Book review: Christopher Ballantine. 2012. Marabi Nights: Jazz, ‘Race’ and Society in Early Apartheid South Africa, 2nd edn. Scottsville: University of Kwazulu-Natal Press. 280pp. ISBN 978-1869142377 (pbk)

When the first edition of Christopher Ballantine’s Marabi Nights appeared in 1993, I was delighted. As a young musician at the time, this book, along with David Coplan’s In Township Tonight! South Africa’s Black City Music and Theatre (1985) and Veit Erlman’s African Stars: Studies in Black South African Performance (1991), was for me a sign that the popular musics of South Africa were finally being taken seriously, given voice and regarded as worthy of study. This second edition is then a further exploration of these specific areas of music (Marabi and Township Jazz) with additional materials included, providing informative analyses and drawing on interviews to consider the effects of migrancy labour laws, not just on male musicians or the country’s musical development, but also on the social history of women.such as apartheid's impact on female musicians