tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45487943379669852042024-03-13T13:30:49.091+02:00Tony's PlaceA blog about South African jazz and anything else that interests me!tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-82881309122175457542015-06-02T11:49:00.003+02:002015-06-02T11:51:09.064+02:00The Blue Notes Legacy<div class="module moduleText color0" id="modcont_2727636">
<h2 id="2727636_title">
Introduction</h2>
<div class="txtd" id="txtd_2727636">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In the recently published Ogun Collection of Blue Notes <a href="http://hubpages.com/topics/entertainment-and-media/music/713">music</a> boxed set of five CDs is one entitled <i>Blue Notes – Legacy</i> , which is a re-issue of a 1995 album of a 1964 gig by the band in <a href="http://enjoylife.hubpages.com/hub/South-Africa-Durban">Durban</a>, South Africa.<br />
When the album first came out I was asked by Hazel Miller of Ogun
Records to write the liner notes. Now that the album is out again as
part of the boxed set released by Ogun (and these notes are included in
the booklet accompanying the set) I think I would like to share my 1995, because of the
insight it gives into some of the history of South Africa in those now
far-off seeming days, and how the implementation of <a href="http://tonymac04.hubpages.com/hub/White-heroes-of-the-Anti-apartheid-struggle">apartheid</a>
hampered music making, and indeed almost all artistic endeavours. This
is what I wrote back then (and remember, it was just a year after our
first democratic elections, <a href="http://tonymac04.hubpages.com/hub/What-happened-after-Nelson-Mandela-walked-out-of-prison">Nelson Mandela</a> was president and apartheid was, officially at least, a thing of the past):<br />
<h2 id="2727661_title">
The liner notes</h2>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4gjSvmivlBY/VW16N9XBlfI/AAAAAAAAFXw/sHZQBBo1vNo/s1600/920276_f248.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4gjSvmivlBY/VW16N9XBlfI/AAAAAAAAFXw/sHZQBBo1vNo/s1600/920276_f248.jpg" /></a></div>
Looking
back to the early 1960s from the vantage of a liberated, democratic
South Africa, it is somehow difficult to remember those dark days. This
is what makes the 1964 tracks on Legacy, recorded in Durban during the
Blue Notes' farewell tour of South Africa, so poignant, so evocative of a
bygone time. A time which, in the man, evokes not nostalgia but rather a
sense of disbelief, of incredulity. Were things really like that back
then?<br />
The music on these tracks is so vibrant, so full of a zest for life and expression. Why did the <a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Ogun-Collection--a-celebration-of-the-Blue-Notes">Blue Notes</a>
have to leave South Africa? The audiences clearly loved them (just
listen to the audience response!) and the music is swinging, tight and
inventive. With those lovely rhythmic and harmonic surprises that seemed
to be so natural to these six highly talented guys.<br />
But this was a scant three years after Sharpeville, the State of
Emergency and the banning of the democratic formations. The tempo of the
enactment of laws hindering interaction between people of different
“racial groups” was increasing. Looking at the legislation which
impacted on <a href="http://hubpages.com/topics/entertainment-and-media/music/musicians/731">musicians</a>,one
is struck by the sheer fantasy of it all, by the Alice-in-Wonderland
unreality of it, while knowing that, for all its incredible foolishness,
the ludicrousness of it, it nevertheless had power to harm, to destroy
people's lives.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RdIokwFx4CM/VW16Uiq4RVI/AAAAAAAAFX4/3F1Feq_9AgU/s1600/918057_f248.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RdIokwFx4CM/VW16Uiq4RVI/AAAAAAAAFX4/3F1Feq_9AgU/s1600/918057_f248.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kippie by Hardie Stockmann</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Legendary alto man Kippie Moeketsi (who features to such good effect on the 1963 big band album <a href="http://hubpages.com/topics/entertainment-and-media/music/jazz/727">Jazz</a>:
The African Sound, which was Chris's first opportunity to record with a
big band) was so unsettled by all the obstacles put in the way of
musicians, he hung up his horn for seven years before being encouraged
by fellow musicians to start blowing again. Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar
Brand) and his wife Bea Benjamin, Hugh Masekela, Jonas Gwangwa and
literally hundreds of other musicians, writers and artists left the
country.<br />
I wonder if any country, with the possible exception of the erstwhile <a href="http://nextstopjupiter.hubpages.com/hub/Traveling-in-the-Soviet-Union">Soviet Union</a>,
has so systematically, so painstakingly thoroughly, made it so
well-nigh impossible for creative people to live out their creativity.<br />
<div class="module moduleText color0" id="modcont_2727706">
<h2 id="2727706_title">
The South African jazz diasopora</h2>
<div class="txtd" id="txtd_2727706">
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V5qUVkaxKrM/VW16lGOoZKI/AAAAAAAAFYA/lCYZHFYHKxk/s1600/918079_f260.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V5qUVkaxKrM/VW16lGOoZKI/AAAAAAAAFYA/lCYZHFYHKxk/s320/918079_f260.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
The
list of laws and regulations which impacted on the lives, both personal
and professional, of musicians (and this is by no means an exhaustive
list) includes the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act (No. 49 of
1953); the Native Laws Amendment Act (No. 36 of 1957); the Group Areas
Amendment Act (No 57 of 1957) (this Act was used by some white musicians
to prevent black musicians from competing with them); and the countless
proclamations designed to reduce interaction between people of
different races. For example, Proclamation No R26 of 1965 was to the
effect that “no racially disqualified person may attend any place of
public entertainment, or partake of any refreshments ordinarily
involving the use of seating accommodation as a customer in a licensed
restaurant or tea room or eating house, or as a member of or as a guest
in any club.” As a somewhat cruel aside, bona fide domestic workers
could be in such places as they were specifically excluded from the
definition of “racially disqualified persons.” So the clubs and
restaurants could be kept clean without whites having to get their hands
dirty!<br />
In the unbelievably complex world of racial legislation it became
more and more difficult for people of different skin hues to work
together as musicians. They did continue but at great personal risk to
their own safety and, as Chris <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r2hf88HfT48/VW16vTGD75I/AAAAAAAAFYI/VWywZpamqt4/s1600/918081_f260.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r2hf88HfT48/VW16vTGD75I/AAAAAAAAFYI/VWywZpamqt4/s1600/918081_f260.jpg" /></a></div>
recalled in a 1987 interview with a South
African journalist, even the safety of those who came to listen.<br />
In the South Africa of 1995 the horrors of the emerging statutory apartheid (de facto apartheid has existed since the 17<sup>th</sup>
Century) sometimes seem quite far away, quite distant. But then one
remembers the pain, the unbelievable dislocations, the confiscations,
the disappearances, the mysterious deaths.<br />
And out of all that came this wonderful flower, this amazingly robust
thing of beauty at once so steeped in the horror, the day-to-day evil
and yet so transcendent, so uplifting: the African, and, more
particularly, the South African sound.<br />
The Blue Notes were something of an exception in South African music –
a band which stayed together and became a recognisable unit, playing
consistently over a long period. Probably the only South African group
to come close to this (at least in the field of <a href="http://nextstopjupiter.hubpages.com/hub/Bach-Blues-and-Sun-Ra">improvised music</a>) was Sakhile, and they disbanded soon after their tenth anniversary a few years back. They were also unique in being the only <u>South African jazz</u> group to leave as a group and stay together.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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One of the greatest sadnesses of many about the South African jazz
“diaspora” is that so much South African music was recorded in Europe
dna never released into the South African market. So this great legacy
of music is known to only a few. Between them the Blue Notes were
involved in more than 90 albums released in Europe and the USA, very few
of which have ever been on the shelves of South African music shops.
Many of the musicians who stayed behind kept in touch, but the jazz
listening public was denied the joy, the pride of hearing these
'homeboys' in so many wonderful recordings.<br />
<h2 id="2727761_title">
The inestimable legacy</h2>
Jazz
and improvised music are, of their nature, ephemeral things. So hearing
these tracks is a rare privilege for those of us who were not at the
gigs. Of the many ambiguities in jazz, recording is one of the happiest,
allowing the listener to hear the wonder, the joy of the otherwise
fleeting moment of musical truth, the emotional “deep dark blue centre”
of jazz of which Hoagy Carmichael spoke.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
How extraordinary to savour, after 30 years, the excitement of the Durban concert. The “sound of <a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/What-is-Jazz-Aint-no-other-music-like-it">Whitney Balliett</a>'s felicitous phrase, is captured for us to enjoy again and again.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Alc9nhuZZvE/VW17KhcbgqI/AAAAAAAAFYc/ubL0l1R4jJI/s1600/918082_f260.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Alc9nhuZZvE/VW17KhcbgqI/AAAAAAAAFYc/ubL0l1R4jJI/s1600/918082_f260.jpg" /></a></div>
surprise” in <br />
So
dig into this music, enjoy it, groove with it as the audience in Durban
did, as the Blue Notes themselves certainly did. And spare a thought
for those who missed the magical moments.<br />
Spare a thought too for
those who, refusing to let apartheid silence their creativity, left this
miraculo09us, wonderful country and did not return. Among them were
Dudu, Mongs, Mbizo and Chris.<br />
Blue Notes, we salute you, we give thanks to you and the inestimable legacy you have left us.<br />
We miss you.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-o-QD86NKVA0/VW174AhpKiI/AAAAAAAAFYg/IPHgMYj6FAE/s1600/918064_f520.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="235" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-o-QD86NKVA0/VW174AhpKiI/AAAAAAAAFYg/IPHgMYj6FAE/s320/918064_f520.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A publicity shot of the Blue Notes on the beach in Durban, 1964. From "Drum" Magazine</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
</div>
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-20462941837028693962015-03-31T10:18:00.000+02:002015-03-31T10:18:34.319+02:00Trees of shame that bear “Strange Fruit”
<blockquote>
“The Lord God made trees spring from the ground, all
trees pleasant to look at and good for food; and in the middle of the
garden he set the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil.” - Genesis 2: 9 (<em>New English Bible</em>, 1970)<br />
<br />
"Did
you hear of the spree they had up Bulawayo way, hanging those three
niggers for spies? I wasn't there myself, but a fellow who was told me
they made the niggers jump down from the tree and hang themselves; one
fellow wouldn't bally jump, till they gave him a charge of buckshot in
the back: and then he caught hold of a branch with his hands and they
had to shoot 'em loose. He didn't like hanging. I don't know if it's
true, of course; I wasn't there myself, but a fellow who was told me.
