Zimbabwe, Mashibini-Prior observed, preferred poets “who were most musical in performance.”
Caption: A Dynamic Duo: Zimbabwe Nkenya and Larry “The Mad New Mexican” Goodell. Credit: Larry Goodell
After residing six years in Albuquerque’s Southeast Heights, Zimbabwe and his family contemplated another move. “When a crack dealer moved in next door, we felt it was time to look for (residential) opportunities,” Mashibini-Prior recalled. That opportunity materialized in the tiny town of McIntosh, New Mexico.
Situated in the high desert about an hour’s drive from Albuquerque in rural Torrance County on the eastern side of the Manzano Mountains, the new family home was set amid elm trees, active skies and intriguing neighbors such as roadrunners, jack rabbits, coyotes, cows, and “huge horrible centipedes,” Mashibini-Prior detailed. “When the wind blows it really blows, but to us it was heaven.”
Zimbabwe, unsurprisingly, wrapped himself in music.
Recalled Mashibini-Prior: “The (KUNM) show was a continuation of what he was doing at home. Our house was a not a place where you’d hear a television set..he’d listen to music all day.”
Zimbabwe was so dedicated to the radio show that he undertook a two-hour commute back and forth from McIntosh to the UNM campus, digging into his own pocket for the gas money, she added.
According to his former wife, when she pressed Zimbabwe about his musical absorption, he simply replied, “I can’t help it. I can’t help it.”
Apart from his live gigging and KUNM deejaying, Zimbabwe was sponsored by the New Mexico Arts Division as an artist in residence at schools and with community organizations.
For her part, Mashibini-Prior kept the family afloat through her own long commutes to and from the Duke City. In Albuquerque, she variously worked with the homeless population at St. Martin’s Hospitality Center and with disabled people at Very Special Arts. Daughter Ziniswa, meanwhile, attended school in the small town of Estancia.
After 18 years in New Mexico, Zimbabwe departed the state and its stunning sunsets overlooking the Rio Grande for good.
Post-Burque in 2006, Zimbabwe worked for several months in Tucson, where Mashibini-Prior rejoined him. Soon thereafter, the couple embarked on Zimbawe’s final, long journey home. They returned to the Mississippi River country, arriving in middle of “a horrendous ice storm.”
Predictably, Zimbabwe wasted no time in reconnecting with the St. Louis musical and arts scene.
“Within a month Zimbabwe was performing again and playing at the Scott Joplin House, because there were people interested in seeing a resurgence of BAG (Black Artists Group), and we organized concerts,” Mashibini-Prior said. “Like Zimbabwe would say, “‘I couldn’t help it’.”
In his second St. Louis life, the musician played a lot with Rich O’Donnell and his New Music Circle and other partisans of avant garde including Baba Mike Nelson, Gary Sykes and so many others. During the course of his career, Zimbabwe had also played with greats Warren Smith, Anthony Braxton, and Frank Lacy, among others.
Tragically, Zimbabwe suffered a massive stroke in 2009 which nearly killed him. He was airlifted from Alton to a Veteran’s Administration-associated hospital in St. Louis where medical staff saved his life. Besides the grave physical impairment it left, the health catastrophe quickly ballooned into a financial crisis, as Zimbabwe, similar to many musicians who devote themselves to their art but cling precariously to a financial ledge, don’t have resources to fall back on.
“We clearly don’t value them,” Mashibini-Prior opined on the plight and fate of many-a-musician in the world’s richest nation, “unless the musicians themselves figure out how to monetize.”
Struggling to get Zimbabwe Social Security benefits, Mashibini-Prior navigated an exhausting maze of rules and regulations. Ultimately, Zimbabwe was approved for a Social Security benefit of about $600.00 per month, but the McIntosh property he and Mashibini-Prior still owned back in New Mexico was flagged by the government as having potential rental income, an asset which would reduce the Social Security payment.
With Mashibini-Prior back in school studying for a master’s degree and Zimbabwe scraping by on $600.00 per month from Social Security, a deepening financial crisis confronted the couple. Worse yet, the country was in the midst of the Great Recession.
At the end of the day, Mashbini-Prior and Zimbabwe were forced into bankruptcy and the foreclosure of their old home, for which they did not receive a cent, according to Zimbabwe’s former wife.
When word of Zimbabwe’s condition reached his old stomping grounds in Albuquerque, friends and colleagues rallied. A benefit concert was scheduled for January 31, 2010, at the Outpost Performance Space, which by then had long relocated to Yale SE, a couple of blocks south of the UNM campus.
The line-up included an impressive array of local musicians and spoken word artists, including the Paul Gonzales Trio, Peter Breslin, Mike “360” Ipiotis, Rumble Trio (Mark Weaver, Mike Balistreri and Ben Wright), Christian Pincock, J.A. Deane, Dave Wayne and the Things That Are Heard, and Rodney Bowe and Sina Soul.
“We couldn’t survive on (Social Security), and it was through the generosity of family and friends that we limped through that spring and summer,” Mashibini-Prior recalled. “It wasn’t a happy time, an easy time.”
Confined to a wheel chair by the stroke and unable to speak- save for a couple of words- Zimbabwe was physically unable to play his beloved bass. “Playing music was how he was most articulate after the stroke,” his former wife and caregiver said.
Rising to the occasion, Mashibini-Prior devised an adapted instrument which Zimbabwe courageously attempted to play but as time passed he grew more and more frustrated and angered by his situation.
“I pushed him to try to play music.” she sighed. “He wasn’t happy about being alive after the stroke….he wasn’t satisfied what he could do as a musician.”
Credit: Deborah Mashibini-Prior
After 2013, Zimbabwe returned to his family’s home in Alton, Illinois and “faded from the music scene,” Mashibini-Prior lamented.
“He was kind of a hard-ass, dedicated person to his music and it’s hard to see someone brought down that way,” she concluded. “He was known as somebody who wouldn’t compromise. Some would say that was both his downfall and that was what made him great.”
Zimbabwe’s final days were spent in a nursing home in Alton. In New Mexico, Zimbabwe is well remembered for his long years of making and performing creative music as well as celebrating jazz and the big and sometimes messy but captivating house it has constructed with KUNM listeners on Sunday nights.
At one point, Albuquerque artist-poet Mike “360” Ipiotis honored Zimbabwe by painting a mural of him at a water tank alongside Interstate 25.
“When we visited Mike he apologized for not finishing Zim’s head, saying that he ran out of blue… — it’s the same side of Zimbabwe’s brain where the stroke did its damage,” Mashibini-Prior recalled.
Credit: Deborah Mashibini-Prior
In addition to his daughter Zinziswa Mashibini, Zimbabwe Nkenya is survived by numerous relatives and sons Devon Farrell and Shariff Mason. A second daughter, Kayla Ellington (1971-2019) preceded her father in death after losing a long battle with lupus.
Check out Zimbabwe Nkenya’s Jazz of Enchantment interview with David House at the links below. The interview includes a recording of Zimbabwe’s 1980 appearance on KUNM and the 1982 and 2005 versions of his composition “Madagascar.”
Part One:
Part Two:
Part Three:
