Devera Ngwena Jazz Band

Zimbabwe band owned by Gaths Mine and formed in 1977 as the Gaths Mine Welfare Band (the name reflects the mine's social responsibility for providing entertainment to the mining community) and in no time, after becoming popular with mine workers, renamed itself Devera Ngwena Jazz Band. The new named indicates the band's desire for an idiosyncratic identity which separates them from that of the mine, although it was still under mine ownership. According to one of its members, the bassist Innocent Biti, "Devera Ngwena was adopted because workers would follow us wherever we played". Deverangwena comes from a Shona riverine legend which says that a ngwena (crocodile) is always followed by shoals of small fish called madeverangwena (the crocodile followers). The power to attract large numbers of fish on the part of the crocodile suggests fame and indeed band's music had the power of attracting large numbers of revellers in the same way a crocodile does to the small fish. It was probably the most famous band in the early 1980s and 1990s.