Another fellow who was at Bulawayo, but who wasn't there when they were
hung, said they fired at them just after they jumped, to kill 'em. I—" -
from <em>Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland</em> by Olive Schreiner (1897)<br />
“Southern trees bear strange fruit,<br />Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,<br />Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,<br />Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.” - from “Strange Fruit” by Lewis Allan (Abel Meeropol)<br />
“We all live at the base of the Hanging Tree waiting for death?” - from <em>The Hanging Tree</em>
by David Lambkin (Viking, 1995). A comment on the etching “The Hanging
Tree” from the series “The Miseries of War” by Jacques Callot (1592 –
1635)</blockquote>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-38q6UTHIsIc/VRpWpU1Lr1I/AAAAAAAAE28/eG7LmI5iPz4/s1600/callot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-38q6UTHIsIc/VRpWpU1Lr1I/AAAAAAAAE28/eG7LmI5iPz4/s1600/callot.jpg" /></a></div>
<h2 class="western">
Tree of Life or Tree of Death?</h2>
<div class="western">
How did the “Tree of Life” become the “hanging
tree”? There can be no doubt that it has. Many thousands of bodies
have hung from trees, twisting in the breeze, crawling with flies and
maggots, spreading a hideous miasma of death around what should be
“pleasant to look at and good for food.”</div>
<div class="western">
One reason has been religious intolerance: “As a
Bohemian noblewoman, Polyxena Lobkovic, perceptively observed from
the vantage point of Prague: 'Things are now swiftly coming to the
pass where either the papists will settle their score with the
Protestants, or the Protestants with the papists.'” (<strong>Europe,
history of. </strong>(2012). Encyclopædia Britannica. <em>Encyclopædia
Britannica Deluxe Edition.</em> Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.)</div>
<div class="western">
In the name of the Teacher who in time became
known as the “Prince of Peace” unspeakable horrors were visited
on people who believed differently during the so-called Thirty Years
War (1618 - 1648). These horrors were graphically documented by the
artist Jacques Callot in a series of prints entitled “The Miseries
of War.”</div>
<div class="western">
One of these prints called “The Hanging Tree”
eerily prefigures the lynching of mostly black men in the southern
states of the United States (the term comes from Charles Lynch
(1736–96), a Virginia planter and justice of the peace) by mobs who
would hang people accused of some crime, real or imagined, from
trees. These hangings often occurred in a kind of carnival atmosphere
with men, women and children jeering at those being hanged. The
hangings were often accompanied by mutilation of the victims.</div>
<div class="western">
<br /></div>
<div class="western">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-utq2zuqsmCs/VRpXB94wVAI/AAAAAAAAE3E/mYX6dLXZNMA/s1600/ThomasShippAbramSmith.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-utq2zuqsmCs/VRpXB94wVAI/AAAAAAAAE3E/mYX6dLXZNMA/s1600/ThomasShippAbramSmith.jpg" height="302" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<h2 class="western">
Strange Fruit</h2>
<div class="western">
Racial intolerance and hatred thus is another
reason for the perversion of the tree of life into the tree of death.</div>
<div class="western">
In the period between 1882 and 1951 some 4730
people were lynched in the US, 1293 of them white and 3437 black. The
perpetrators were seldom prosecuted although their identities were
often known to law enforcement authorities.</div>
<div class="western">
Such lynchings were often justified by the
perpetrators as being in the promotion of purity or morality. As one
leader of the mob hanging Allen Brooks in Dallas TX on 3 March 1910
was heard to say: "You did the work of men today and your deeds
will resound in every state, village, and hamlet where purity and
innocence are cherished and bestiality and lechery condemned."
(http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/main.html)</div>
<div class="western">
Abel Meeropol, a teacher in New York –
coincidently at Dewitt Clinton High School in the Bronx among whose
alumni were James Baldwin, Richard Rodgers, Burt Lancaster, Stan Lee,
Neil Simon, Richard Avedon – saw a 1930 photograph by Lawrence
Beitler of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. The photo
haunted him for days and inspired a poem initially called “Bitter
Fruit” which was first published in the union journal <em>The New
York Teacher </em>in 1937.</div>
<div class="western">
Being something of an amateur composer as well as
poet (he also wrote, under his pseudonym Lewis Allan, "The House
I Live In" and "Apples, Peaches and Cherries" among
many others), Meeropol also wrote music for his poem. It was sung as
an anti-racism protest song by his wife Anne and Laura Duncan at
Madison Square Garden.</div>
<div class="western">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3UYZ7U_BluY/VRpXLaEGCPI/AAAAAAAAE3M/LgB4U-ShHWg/s1600/861px-Billie_Holiday%2C_Downbeat%2C_New_York%2C_N.Y.%2C_ca._Feb._1947_(William_P._Gottlieb_04251).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3UYZ7U_BluY/VRpXLaEGCPI/AAAAAAAAE3M/LgB4U-ShHWg/s1600/861px-Billie_Holiday%2C_Downbeat%2C_New_York%2C_N.Y.%2C_ca._Feb._1947_(William_P._Gottlieb_04251).jpg" height="320" width="306" /></a></div>
<h2 class="western">
How “Strange Fruit” became “Lady Day's”
song</h2>
<blockquote class="western">
"...the first significant protest in
words and music, the first unmuted cry against racism." -
Leonard Feather</blockquote>
<blockquote class="western">
"She really was happy only when she
sang. The rest of the time she was a sort of living lyric to the song
`Strange Fruit,' hanging, not on a poplar tree, but on the limbs of
life itself." - jazz critic Ralph J. Gleason</blockquote>
<blockquote class="western">
"When you listen to her, it's almost
like an audio tape of her autobiography," - Tony Bennett</blockquote>
<div class="western">
In 1939 Billie Holiday was singing at the Café
Society, the first integrated night club in New York. The musical
director of her gig, Robert Gordon, reportedly heard the song sung at
Madison Square Gardens and took it to Holiday, who was nervous about
singing it in a club setting.</div>
<div class="western">
Barney Josephson, founder of Café Society, set up
some strict rules for the song's performance. There would be no
service during the song, which would end the gig, and a single
spotlight would be on Holiday's face. During a longish introduction
Holiday would stand in the spotlight in an attitude of prayer.
Josephson also insisted that there would be no encore.</div>
<div class="western">
The band at the Café Society, which also backed
Holiday when she recorded the song for Milt Gabler's Commodore label
in 1939, was led by trumpeter Frankie Newton (1906 – 1954) with Tab
Smith (1909 – 1971) on alto sax, Kenneth Hollon and Stanley Payne
on tenors, Sonny White (1917 – 1971) on piano, Jimmy McLinn (1908 –
1983) on guitar, Johnny Williams (1908 - ?) on bass and Eddie
Dougherty (1915 - ?) on drums.</div>
<div class="western">
Holiday recorded the song again for Norman Granz's
“Jazz at the Philharmonic” in 1945. On this recording she is
accompanied by Milt Raskin (1916 – 1977) on piano. She introduces
this recording by saying it is a song “written specially for me.”
If that was not literally true, she certainly made the song her own.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ew6QlXxGkVc/VRpXOuCMA0I/AAAAAAAAE3U/vJlCp_Q4H64/s1600/Cape%2BTown%2B20101226%2B029.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ew6QlXxGkVc/VRpXOuCMA0I/AAAAAAAAE3U/vJlCp_Q4H64/s1600/Cape%2BTown%2B20101226%2B029.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
<h2 class="western">
Bitter crop or sweet life?</h2>
<br /><blockquote class="western">
“Jazz is not simply music. Jazz is
about civil rights, human dignity and dialogue among cultures. Jazz
emphasises the importance of creativity and freedom of expression.”
- Irina Bokova, UNESCO Director-General</blockquote>
<blockquote class="western">
“The psychological harm inflicted by
the era of terror lynching extends to the millions of white men,
women, and children who instigated, attended, celebrated, and
internalized these horrific spectacles of collective violence.
Participation in collective violence leaves perpetrators with their
own dangerous and persistent damage, including harmful defense
mechanisms such as 'diminish[ed] empathy for victims' that can lead
to intensified violent behaviors that target victims outside the
original group. Lynching was a civic duty of white Southern men that
brought them praise. Southern white children were taught to embrace
traumatic violence and the racist narratives underlying it.” - from
the Equal Justice Initiative report <em>Lynching in America:
Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror</em> (2015)</blockquote>
<div class="western">
The ugly reality of lynching contrasts with the
beauty of trees felt by most people who experience the wonderful
presence of life represented by them:</div>
<blockquote class="western">
“I think that I shall never see</blockquote>
<blockquote class="western">
A poem lovely as a tree.”</blockquote>
<div class="western">
No doubt Joyce Kilmer's poem “Trees” is full
of overblown sentiment and yet it strikes a chord with many people
because it captures something of the wonder felt by sensitive people
seeing a tree:</div>
<blockquote class="western">
“A tree whose hungry mouth is prest</blockquote>
<blockquote class="western">
Against the sweet earth's flowing
breast;”</blockquote>
<div class="western">
For all its sentimentality and strange
anthropomorphism:</div>
<blockquote class="western">
“A tree that looks at God all day,</blockquote>
<blockquote class="western">
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;”</blockquote>
<div class="western">
the poem is a celebration of a wonder of creation.
Trees are, in their amazing variety, essential to all life, even life
that plays out where there are no trees.</div>
<blockquote class="western">
“Pastoral scene of the gallant
south,<br />The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,<br />Scent of
magnolias, sweet and fresh,<br />Then the sudden smell of burning
flesh.”</blockquote>
<div class="western">
From the great arboreal canopies of the equatorial
rain forests to the sparse vegetation of the South African Karoo
trees offer the promise of life, of shelter, of food.</div>
<div class="western">
If “only God can make a tree” it still is up
to us humans to ensure that the tree is a tree of life and not of
death by working constantly for tolerance and justice, for the
overcoming of prejudice and the hatred that comes from it. We need
trees to live but not trees that bear that “strange and bitter
crop.”</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-18439270574659580312012-09-02T21:05:00.002+02:002012-09-02T22:05:02.773+02:00Man, go groove - with South Africa's great afro-jazz/pop/rock group<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GmP9jshCpW4/UEOtYI4R36I/AAAAAAAACts/Hc-sIbJRMY8/s1600/scan+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="319" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GmP9jshCpW4/UEOtYI4R36I/AAAAAAAACts/Hc-sIbJRMY8/s320/scan+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<h2 class="subtitle">
A new sound in South Africa</h2>
In 1984 a new sound rocked the souls of
music lovers in South Africa - a sound that combined the horn-rich
sounds of marabi and early Afro-jazz with the infectious foot-tapping
rhythms of kwela, the popular penny-whistle music of the streets of
South Africa from the mid 1950s.<br />
The sound was that of a group of around
11 members called Mango Groove and it has kept party-goers,
disco-dancers and music lovers generally happy to this day, with an
impressive list of albums and singles, most of which had long stays
on South African charts.<br />
Formed by bassist John Leyden, who,
among other achievements, has a masters in philosophy, and some older
compatriots from the older Black music scene such as "Big Voice"
Jack Lerole and Micky Vilakazi, both of whom were well-known and
respected musicians in townships and clubs of Black South Africa in
the 1940s and 1950s.<br />
Added to these great musicians was the
beautiful voice and face of the then very young Claire Johnston who
left school early to tour with the newly-formed band.<br />
The music put together by this eclectic
group is difficult to pin down and categorise - it's best just to
listen and enjoy!<br />
<div class="modfloat full">
<div class="module moduleText color0" id="mod_4100995">
<h2 class="subtitle">
Sounds of sadness and protest</h2>
<div class="txtd" id="txtd_4100995">
An early supporter of the group was the
late David Webster, killed by apartheid regime goons for his
opposition to the ideology and his exposures of the many evil deeds
of the regimes people. When Webster was killed in 1989 the group
composed a song "Taken for a Moment" in his memory and
honour. It was released on the 1990 album <em>Home Talk</em>.<br />
The lyrics include the words "Rising
through the silence / Pushing back the folds of the dark / Narrowing
the distance / Smiling on a moment apart / Words are left unspoken /
And the beating heart is still / But dreams live longer / Than a
dreamer ever will."<br />
The next song on that album was another
protest song, "We Are Waiting", which started with the
words, beautifully sung by Claire, "How do we hide / The pain
inside / We'll see it through / If we can share it with you."<br />
Another of their songs became something
of an anthem for the internal opposition to apartheid in the era of
the so-called "states of emergency" declared by the regime
in the mid- to late-1980s, "Another Country" - the words
"You will walk beside me / I'll tell you no lies / And then
you'll see, another country / in my eyes/ If we could reach beyond
the bounds of blame..." seemed to speak to many who were
struggling to see a brighter future ion the midst of all the cruelty,
violence, fear and uncertainty caused by the situation. "But
let's begin, to look within / to where the future lies..."<br />
<h2 class="subtitle">
Happy party sounds</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--4-pfTfVcc4/UEOtoJ25eJI/AAAAAAAACt0/_aInnnL3Ge0/s1600/scan+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="318" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--4-pfTfVcc4/UEOtoJ25eJI/AAAAAAAACt0/_aInnnL3Ge0/s320/scan+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Mango Groove made a point of reviving
classic South African jazz numbers with an updated sound and vocals,
but with strong echo of the original sound. The songs they play sound
a lot like the old time swing of the townships with wailing horns and
keening pennywhistles, but the beat is more like rock. It is a heady
and eclectic mix which makes it ideal for thoughtful listening or
bopping at a party.
