UGLY Creatures lead guitarist Baby Doeseb fondly remembers former multi-instrumentalist and veteran musician Jesaya Ouseb who passed away a fortnight ago.
Affectionately known as Ou Aleb, Ouseb was born at Hoachanas in the Hardap region in the 1930s.
Doeseb said Ou Aleb came to Windhoek in the 1960s, only to end up a famous mbaqanga musician who played all the well-known genres of the era.
“It was during that time he met acclaimed musician Arnoldus Kharixurob Naweb who had a band in the Old Location. Kharixurob himself started his music career as a banjo player with other top musicians only known by their surnames of Hansen and Hammerton, before he started his own band,” Doeseb said.
Ouseb was taught by the maestro of that time, Kharixurob, to play the guitar first and later the saxophone, and the rest, as they say, is history.
He always said Kharixurob taught him the guitar and Ou Lyden, real name Naftalie /Uriseb, another legend of the pre-independence era, taught him to play the saxophone.
“After joining Kharixurob’s band, Aleb played the alto saxophone and Kharixurob the tenor. Their hunting ground was the Sybil Bowker Hall and, occasionally, the Gloria and Klein Windhoek dance halls. The Kharixurob Band, as they were known, travelled the width of Namibia at that time. Luderitz, Keetmanshoop, Mariental, Rehoboth, Okahandja, Walvis Bay, Tsumeb, Swakopmund and other small towns were regularly toured,” Doeseb noted.
The partnership between Ouseb and Kharixurob is said to have produced an album recorded with Gallo Africa in South Africa, which however seems to have disappeared into thin air.
“Johannes ‘Warmgat’ Mureko, NBC’s Stanley Similo’s late father, is also rumoured to have had the same fate befall him – he could not trace an album he had produced in South Africa during the same era. Precious pieces of Namibian music history went missing just like that.”
“Alero is still remembered by those from the Old Location for his and Kharixurob’s song, ‘Ta So Tau Gu Re Kharixurob !Aroma’,” said Doeseb.
Ouseb will be laid to rest at Fransfontein in the Kunene region this Saturday, 26 January, next to his late wife.