<br />
One of the songs which they recorded
was the famous "Tom Hark" which was written by Big Voice
Jack in 1956 and became a big hit in the United Kingdom in 1958 after
it had been used as a theme for a TV show called "The Killing
Stones". Sweet justice for Lerole that he was associated with
its revival so many years later.<br />
A song typical of the happy sound of
Mango Groove is "Dance Sum More" off their first album,
simply entitled <em>Mango Groove</em>. The track is introduced by
famous jazz man Micky Vilakazi declaiming "Dance again, man,
what's the matter with you?' and if you don't dance to this number
nothing will get you to dance! Go listen!<br />
<br />
<div class="module moduleText color0" id="mod_12797578">
<h2 class="subtitle">
Copyright Notice</h2>
<div class="txtd" id="txtd_12797578">
The text and all images on this page, unless otherwise indicated, are by Tony McGregor
who hereby asserts his copyright on the material. Should you wish to
use any of the text or images feel free to do so with proper attribution
and, if possible, a link back to this page. Thank you.<br />
©
Tony McGregor 2012</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-89677951535802121792012-08-31T20:08:00.001+02:002012-08-31T20:09:18.910+02:001959: a miracle year in jazz<h2 class="subtitle">
The winds of change</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-25UWXFfvyZk/UEDNGQeRwKI/AAAAAAAACsA/2ZRZcq2diNo/s1600/mingus+dynasty+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-25UWXFfvyZk/UEDNGQeRwKI/AAAAAAAACsA/2ZRZcq2diNo/s320/mingus+dynasty+cover.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hKY0CKw_Csc/UEDNXeUpGLI/AAAAAAAACsg/W3NYOmSABeI/s1600/giant+steps+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hKY0CKw_Csc/UEDNXeUpGLI/AAAAAAAACsg/W3NYOmSABeI/s200/giant+steps+cover.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Revolution was in the air
and the world seemed ripe for change. In Africa, as the Prime
Minister of the United Kingdom, Harold MacMillan, would tell the
South African Parliament in Cape Town in February 1960, the winds of
change were blowing, and would soon reach gale force. Fidel Castro
took over Cuba and in that bastion of conservatism, the Vatican,
saintly Pope John XX111 announced the calling of the Second Vatican
Council, which would open the windows of the Vatican to let some
fresh air into its stuffy confines. Archbishop Makarios returned to
Cyprus after the island state obtained independence from the UK, the
Marx Brothers made their last TV appearance and the first US
servicemen were killed in Viet Nam. Bob Dylan had not yet found the
answer blowing in the wind, but the wind was freshening all over the
world.<br />
In the world of jazz the
wind was also being felt. It blew away some of the greatest names in
the history of the music: Billie Holiday and her soulmate Lester
"Prez" Young; the great master of the soprano sax, Sidney
Bechet; pianist Baby Dodds.
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VJb0TEay31Q/UEDNMp8FibI/AAAAAAAACsI/KiyJbqjG3Yo/s1600/ellington+suites+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VJb0TEay31Q/UEDNMp8FibI/AAAAAAAACsI/KiyJbqjG3Yo/s200/ellington+suites+cover.jpg" width="200" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fUwD83Rz9co/UEDNPcIbgHI/AAAAAAAACsY/X3hGpAiIGYs/s1600/time+out+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fUwD83Rz9co/UEDNPcIbgHI/AAAAAAAACsY/X3hGpAiIGYs/s200/time+out+cover.jpg" width="200" /></a>It also blew an amazing
creativity into the practitioners of the music, who produced a
succession of albums of groundbreaking quality. Among the most
outstanding of these were the two Charles Mingus albums, <i>Blues and
Roots</i> and <i>Mingus Ah Um</i>; the Dave Brubeck album <i>Time
Out</i>; the two Miles Davis albums <i>Kind of Blue</i> and <i>Sketches
of Spain</i>; John Coltrane’s <i>Giant Steps</i>; Ornette Coleman's
prophetically titled <i>The Shape of Jazz to Come</i>; Bill Evans's
<i>Portrait in Jazz</i>; Duke Ellington's soundtrack album <i>Anatomy
of a Murder</i>; and Art Pepper's <i>Art Pepper + 11.</i> As jazz
writer Gary Alexander has noted, "You
can make a case that all forms of jazz existed side by side, in
relative peace, in that one year - everything from Dixieland to
<i>avant-garde</i>
was on the record shelves under one category, Jazz."<br />
<h2 class="subtitle">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kBH-eQDFKAM/UEDNNye5gzI/AAAAAAAACsQ/TQ0cOUJahlc/s1600/kind+of+blue+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kBH-eQDFKAM/UEDNNye5gzI/AAAAAAAACsQ/TQ0cOUJahlc/s200/kind+of+blue+cover.jpg" width="200" /></a>On the cusp of something new</h2>
Jazz
is a music of the moment, a music with which its practitioners react
to what is happening around them, and what was happening in 1959 was
the proclamation of change, the introduction to the turbulent 1960s,
the decade of revolution and the "summer of love." The year
represented the cusp, the change moment from the relative quietism
and conformity of the 1950s to the clamour of the 1960s, the decade
of Carnaby Street, the Beatles and Woodstock, the anti-war movement
and the uprisings of May and June 1968, not to mention the Moon
landing of July 1969.<br />
At
the same time the Civil Rights movement was gaining momentum in the
United States. The people of the US had been made aware of a new
phenomenon in their midst, the Nation of Islam, through the
documentary “The Hate that Hate Produced” and the emergence of
Malcolm X. This fostered as renewed interest and pride in African
American culture, combined with a heightened awareness of the
disadvantaged status of African Americans within predominantly white
US society. Jazz musicians are, like most artists, extremely
sensitive to issues of acceptance and rejection, and were certainly
not immune to the currents and eddies blowing around them.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mTA3TCRfnk0/UEDOPzotCxI/AAAAAAAACso/aQ8kA6IR-ws/s1600/41bCDAVzzGL._SS500_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mTA3TCRfnk0/UEDOPzotCxI/AAAAAAAACso/aQ8kA6IR-ws/s320/41bCDAVzzGL._SS500_.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
At
about the same time the jazz style that had dominated since the
1940s, namely bebop, was being felt by many musicians to be
restricting and limited in scope. The decline of bebop was in a sense
signalled by the death of Charlie Parker in 1955. There was a feeling
that bebop had come to the end of its tenure as a valid mode of
expression, and musicians were becoming restless, looking for
something new. The researches of musicians like George Russell into
modal music was one direction taken, and Miles Davis's album <i>Kind
of Blue</i>, is a prime example
of where this exploration might go. The other response to the decline
of bebop was the more free expression favoured and pioneered by
Ornette Coleman, who used the springboard of the blues to find a new
way of playing.
<br />
Somewhere
in between these two was Charles Mingus, always different, both as
person and as musician.
<br />
In <i>1959: The Year
Everything Changed</i> (Wiley) author Fred Kaplan writes "There
was a sense that we were on the verge of change, a sense of both hope
and dread, and a critical mass of pretty radical changes in almost
every walk of life." And the musicians were expressing their
responses to the change, to the sense of hope and dread.<br />
<h2 class="subtitle">
The producers</h2>
Another aspect of the
creativity of jazz, its special time signature in 1959, was the
readiness of two great producers to give the musicians relatively
free rein in the studio, supporting new directions, new sounds and
rhythms. These two were Teo Macero, himself a musician (both a
composer and a sax player), and Nesuhi Ertegun.<br />
Macero was responsible
for singing Charles Mingus to Columbia records and his greatest
achievement, according to the obituary written by John Fordham in The
Guardian of 28 February 2008, "but his close association with
the notoriously difficult Davis - in a period in which the trumpeter
changed styles at least three times in moving from acoustic jazz to
electric fusion - was the supreme achievement of his time at the
company."<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RwH9RgIoBIc/UEDOlbJ_nMI/AAAAAAAACsw/_31ozRsgRbQ/s1600/ah+um+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RwH9RgIoBIc/UEDOlbJ_nMI/AAAAAAAACsw/_31ozRsgRbQ/s320/ah+um+cover.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Macero's contribution to
jazz, especially jazz recording, and to the creative outpourings of
1959, came from the fact that he "thought as a creative
musician, not a record company technician." according to
Fordham's <i>Guardian</i> piece.<br />
In the magic year of
1959 Macero produced the stand-out albums by Brubeck (<i>Time Out</i>),
Mingus (<i>Mingus Ah Um</i> and <i>Mingus Dynasty</i>), and Davis
(<i>Kind of Blue</i> and <i>Sketches of Spain</i>). All of these in
addition to the other albums that he produced that year.<br />
In 1959 Nesuhi Ertegun
produced Mingus's <i>Blues and Roots</i>, Ornette Coleman's <i>The
Shape of Jazz to Come</i> and John Coltrane's <i>Giant Steps</i>.
Clearly he had an ear for the future of the music.<br />
<div class="module moduleText color0" id="mod_3809083">
<h2 class="subtitle">
The "Miracle year"</h2>
<div class="txtd" id="txtd_3809083">
Another factor in the
creative explosion that was 1959 was that in 1948 Columbia Records
had introduced the long playing record (LP), which gave musicians
more scope than the previous 78 rpm records had allowed. The
exploitation of the new format by musicians and producers made it
possible to regard the album as a work of art in itself, and few were
more attuned to this than Macero.
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eUGTtJ_2Pv4/UEDPHL5vfPI/AAAAAAAACs4/9mBtA_hb4Zg/s1600/anatomy+CD+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="315" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eUGTtJ_2Pv4/UEDPHL5vfPI/AAAAAAAACs4/9mBtA_hb4Zg/s320/anatomy+CD+cover.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Of course, these were not
the only jazz albums recorded in 1959. Many other jazz musicians made
superb albums, Ellington in particular with the <i>Queen's Suite</i> for
Queen Elizabeth and the soundtrack music for the courtroom drama
<i>Anatomy of a Murder</i>. The <i>Queen's Suite</i>, which was recorded at
Ellington's own expense and of which only a single copy was made and
sent to the Queen, included the wonderful number "Single Petal of
a Rose." The recording was not publicly released until after the
Duke's death in 1974.<br />
Cannonball Adderley,
Shorty Rogers, Ben Webster, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday (just
before her death), Quincy Jones and Thelonius Monk were among other
artists who recorded in 1959, though their albums were not quite as
essential as the core repertoire of <i>Time Out</i>, <i>Giant Steps</i>,
<i>Kind of Blue</i>, <i>Mingus Ah Um</i> and <i>The Shape of Jazz to
Come</i>, which are outstanding documents of the new directions jazz
was exploring in that wonderful year described by Gary Alexander as
"The miracle year 1959" which,
he wrote, "was not only the year the music was reborn, but the
year that jazz creativity reached its zenith."<br />
<div class="module moduleText color0" id="mod_13559841">
<h2 class="subtitle">
Copyright Notice</h2>
<div class="txtd" id="txtd_13559841">
The text and all images on this page, unless otherwise indicated, are by Tony McGregor
who hereby asserts his copyright on the material. Should you wish to
use any of the text or images feel free to do so with proper attribution
and, if possible, a link back to this page. Thank you.<br />
©
Tony McGregor 2012</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-49077517985976101882012-08-31T10:14:00.001+02:002012-08-31T10:16:12.905+02:00Four Boys and a Dash – the story of Mary Thobei<h2 class="title">
</h2>
<div>
<div id="mod_4480608">
<h2>
“The dash was me!”</h2>
<div id="txtd_4480608">
“When I first came to Troubador (a South African record label) with
my group, the Swingtime Trotters, under the leadership of Edwill
Lenyene, we were just four boys and a dash – and the dash was me!”
That’s Mary Thobei talking about the start of her career as a singer.<br />
Mary who? She has sung with the top musicians in South Africa but her
name isn’t exactly a household word. Nor, despite having played a
significant part in countless <a href="http://hubpages.com/topics/technology/audio-and-video/recording-equipment-and-studios/5956">recordings</a>
as composer and performer, is Mary the prosperously retired
ex-recording artist one might expect. She has been for some years a
domestic worker in a northern <a href="http://www.joburg.org.za/">Johannesburg </a>suburban home.<br />
Mary started working at Troubador recording <a href="http://hubpages.com/topics/technology/audio-and-video/recording-equipment-and-studios/5956">studios</a> in 1952. She stayed there until 1963.<br />
In that time she worked with probably hundreds of musicians, including some whose names are still well-remembered by <a href="http://hubpages.com/topics/entertainment/music/713">music</a> fans – Gideon Nxumalo, Dolly Rathebe, Dorothy Masuka and, of course, Miriam Makeba.</div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div id="mod_4480609">
<div id="imgs_4480609">
<div id="img_url_1641909">
<a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/Four-Boys-and-a-Dash-the-story-of-Mary-Thobei#"><img alt="Mary Thobei in 1993. Photo Denis Martin" height="339" src="http://s2.hubimg.com/u/1641909_f248.jpg" title="Click to see full-size image" width="248" /></a></div>
<div id="img_desc_1641909">
Mary Thobei in 1993. Photo Denis Martin</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="mod_4480610">
<h2>
“That was news in the records”</h2>
<div id="txtd_4480610">
“In my days, you know, to be a singer was wonderful. You felt proud
about it because whenever you walked in the street people would say,
‘You know such-and-such a song, there’s Mary Thobei who sings it.’ It
was nice. I enjoyed it.”<br />
“I like to sing music that I can feel and that’s what people like to
hear – songs from the heart,” says Mary. “When I feel hurt, when
something worries me, I will sing it. Music is my life.”<br />
Mary reminisces about the start of her career when she was still a
schoolgirl – singing in a concert at the Odin cinema in Sophiatown. With
her in the show were such greats as<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_Rathebe"> Dolly Rathebe</a>, Emily Kunene, Gideon Nxumalo, Willard Zuluboy Cele, “and me, the youngest.”<br />
“I sang ‘Stormy Weather’ and when the people started applauding I was
in shock and I started crying on the stage. After that Dolly came to me
and said, ‘Keep it up, don’t be shy – sing! – you’ve got a nice
voice.’”<br />
Of her time at Troubador Mary says she and other musicians were paid
very low fees “but we didn’t see anything wrong, because I could buy a
few groceries for my mum nd get a skirt and a top for myself and still
get some change.”<br />
“I can say I was the mind of Troubador because at the end of the day,
just when everyone wanted to go home some artist would come up with an
idea for a song. I would say, ‘OK let’s sing it twice,’ and we would go
home. Then the next day Cuthbert (Matumba – a producer at Troubador)
would come to me and say, ‘Hey, Bamsanda, what is that tune you sang
yesterday?’ and I would say, ‘it went like this and this.’”<br />
“Then I would sing the tune and we would start putting some words to
it and tell the recording manager we were ready. We used to do sometimes
six side a day like that.”<br />
Mary tells how she and Cuthbert would scan the newspapers and listen
to the radio news broadcasts for stories they could write songs about.
“Cuthbert would say he had heard over the radio that something was going
to happen and ‘I want everybody now because by tonight 5 o’clock it
must be out and I’m going to advertise it on the radio stations.”<br />
“By the next morning, after the directors had listened to it, it was
in the record stores. By the time the other studios woke up we were
already on the shelves. That was news in the records.”<br />
Mary attributes the great success of Troubador Records to this
factor, that the songs they put out were often about contemporary issues
that concerned the communities.<br />
In an interview for Gwen Ansell’s wonderful book on South African <a href="http://hubpages.com/topics/entertainment/music/jazz/727">jazz</a>, <i>Soweto Blues</i>
(Continuum, 2004), Mary identified some of the incidents that had given
rise to best-selling sides: “Take, for instance, the big Azikhwelwa bus
boycott in Alexandra Township and the death of ANC leader and Nobel
prizewinner Chief <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Luthuli">Albert Luthuli</a>. We cut best-selling records based on these incidents.”<br />
Mary has a new role in the music world now – she provides invaluable
information on the hundreds of recordings made by Troubador to <a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/Chris---the-Brother-I-Loved">Gallo Music Publisher</a>‘s producer and archivist Rob Allingham, to help him in his research into recorded South African music of the 50s and 60s.<br />
Mary has one great regret – she would have loved to play the tenor sax.</div>
</div>
<div id="mod_12945018">
<h2>
Copyright Notice</h2>
<div id="txtd_12945018">
The text and all images on this page, unless otherwise indicated, are
by Tony McGregor who hereby asserts his copyright on the material.
Should you wish to use any of the text or images feel free to do so
with proper attribution and, if possible, a link back to this page.
Thank you.<br />
© Tony McGregor 2012</div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-16272027305949247072012-08-21T20:39:00.000+02:002012-10-19T22:01:03.375+02:00The bellowing horn is stilled – farewell Mankunku<div class="modfloat full">
<div class="module moduleText color0" id="mod_5133430">
<h4 class="subtitle">
An article I posted elsewhere on the Web on the day Mankunku died. I have moved it here as I think it more appropriate.</h4>
<h2 class="subtitle">
A colossus on the South African jazz scene is no more</h2>
<div class="txtd" id="txtd_5133430">
The
mighty bellowing horn is stilled, and we shall not hear its like again.
Winston “Mankunku” Ngozi died in the early hours of this morning, 13
October 2009, and one of the greatest of South African jazzmen is no
more.<br />
Mankunku, as he was known to generations of jazz fans, was a colossus
on the jazz scene, a relatively small, unassuming, even shy, man. But
when he picked up and blew that tenor he was enormous!<br />
He was born in 1943 in Retreat, Cape Town, the first born of a
musical family, he started to play the piano at age seven, later taking
up trumpet and clarinet.<br />
Mankunku took up the tenor in his teens, under the influence of a
renowned older generation Cape Town tenorman, “Bra Cups” (or “Cup-and-Saucers”) Nkanuka.<br />
He went on to play with almost all the greats of South African jazz,
along the way making some splendid albums, though none achieved the
success of his deservedly famous <i>Yakhal' inKomo</i>, recorded in 1968. This
album has remained one of the top-selling jazz albums in South Africa
ever since.<br />
<div class="module moduleText color0" id="mod_5133432">
<h2 class="subtitle">
The band of stalwarts</h2>
<div class="txtd" id="txtd_5133432">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W9x498cXLS0/UDPSliWocEI/AAAAAAAACqg/_7mdvxpA8YI/s1600/Yakhal+cover+comp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="316" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W9x498cXLS0/UDPSliWocEI/AAAAAAAACqg/_7mdvxpA8YI/s320/Yakhal+cover+comp.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Mankunku was one of the band of
stalwart musicians who did not go into exile during the lean
apartheid years. He preferred to stay with his people and make music
as best as he could, which sometimes meant performing behind a
curtain with an assumed name so as to circumvent the apartheid laws
which prohibited blacks from sharing the stage with white performers.
<br />
A major, and acknowledged, influence on
Mankunku was John Coltrane. One of his songs is called “Dedication
– to Daddy Trane and Brother Silver” - a beautiful tribute to the
musical influences.<br />
Mankunku told, in an interview with
Gwen Ansell, how important the spiritual aspect of the Coltrane
influence was (this is recounted in Gwen Ansell's great book Soweto
Blues, Continuum, 2004): “I know you think I'm a naughty old man,
but most of the time, when I'm playing, I'm really praying. I used
to dream of Coltrane. And one time in the '60s he came to me, did I
tell you that? I was practicing, and I felt something funny in the
room. My senses were prickling. I knew he was there. I got scared and
put the instrument away. Maybe I shouldn't have told other people –
they were nervous around me for some time after that! But he never
came again.”<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Tzd5Pchjigo/UDPSyez-2OI/AAAAAAAACqo/Fw5MseQGaws/s1600/jika.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Tzd5Pchjigo/UDPSyez-2OI/AAAAAAAACqo/Fw5MseQGaws/s1600/jika.jpg" /></a></div>
I think that passage has several
important aspects. Firstly the spiritual nature of African music
generally, though this is being threatened by commercialisation. All
African musicians see music as a deeply spiritual activity and
experience. And secondly the aspect of respect for the forefathers.
For Mankunku Coltrane was an ancestor, a forefather, and was
therefore in a position to guide Mankunku, and also was deserving of
the deepest respect As Mankunku said in the same interview,
acknowledging Coltrane's position as spiritual guide, “Even today,
when I want to play, I take him (Trane) and I put him inside of me.”<br />
My earliest recollection of Mankunku is
in the late '60s in Cape Town, when the Cape Town Art Centre, at
which I was studying painting part time, had a regular Sunday evening
jazz gig. My then girl-friend and I used to go every Sunday to listen
to the great jazz being played there, and Mankunku, in his trademark
cloth cap, was a regular. He was backed by other great musicians like
Midge Pike on bass and Monty Weber on drums.
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fw74OKhTt8w/UDPT0a6RKeI/AAAAAAAACqw/1-cGu7mhDDE/s1600/Mankunku+at+CT+Art+Centre+01a+scaled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fw74OKhTt8w/UDPT0a6RKeI/AAAAAAAACqw/1-cGu7mhDDE/s320/Mankunku+at+CT+Art+Centre+01a+scaled.jpg" width="231" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mankunku at the Cape Town Art Centre.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Photo by Tony McGregor</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The 1970s were hard times for jazz
musicians in South Africa, what with music styles changing and the
heavy hand of apartheid hanging over all. The music scene was not
conducive to musicians who were serious about their art, especially
black jazz musicians. Mankunku, like the others, had it tough in
those years. “If you had just got through the day and nothing too
terrible had happened, that was the time to joke, to celebrate, and
that was what the music was for...But we never stopped playing.
Never! Never went far away from the music. We'd be at home. Some
work, practising, listening. It's just that we weren't seen.”<br />
The next time I saw Mankunku was a gig
at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg in the 1980s. That was when I
heard him play "Yakhal' inKomo", and it nearly brought the house down
with its energy and emotional power. Hearing that song live was just
incredible – no recording I have heard, not even Mankunku's own,
has managed to capture the raw power of that song adequately. The
recording is just a pale reflection.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w3wnbWeKOE4/UEBz1LCGaLI/AAAAAAAACrM/-TI3B_NJvJ8/s1600/scan+52.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w3wnbWeKOE4/UEBz1LCGaLI/AAAAAAAACrM/-TI3B_NJvJ8/s320/scan+52.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mankunku at the Greenmarket Square gig. Photo by Tony McGregor</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
Mankunku recorded outside of South
Africa for the first time in 1986, an album called <i>Crossroads</i>, after
the informal settlement outside Cape Town. This album was made in
London with a number of exiled South African musicians in the studio,
like the late multi-instrumentalist Bheki Mseleku, percussionist
Russell Herman, guitarist Lucky Ranku and trumpeter Claude Deppa.<br />
I saw him again in 1987 when he played
with Chris McGregor in the Carling Circle of Jazz concert on
Greenmarket Square in Cape Town.
<br />
An album made with old South African
jazz stalwart Tete Mbambisa was laid down in 1997 and 1998 called
<i>Molo Africa</i>. One of the tracks is entitled “A Song For Bra
Des Tutu” which, of course I love!<br />
I never saw Mankunku again. So I was
greatly saddened when I got the phone call from my musician friend
Ernest Mothle this morning telling me that “Winston has left us.”<br />
In isiXhosa we say, when someone has
left us, “Hamba Kahle (Go well)” and so that is my wish for
Mankunku - “Hamba kahle, mfo' wethu (my brother)”, your bellowing
horn will be sorely missed back home.</div>
</div>
<div class="module moduleText color0" id="mod_13559562">
<h2 class="subtitle">
Copyright Notice</h2>
<div class="txtd" id="txtd_13559562">
The text and all images on this page, unless otherwise indicated, are by Tony McGregor
who hereby asserts his copyright on the material. Should you wish to
use any of the text or images feel free to do so with proper attribution
and, if possible, a link back to this page. Thank you.<br />
©
Tony McGregor 2009</div>
</div>
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-91764246300955305122012-08-20T22:17:00.000+02:002012-08-20T22:17:53.836+02:00Love you madly – serendipitous beauty from tenorman Bob Rigter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6TX0wPD_4cg/UDKakPOzltI/AAAAAAAACqI/eRU2xpmW1is/s1600/scan+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="314" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6TX0wPD_4cg/UDKakPOzltI/AAAAAAAACqI/eRU2xpmW1is/s320/scan+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<h2 id="4949568_title">
Jazz from Holland</h2>
While doing some Internet research for
my Hub on Jazz: “<a href="http://tonymac04.hubpages.com/hub/What-is-Jazz-Aint-no-other-music-like-it">What is Jazz? Ain't no other music like it!</a>” I came across an article by one Bob Rigter entitled “The
etymology of the word JAZZ” and I discovered from the site that Bob
was a retired Professor of English at the University of Leiden in
Holland, a novelist, and, most intriguingly to me, a <a href="http://hubpages.com/topics/entertainment-and-media/music/jazz/727">jazz</a> musician.<br />
I
contacted him to learn more and he, very kindly, offered to send me a
copy of his latest CD, called “Love You Madly” from the tune by
Duke Ellington. This I have now received and am enjoying greatly.<br />
The
CD features, besides Bob on tenor, Simon Planting on bass, Han van
der Rhee on piano and Rob Engels on drums.<br />
<h2 id="4949570_title">
Straight from the heart</h2>
All
the numbers on the CD are standards, fitting the description of the
CD as “in an intimate, after-hours mood,” recalling, in Bob's
words, “the atmosphere of those nights when we played on into the
late, late hours,” after the more formal part of the gig was over,
when “drinks were handed round, the lights were dimmed and … we
started to play <a href="http://hubpages.com/topics/autos/do-it-yourself-auto-repair/tune-ups/487">tunes</a> that were special, mostly ballads.”<br />
So
all 10 tracks of the CD feature Bob's singing, mellow and breathy
<a href="http://nealbattaglia.hubpages.com/hub/best-saxophone-players-in-the-world">tenor</a> backed by sensitive and lyrical playing that gently swings, no
haranguing, no wailing, just lovely, atmospheric and melodic
improvisation on well-remembered tunes.<br />
It
is a programme of tunes played, in Bob's words, “straight from the
heart,” with no gimmicks: “no cutting, no splicing, no dubbing.”
In other words, a totally honest offering of heartfelt <a href="http://hubpages.com/topics/entertainment-and-media/music/713">music</a>.<br />
“This is the kind of music the
musicians in my quartet believe in, and it is the kind of jazz that
our audiences believe in,” Bob writes.<br />
The CD kicks off with the title track
which starts with a great little piano and bass intro and then Bob
picks up the melody, which after he has laid it down most elegantly,
he starts to play with gently, with great swing. And there follow
some great interpolations by the other musicians, notable Planting on
bass.<br />
Han van der Rhee introduces the next
number which Bob plays with great feeling – that very British
ballad “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square”. Bob explains the
importance of lyrics in his style of music making with reference to
this song: “I knew the lyrics before I had ever heard this
beautiful (British) ballad, for I had read <a href="http://pilgrimboy.hubpages.com/hub/Nevil-Shutes-On-the-Beach">Nevil Shute</a>'s novel
Pastoral, in which a war-pilot hums this song on his way home in a
bullet-riddled plane after a raid on Germany. He has lost
radio-contact and he has little chance of making it back. His
girlfriend is the radio-operator at the airfield. He cannot hear her,
but she can hear him! And, while his bomber is slowly going down, she
hears hears him humming: 'The streets of town were paved with stars.
It was such a romantic affair. And as we kissed and said goodnight, a
nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.'” I confess I will never hear
this song again the way I did before. For that I thank you, Bob.<br />
The whole programme of the CD has a
smooth, mellow, rich tone somewhat how I would imagine a good whiskey
(though not being a whiskey drinker this is pure conjecture on my
part!), and it could have a similarly relaxing effect on the
listener. The numbers which are the most up-tempo on the CD are Tad
Dameron's “On a Misty Night”, Dexter Gordon's “The Rainbow
People,” and Ruth Lowe's “I'll Never Smile Again, Until I Smile
At You”, the other numbers all being very laid back<br />
<h2 id="4949645_title">
Ben Webster's ghost?</h2>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PnMsRd3O8yE/UDKasYMYlGI/AAAAAAAACqQ/7r_8hrrY2r8/s1600/ned17b3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="248" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PnMsRd3O8yE/UDKasYMYlGI/AAAAAAAACqQ/7r_8hrrY2r8/s320/ned17b3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo of Ben Webster at his last gig. Photo taken by Bob's wife Jasperina
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Listening to Bob's breathy tenor on
this album one could almost see a ghostly <a href="http://tonymac04.hubpages.com/hub/David-Stone-Martin-the-art-of-jazz-made-visible">Ben Webster</a> playing, the<br />
sound is so similar. And this is perhaps no accident, for on Bob's
website is an account of Webster's last concert, which I'm sure Bob
will not mind my copying here:<br />
<blockquote>
Towards
the end of Ben Webster’s very last concert in 1973, Ben asked
Bob Rigter to play the blues on his instrument. This happened
in jazz café <i>De Twee Spieghels</i> , Nieuwstraat, Leiden, on 6
September. It appears that Ben felt his end
approaching, and he wanted some time out. Irv Rochlin was the
pianist, Henk Haverhoek played the bass and Peter Ypma the
drums. With this rhythm section, Bob played the blues on Webster’s
‘Betsy’, a Selmer Balanced Action with a rather wide Otto Link
mouthpiece and what felt like a 3 or 3½ reed. After his instrument
was handed back to him, Ben played one more piece. Then he got to his
feet and made a little speech. He wanted to pass on what an old man
had said to him when he was young: ‘You are young and growing, and
I am old and going. So have your fun while you can.’ He
repeated this: ‘Son, you are young and growing, and I am old and
going. So have your fun while you can.’ The next day Ben was taken
to the St Lucas Hospital in Amsterdam, where he died on 20 September
1973.</blockquote>
Fittingly,
the last number on the CD is Billie Holiday's beautiful ballad,
“Don't Explain”, and maybe we shouldn't. We should just accept
that beauty comes in sometimes strange, sometimes unexpected, always
serendipitous ways, and be grateful.<br />
<div class="module moduleText color0" id="modcont_12944707">
<h2 id="12944707_title">
Copyright Notice</h2>
<div class="txtd" id="txtd_12944707">
The text and all images on this page, unless otherwise indicated, are by Tony McGregor
who hereby asserts his copyright on the material. Should you wish to
use any of the text or images feel free to do so with proper attribution
and, if possible, a link back to this page. Thank you.<br />
©
Tony McGregor 2009</div>
</div>
<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-86446348599489315522011-07-19T15:07:00.000+02:002011-07-19T15:07:40.086+02:0017 / 07<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_CfrBQpa3kM?fs=1" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="295" width="480"></iframe><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-3874686422969352772011-07-19T14:58:00.000+02:002011-07-19T14:58:33.390+02:0017 /07<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/he-nG6ISWpQ?fs=1" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="295" width="480"></iframe><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-70242463736799160052011-06-09T09:30:00.006+02:002011-08-01T11:44:16.604+02:00The Blue Notes in London<div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Q_18di86CQI/TfCAfIjYtEI/AAAAAAAABOo/3PwZ2xruNoY/s1600/NEW+PRINT-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Q_18di86CQI/TfCAfIjYtEI/AAAAAAAABOo/3PwZ2xruNoY/s200/NEW+PRINT-1.jpg" width="143" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB"><b>Note</b>: This is the text of a talk I gave at the launch of the Rhodes University/Mellon Jazz Heritage Project in Grahamstown on Tuesday 7 June 2011. </span></div><br />
<span lang="EN-GB">History has a funny way of turning things around, making us look at things in different ways, if we are at all sensitive to our surroundings and the people in our lives.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">In 1860 a young minister of the Scottish Presbyterian Church arrived in South Africa at the invitation of the Dutch Reformed Church. The invitation was made partly in terms of the Anglicisation policy followed with some vigour by the former colonial Governor of the Cape Colony, Lord Charles Somerset, whose influence cast a long shadow over the history of colonialism in South Africa.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The young minister was Andrew McGregor, and he soon started to grow roots into the soil of Africa. He married Elizabeth Robertson, herself the daughter of a Scottish dominee in the DRC, and started a large family. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">A little more than a century later, Andrew McGregor's great-grandson landed in London, bringing with him a style, a genre, of music deeply influenced by the music of the indigenous people of the Eastern Cape. The colonisation of the colonisers had begun.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">This young man, who had the name of his great-grandfather Andrew, was better known by his second name, Christopher, and was generally and familiarly called Chris. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Chris, of course, was not alone. With him were four young men, three of them from the Eastern Cape and one from Langa in the Western Cape. These five were together the Blue Notes, a band of exceptional musicians who had found each other through their own individual explorations of the music of improvisation, the music of freedom, in a South Africa in which the evil of apartheid was going in the opposite direction, forcing people apart and making the meeting of like-minded people more and more difficult. So in that context the way these five came together was already something notable, something that was not to be expected.</span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SkJhnrRvxqY/TfBzbmGlBhI/AAAAAAAABOI/c-emTl_QwJU/s1600/Eric+with+dad+scan+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SkJhnrRvxqY/TfBzbmGlBhI/AAAAAAAABOI/c-emTl_QwJU/s400/Eric+with+dad+scan+2.jpg" width="297" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eric Nomvete with Murray McGregor. October 1987. Photo Tony McGregor</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Mongezi Feza, dazzling trumpeter, was born in Queenstown in 1945. He played, while still a teenager, with Eric Nomvete's band which in 1962 won the Moroka-Jabavu Jazz Festival honours with that incredible blues and tradition-based number “Pondo Blues.” (This album is downloadable <a href="http://electricjive.blogspot.com/2010/02/sound-that-stood-test-of-time.html">here</a>). As an interesting aside, Eric Nomvete, with whom Chris also played at the old Bamboo Room in East London, had been a student of our father's at Healdtown, and the two had an emotional and joyful reunion in Johannesburg in 1987 when Chris was out here for the Carling Circle of Jazz gig on Greenmarket Square, Cape Town.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The birth date of Johnny Mbizo Dyani, bassist extraordinaire, is something of a mystery, at least three dates being possible, according to Lars Rasmussen, author of <i>Mbizo – a book about Johnny Dyani </i>(Copenhagen, The Booktrader,2003). When Johnny left South Africa with the Blue Notes his birthdate was recorded in his passport as 31 December 1947, though Johnny himself always celebrated his birthday on November 30 and claimed his birth year as 1945. Home Affairs has listed his birthdate as 4 June 1947. Rasmussen believes the 4 June 1947 date to be the correct one.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Whatever the case, it seems to me to symbolise the lack of importance accorded the birth of a black person in apartheid South Africa – no matter that this particular black person would come to occupy a position of some prominence on the international music scene.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Mtutuzeli Pukwana, better known as Dudu, was born in Walmer Township, Port Elizabeth in 1938, and after meeting Chris at the same 1962 Jazz Festival the two became firm and life-long friends and collaborators. Although he started out playing piano he soon switched to alto. His searing, soaring solos on this instrument became hallmarks of the bands he played in, the Blue Notes and the Brotherhood of Breath in particular, but also his own formations Zila and Spear, among many others.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Louis Tebugo Moholo-Moholo the rock-steady drummer who propelled the Blue Notes to some amazing heights of improvisation, was born in Cape Town in 1940. He grew up listening to the swing and dance music popular in the Cape Town townships of the time. Great drummer Early Mabuza was a great influence on Louis, known familiarly as “Bra Tebs”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Chris himself was born in 1936 in Somerset West (see how long the shadow of the colonialist falls!), not as is sometimes claimed, in Mthatha. He went to school in Mthatha until 1952 when he went to the South African Training Ship General Botha in Gordon's Bay, at first seeing himself following a career in the merchant marine. But music was too powerful a force in his life and a few years later he was enrolled for a B. Mus at the College of Music, UCT.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The Blue Notes had left South Africa to play at the Antibes Jazz Festival in August 1964. Their 20 minute set at the festival attracted some favourable critical notice, including a few paragraphs in <i>Down Beat</i>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">A sixth member of the group, tenor man Nikele Moyake, had gone to France with the Blue Notes but had to return to South Africa before they went to London, due to ill health.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Given the political situation back home, they knew that they could not return to South Africa and started busking around Antibes and the Cote d'Azur. This was fine until the tourist season came to an end and so also the money they were managing to pick up.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Through Dollar Brand the Blue Notes managed to get a gig at the Afrikana, a cafe-bar, in Zurich, Switzerland, where they shivered through the winter, finding life rather difficult.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Maxine Lautré, the band's manager and later Chris’s wife, meanwhile took up a position at Dennis Duerden's Transcription Centre in London to earn some much needed cash. She managed to interest Ronnie Scott and some others in the band and so they decamped to London in the spring of 1965, playing initially at Scott's club in Soho and also by invitation in other venues.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The first gig at Ronnie Scott's got rave reviews and opened the eyes and ears of many British jazz fans, some of whom were to rise to great heights themselves after hearing and playing with Chris, Dudu and the others. One can think of Dave Holland, Keith Tippett, Mike Osborne, John Surman, Evan Parker and more.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">But that was in the future. At the time of the Ronnie Scott gig they were still young and, though their music was mature, they were still feeling their ways into another culture, another way of life.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">In South Africa they had been stars and had had many fans. In London they were relatively unknown and were finding that experience rather daunting.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The London scene was very different from the South African one. Chris told me once how he and Mongezi were walking somewhere in London after a gig and they saw all these people with purple faces, which almost freaked them out. Mongezi in particular was quite scared by these “apparitions” who turned out to be meths drinkers whose faces were stained by the colouring of the meths they were addicted to. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">But when these photos were taken the Blue Notes were still wary, still unsure of anything but the music. They each found different ways of coping with the pressure, not always the most appropriate ways at times. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Within ten years Mongs would be dead, a victim, some said, of racism in the health care sector in the UK. He died of pneumonia, a disease very treatable and curable. </span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nHX_eqX66LQ/TfB1FJ0WOkI/AAAAAAAABOM/WLDQlPV2Xh0/s1600/CNV000001+low+res.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nHX_eqX66LQ/TfB1FJ0WOkI/AAAAAAAABOM/WLDQlPV2Xh0/s400/CNV000001+low+res.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mongezi's eyes say so much! Photo John Goldblatt</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">When I look at these photos by John Goldblatt, I see the intensity of the their musical commitment and also the pain of exile, a pain which was not without benefits. They were starting on a journey through experiences which would not have been possible to them if they had stayed at home.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">So musically they were in a very positive and exciting place while on a personal level they were lonely and cut off from their roots.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Johnny was the next to die. He died doing what he loved best – making music. It happened in Berlin.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Chris died in late May 1990 and Bra Duds about six weeks later, leaving Bra Tebs as the sole survivor of that intrepid band.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">As producer Joe Boyd, who first heard the Blue Notes at the “Old Place” in Gerrard Street, London, said of the deaths of Mongs, Dudu, Johnny and Chris: “Whatever the cause of death on the certificate, homesickness and exile were their true afflictions, and the potential cure of being welcomed by their adopted British homeland was never really on offer.” (<i>White Bicycles</i>, London, Serpent’s Tail, 2006)</span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wfCnEpuoj0g/TfB1hgZxM1I/AAAAAAAABOQ/u0kTgiIf-4k/s1600/CNV000011+low+res.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wfCnEpuoj0g/TfB1hgZxM1I/AAAAAAAABOQ/u0kTgiIf-4k/s400/CNV000011+low+res.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mongezi - total commitment to the music. Photo John Goldblatt</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">So these photos are a wonderful evocation of a particular moment in the history of jazz in general, and specifically of South African jazz. They seem to capture that moment very poignantly, very beautifully. It is a moment of truth, a moment of the reversal of the abnegation of the indigenous culture of South Africa by the colonial powers, a moment when what the colonial powers had thought of little consequence was brought back to the metropole in all its power and beauty. </span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YaGsuMpon3o/TfCDc1gwslI/AAAAAAAABOw/RnQIU4M2-wo/s1600/CNV000012+low+res.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YaGsuMpon3o/TfCDc1gwslI/AAAAAAAABOw/RnQIU4M2-wo/s400/CNV000012+low+res.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo John Goldblatt</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Sadly, it is a moment few South African jazz fans have had much access to over the years. Perhaps this project will begin to bring the music home again, now enriched by the experience of mixing with great musicians from outside of South Africa, but still infused with the energy and joy that characterise South African jazz.</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-geaGvGF9emk/TfCCADXL25I/AAAAAAAABOs/fEnPyFN_XbI/s1600/John+Keulder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-geaGvGF9emk/TfCCADXL25I/AAAAAAAABOs/fEnPyFN_XbI/s200/John+Keulder.jpg" width="132" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Keulder. Photo Tony McGregor, 7 June 2011</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><b>A note on the photos</b>: The photographs were taken by John Goldblatt, a photographer working for the <i>Daily Worker</i> newspaper and their negatives lay forgotten in the UK Communist Party archives until Professor Robert van Niekerk recently discovered them on an online website dedicated to ephemera from political struggles between the 1950’s and 1980’s. Thanks to the wizardry of retired RU technician John Keulder who worked in the Geography Department’s photo labs for some 30 years, the ageing negatives have been painstakingly brought to life in a darkroom. These non-digitised photographs are thus one of the most authentic representations of the original 45 year old negatives. The photographs will be placed on permanent exhibition in the Beethoven Room of the Music Department, Rhodes University.. </span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-5318571498501152932011-05-04T22:49:00.000+02:002011-05-04T22:49:16.697+02:00Collages<a href="http://goo.gl/photos/mi8m1HyYNA" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:1em"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/TcG7gI5qeMI/AAAAAAAAAvg/ATLIyAKKjSA/s512/Ernest%20Mothle.jpg" border="0" /></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-81008465666544886232011-05-04T14:21:00.000+02:002011-05-04T14:21:50.853+02:00Movies<a href="http://goo.gl/photos/UsGEDO9CPb" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:1em"><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/TZ3MF9sQmDI/AAAAAAAAAo4/LD1ZhzL8SLI/s512/Struben%20Dam1.jpg" border="0" /></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-73516761682673757192011-05-03T16:54:00.003+02:002011-05-03T17:40:53.309+02:00Obituary: Ernest "Shololo" Mothle<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OszuKfxk47E/TcAXCiAAm6I/AAAAAAAAAtQ/_0t8dG4hKIo/s1600/071109+135.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OszuKfxk47E/TcAXCiAAm6I/AAAAAAAAAtQ/_0t8dG4hKIo/s320/071109+135.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ernie playing at a gig in memory of Winston Mankunku Ngozi in Novemer 2009.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Ernest Mothle was born on 2 December 1941 in Lady Selborne, Tshwane where he attended school, listening to the music that was happening all around him in that bustling township.</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">After briefly dreaming of playing the clarinet or the sax, he took up the bass and began playing with various musicians active in the Tshwane area.</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">By 1962 he was an accomplished jazz musician performing with the likes of Alf Herbert's African Jazz and Variety; Early Mabuza's Big Five with Barney Rachabane, Johnny Mekoa, Tete Mbambisa and Pat Matshikiza, the late great sax player Winston Mankunku Ngozi, and singers like Abigail Khubeka, Thandi Klaasen and Busi Mhlongo.</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">In 1970 he was involved in recording the great album Armitage Road with the Heshoo Beshoo group. He also co-wrote music for the musical Phiri and for the first film version of Athol Fugard's Boesman and Lena.</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Mr Mothle then left for the United Kingdom where he joined the many other exiled South African musicians like Mongezi Feza, Dudu Pukwana, Julian Bahula and many others, eventually joining Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath big band with which he toured Europe.</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">While in the UK Mr Mothle also played with a number of other jazz greats like Errol Clark, Sonny Stitt, Archie Shepp and he toured with blues shouter Jimmy Witherspoon, sax men Courtney Pine and Trevor Watts and the band Spirit Level.</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Mr Mothle participated in a BBC TV recording of music for children. He played with the band of Alton Khumalo's Themba Theatre Company when they toured Britain. He was also a member of the orchestra for the Bill Luther Dance Company (Luther was a student of Martha Graham)</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4nE4QF1MkBQ/TcAX5B3IolI/AAAAAAAAAtU/VEiPXvpJ9UE/s1600/180609+024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4nE4QF1MkBQ/TcAX5B3IolI/AAAAAAAAAtU/VEiPXvpJ9UE/s320/180609+024.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ernest in front of the nursing home in the former Lady Selborne township in which he was born.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Mr Mothle appeared on TV with the Jonas Gwangwa at the Nelson Mandela 70<sup>th</sup> Birthday Concert at Wembley Stadium, in Dr Who and Halfway to Paradise with Courtney Pine.</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">On his return to South Africa in 1991 Mr Mothle played with visiting musicians Rene McLean, Jon Yon Yen, James Newton, Bob Mintzer and Jasper van't Hof.</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">He worked as a bass instructor at the Mmabana Cultural Centre and tutored at the Tshwane University of Technology's Music Department.</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">He has an impressive list of recordings bearing his name as sideman – with musicians as varied as Robert Wyatt, Mike Oldfield (Mr Mothle played percussion on Oldfield's album Ommadawn), George Lee and Mike Osborne.</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">He played on the soundtrack of David Attenborough's movie Cry Freedom with Jonas Gwangwa and appeared at the first Nelson Mandela birthday concert at Wembly Stadium with Hugh Masekela.</div><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Ernest died of diabetes-related complications on 2 May 2011 at his home in Mamelodi, Pretoria.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5J3g8uHE6vw/TcAbDCblZlI/AAAAAAAAAtY/AqNwVlMbzIE/s1600/Denzil+and+Ernie+Mabatho.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5J3g8uHE6vw/TcAbDCblZlI/AAAAAAAAAtY/AqNwVlMbzIE/s320/Denzil+and+Ernie+Mabatho.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vnL8YGoGdrM/TcAbEgOEgPI/AAAAAAAAAtc/ZLRv5dK38EE/s1600/Ernie+Mabatho+02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vnL8YGoGdrM/TcAbEgOEgPI/AAAAAAAAAtc/ZLRv5dK38EE/s320/Ernie+Mabatho+02.jpg" width="223" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3M1BsZnHg94/TcAbFz3WZSI/AAAAAAAAAtg/bXQqNRCWO8M/s1600/Ernie+Mabatho.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3M1BsZnHg94/TcAbFz3WZSI/AAAAAAAAAtg/bXQqNRCWO8M/s320/Ernie+Mabatho.jpg" width="214" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DbFdlkqC6tc/TcAbH3iJ1FI/AAAAAAAAAtk/E80k2FV6Lkc/s1600/scan+93.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DbFdlkqC6tc/TcAbH3iJ1FI/AAAAAAAAAtk/E80k2FV6Lkc/s320/scan+93.jpg" width="208" /></a></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-5125171918340927482010-07-29T20:59:00.000+02:002010-07-29T20:59:20.420+02:00Obituary: Harry Beckett; a doyen of Jazz trumpet and flugelhorn.<a href="http://www.organizedrage.com/2010/07/obituary-harry-becket-doyen-of-jazz.html">Obituary: Harry Beckett; a doyen of Jazz trumpet and flugelhorn.</a><br />This is a great tribute to Harry Beckett, the only musician besides Chris to have been in all the formations of the Brotherhood of Breath. He was a great man and a superlative musician whose musicality and dedication will be greatly missed.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-3718498210191589992010-06-04T07:53:00.001+02:002012-09-05T22:39:09.296+02:00The day the piano went silent<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/TAiVkCG_uEI/AAAAAAAAASY/RtTUaqR8CJU/s1600/bosendorfer+moulin+1990.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/TAiVkCG_uEI/AAAAAAAAASY/RtTUaqR8CJU/s320/bosendorfer+moulin+1990.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The silent piano. Chris's beloved Bosendorfer at the Moulin in May 1990
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h2 class="subtitle">
Musician and visionary</h2>
(This was written on 26 May 2010)<br />
Exactly 20 years ago today my brother,
<a href="http://hubpages.com/topics/entertainment/music/jazz/727">jazz</a> pianist, composer, band leader, arranger, and visionary, left us
after a painful struggle with cancer. He was older than me by almost
exactly seven years. His name was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_McGregor">Chris McGregor</a> and he and his
musicians between them put out some of the most amazing jazz, in
trio, small group, and big band formats.<br />
Chris was much more than a musician,
though. He really was a visionary. Even the name of his big band, the
<a href="http://www.cuneiformrecords.com/bandshtml/brotherhood.html">Brotherhood of Breath</a>, spoke about his vision. He was passionately
committed to freedom, not only in the <a href="http://hubpages.com/topics/entertainment/music/713">music</a>, but in his home country
of South Africa, which he left with his small group, the Blue Notes,
in 1964, when apartheid was tightening its grip on the bodies and
minds of the people.<br />
<br />
<div class="modfloat full">
<div class="module moduleText color0" id="mod_8149022">
<h2 class="subtitle">
Facing his death</h2>
<div class="txtd" id="txtd_8149022">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VeOxcA0HEYU/UEe2RZquZFI/AAAAAAAACuU/Trv6huymJEs/s1600/Chris+Halfway+House+10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VeOxcA0HEYU/UEe2RZquZFI/AAAAAAAACuU/Trv6huymJEs/s320/Chris+Halfway+House+10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I
have written about him elsewhere so would just like to add here a
paragraph from an article on him by renowned British jazz journalist
Graham Lock, from his book <i>Chasing the Vibration</i> (1994). Lock interviewed Chris in September 1984.<br />
“Chris McGregor looks more hippy sage than African. A tall, stocky,
cheerful man with humorous eyes and a ready smile, his most distinctive
features are a long grey beard and even longer grey hair worn in a
ponytail that hangs all the way down to his ample waist. But African he
is.”<br />
Chris's widow, Maxine, wrote a book of her life with Chris. This was
published in the US by Bamberger Books of Flint, Michigan, in 1995, and
was called <i>Chris McGregor and the Brotherhood of Breath</i>, and subtitled “My Life with a South African Jazz Pioneer.”<br />
Maxine wrote of Chris's philosophy of life:<br />
“Because he was able to really accept life in its entirety, to accept
all that came his way, to let go and not set such store on results (a
philosophy of 'Whatever happens <i>is</i> the story'), Chris was able
to take his life – and death – with a lightness, an expansiveness and a
sense of humour that led to peace.”<br />
And she wrote of her own experience of Chris's death:<br />
“Certainly facing his death with him – because he seemed so much like
a prolongation of myself – was identical to facing my own death,
something that I had always avoided doing even with the deaths of my
parents. It was an indescribable experience that has made me fear death
no longer – Chris was making jokes ten minutes before he died – and gave
me the courage not to hold myself back from <i>life</i>. For if you no longer fear death what is there to fear?”<br />
<div class="module moduleText color0" id="mod_8149084">
<h2 class="subtitle">
The day he died</h2>
<div class="txtd" id="txtd_8149084">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IHa5AcKbfRk/UEe2v64En1I/AAAAAAAACuc/YaKjzfjDxqw/s1600/Scan10485.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IHa5AcKbfRk/UEe2v64En1I/AAAAAAAACuc/YaKjzfjDxqw/s320/Scan10485.jpg" width="152" /></a></div>
The day Chris died my then wife Joan
and I were about to fly to France to be with him and his family. We
realised that the situation was serious. We had been in daily
telephonic contact with Maxine and she and Chris knew of our plans to
come to them.<br />
The 26th May 1990 was also our father's
birthday and so that morning we were getting ready to celebrate with
him before flying out that evening when the call came from Maxine to
say that Chris had just left us. To say we were shattered would be a
vast understatement. I had spoken to Chris just a few evenings before
and he had said, in his usual funny way, “I've been to the angels
and they told me they weren't ready for me yet.”<br />
In the interview with Lock Chris spoke
of his inspiration, what kept him going: “I guess you have to
approach it with your instincts, just grab hold of whatever's coming
and follow it through.<br />
“Really, that's all. That is a
musician's work. It's a great life, too. I wouldn't edit my story at
all. When I think back there's nothing I regret, nothing that seems
to me to have been wrong or off-key.<br />
“You have to be 50 years old to
realise, though. That's maybe something there is to regret, that we
get too soon old and too late smart.”<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DvplmzrrkD0/UEe3hpsh3UI/AAAAAAAACuk/86sBpieF45M/s1600/Moulin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DvplmzrrkD0/UEe3hpsh3UI/AAAAAAAACuk/86sBpieF45M/s320/Moulin.jpg" width="247" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hazel Miller, Chris and Maxine at the Moulin</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
We went to France, to the Moulin de
Madone, where Chris and Maxine had lived since 1973 in the South
West, where we all tried to support each other in our grief and loss.
Wherever we looked there were reminders of that great spirit who had
lived there, and who had made such great music, and brought so much
joy to others with that music.<br />
And I was grateful to have known him,
to have called him, in blood and in spirit, my brother.<br />
This little poem is by way of my
tribute to him, my remembrance of his African-ness, so it is writtne
somewhat in the style of a traditional Xhosa praise poem and using,
in typical call and response style, two little phrases from two Xhosa
songs, Thula Sana (Sleep my Child) and Thula Sizwe (Be still, My
People).<br />
<div class="module moduleText color0" id="mod_8149268">
<h2 class="subtitle">
The day the piano went silent</h2>
<div class="txtd" id="txtd_8149268">
The day the piano went silent<br />
thula sana<br />
the day the piano stopped singing<br />
thula sana<br />
the day your fingers stopped dancing<br />
thula sana<br />
that day our hearts went quiet<br />
thula sizwe<br />
<br />
Now the piano song is stilled<br />
thula sana<br />
And our hearts are stilled with pain<br />
thula sana<br />
We long to hear that song again<br />
thula sana<br />
The way our ears were filled<br />
thula sizwe<br />
<br />
The way our ears were filled<br />
thula sana<br />
With the song of the beating heart<br />
thula sana<br />
But now that heart is stilled<br />
thula sana<br />
The heart that gave us love<br />
thula sizwe<br />
<br />
O brother of mine, I miss you so<br />
thula sana<br />
My sister is weeping also<br />
thula sana<br />
Your songs are still in our hearts<br />
thula sana<br />
And their rhythms still mark our paths<br />
thula sizwe<br />
<br />
The hills and valleys of our youth<br />
thula sana<br />
Are waiting for the song's rebirth<br />
thula sana<br />
And the wind blowing over the hills<br />
thula sana<br />
Still cries out your name to the earth<br />
thula sizwe.<br />
<br />
You left us before we were ready<br />
thula sana<br />
Before we knew how to sing<br />
thula sana<br />
But now in our sadness we sing<br />
thula sana<br />
And the people will join our song<br />
thula sizwe</div>
</div>
<div class="module moduleText color0" id="mod_12948400">
<h2 class="subtitle">
Copyright Notice</h2>
<div class="txtd" id="txtd_12948400">
The text and all images on this page, unless otherwise indicated, are by <a href="http://tonymac04.hubpages.com/">Tony McGregor</a>
who hereby asserts his copyright on the material. Should you wish to
use any of the text or images feel free to do so with proper attribution
and, if possible, a link back to this page. Thank you.<br />
©
Tony McGregor 2010</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-9208356978479275462010-04-10T17:37:00.004+02:002010-06-04T08:05:13.356+02:00The Blues – the Bedrock of Jazz<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/S8CbgxeOESI/AAAAAAAAAO4/-MAoImaXqF4/s1600/Muddy1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/S8CbgxeOESI/AAAAAAAAAO4/-MAoImaXqF4/s320/Muddy1.png" /></a></div><a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Blues-the-Bedrock-of-Jazz">The Blues – the Bedrock of Jazz</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Martin-Scorsese-Presents-Best-Blues/dp/B0000AOV6M?ie=UTF8&tag=tonspla-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The blues</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=tonspla-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0000AOV6M" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=tonspla-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B00005B6AB&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe> as the bedrock and foundation of jazz. The second article in my series on the history of jazz<br />
“The story of the blues is the story of humble, obscure, unassuming men and women.” - from <i>The Blues Guitar </i>by Alan Warner (nd)<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-12634265214236368292010-03-02T16:09:00.001+02:002010-03-02T16:11:28.324+02:00How did jazz begin? Part one of a history of jazz<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/S40cXN0kNgI/AAAAAAAAAOs/xwnycEWGgX8/s1600-h/Mothle,+Ernest+with+Rene+McLean.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/S40cXN0kNgI/AAAAAAAAAOs/xwnycEWGgX8/s320/Mothle,+Ernest+with+Rene+McLean.jpg" /></a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">South African bassist Ernest Mothle with Rene McClean </div><a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/How-did-jazz-begin-Part-one-of-a-history-of-jazz">How did jazz begin? Part one of a history of jazz</a><br />
Jazz was born out of the pain of slavery and the clash between the cultures of West Africa and the Protestant ethos of the Southern states of the United States. This is a first article in a series looking at the history of jazz through an examination of its many genres.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-54090004674840497982010-01-04T11:45:00.002+02:002012-09-05T22:08:37.868+02:00Chris McGregor – the posthumous albums<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/S0G48mTn9EI/AAAAAAAAAOg/2dvGSWjBVOs/s1600-h/exiles+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/S0G48mTn9EI/AAAAAAAAAOg/2dvGSWjBVOs/s320/exiles+cover.jpg" /></a></div>
When South African exile musician Chris McGregor died in May 1990, there was already a respectable, though not entirely representative, discography of his work, both in Europe and in South Africa. But like any jazz musician, he played gigs all over the UK and Europe, some of which were recorded, but never released.<br />
Since his death a number of albums of
previously un-released material have come out and they fill in the
gaps most admirably. The albums are both of live gigs and studio
recordings and they make interesting listening.<br />
The last album that Chris recorded with
the Brotherhood of Breath in a studio was the great Virgin release
<i>Country Cooking</i> (1988) (released again in 2001 on French label
Great Winds/Musea). It is a great album, possibly the greatest
Brotherhood album.<br />
In 1989 Chris was on tour with the
Brotherhood with guest artist Archie Shepp. They played a concert at
the Banlieues Bleues in Paris which was released as <i>En Concert a
Banlieues Bleues</i> in 1989 on the French label 52 Rue Est. This
album features some great solos by the guest and the usual band
members, but unfortunately it also features a rather out of tune
piano. Chris had wanted to stop the release of the album, feeling it
was not up to standard, but for contractual reasons the release had
to go on. The music is nevertheless great – a wonderful song called
“Sangena” sung by Sonti Mndebele, with the band roaring
enthusiastically behind her, is just a delight.
<br />
The band was on tour again in early
1990. Chris fell ill on the tour and died before it had been
completed. The following are the releases of previously unreleased
recordings issued after Chris's death<br />
<h2 class="subtitle">
SA Exiles' Thunderbolt</h2>
In 1986 Chris put together a band which
he called the “South African Exiles' Thunderbolt.” This band was
in a sense a musical response to the situation back in South Africa
where then President P.W. Botha had decreed a “State of Emergency”,
basically martial law, in an attempt to contain the rising resistance
to apartheid. Personal freedoms and other freedoms like that of the
press were being systematically, sometimes quite brutally,
suppressed. People lived in constant fear and anger, and violence was
increasing dramatically. At the forefront of the resistance, though
not of the violence, was an organisation called the United Democratic
Front (UDF).<br />
The Thunderbolt went on tour through
Europe playing many festivals and other gigs. This album was recorded
at Mainz, Germany, on 17 May 1986.<br />
Chris wrote the following “personal
statement” to explain how he saw the Thunderbolt project: “Humanity
is essentially a unity. The realisation of this unity on earth is our
greatest task today. This is not idealistic – it is the only chance
the human race has to survive on this earth. We come from a society
in which separateness – apartheid – is institutionalised. The
destructive power of this separation becomes daily more obvious. We
wish our Thunderbolt to be a celebration of the end of separateness
and its concomitant fascist oppression – for we know that the
present murderous attacks on innocent and powerless people represent
the dying throes of a monster. Our music, song and dance are also an
affirmation of human values – we give them to show appreciation to
those who realise that our struggle is theirs also. The world wide
interest in events in South Africa and near universal condemnation of
apartheid is a potent indication of the dawning unity of humankind.”
(from the liner notes of the CD).<br />
The musicians on the gig were, with one
exception, South Africans long in exile: Dudu Pukwana, the ebullient
alto player; Johnny Mbizo Dyani and Ernest Mothle, great bassists,
great musicians, great people; Gilbert Matthews, master drummer;
Pinise Saul, wonderful singer; and great guitarist Lucky Ranku,
although he is not, for some reason, credited.<br />
One of the outstanding tracks is
“Magwazakazo” which features Ranku in a performance of rare
beauty. Another track of note is “UDF” composed by Dyani in
tribute to the organisation “back home.”<br />
The album was released in 1997 by
Popular African Music, a label of Günter
Gretz.<br />
<div class="modfloat full">
<div class="module moduleText color0" id="mod_6199119">
<h2 class="subtitle">
The Cuneiform Albums</h2>
<div class="txtd" id="txtd_6199119">
Cuneiform Records of Silver Spring,
Maryland, USA, released three live albums of Brotherhood of Breath
gigs.
<br />
The first of these was called
<i>Travelling Somewhere</i> and was recorded in January 1973 in
Berlin. It was exceptionally well recorded and shows the Brotherhood
in fine fettle. The line up consists of Harry
Beckett, Mark Charig and Mongezi Feza (trumpets), Nick Evans and
Malcolm Griffiths (trombones), Mike Osborne, Evan Parker, Dudu
Pukwana and Gary Windo (saxes), Chris McGregor (piano), Harry Miller
(double bass) and Louis Moholo-Moholo (drums).
<br />
The second, released in 2004, is a
double album called <i>Bremen to Bridgwater</i> and actually covers
three gigs: the first gig was a Radio Bremen concert at Lila Eule in
June 1971; the second gig was at the Bridgwater Art Centre,
Bridgwater, England in February 1975; the third, also at the
Bridgewater, in November 1975.<br />
The third album, called <i>Eclipse at
Dawn</i>, was released in 2008 and was recorded in November 1971 at
the Berliner Philharmonie Jazztage.<br />
These three albums show the Brotherhood
in great form. The Bremen to Bridgwater album has several tracks of
extended playing featuring the trademark Brotherhood mix of great
playing to written charts with some ecstatic moments of free playing
– order dissolving into chaos and coming back to order again, which
was Chris's great genius, being able to write charts of exceptional
beauty while feeling comfortable to let the players also express
their own ideas and feelings.
<br />
There are on this album also two tracks
simply called “untitled original”, one by that wonderful British
alto player Mike Osborne and one by Chris.<br />
The <i>Bridgewater</i> album also has a
great mix of great names in British and European jazz in the lineup:
Harry Beckett on trumpet; Elton Dean and Mike Osborne on alto; Nick
Evans and Malcolm Griffiths on trombone; Evan Parker and Alan
Skidmore and Gary Windo on tenors; and of course the great South
Africans Dudu Pukwana on alto; Mongezi Feza on trumpet; Harry Miller
on bass and Louis Moholo-Moholo on drums. A powerful line up indeed,
with Chris urging the whole outfit on from the piano.<br />
The <i>Eclipse at Dawn</i> album has
more modest line up that still burns with bright energy: the
ever-steady Harry Beckett and Marc Charig on trumpet; Nick Evans and
Malcolm Griffiths on trombone; Harry Miller on bass; Louis
Moholo-Moholo on drums; Dudu Pukwana on alto and Alan Skidmore and
Gary Windo on tenor.<br />
All three albums are superb productions
with great liner notes and photos. More about them can be found here:
http://www.cuneiformrecords.com/bandshtml/brotherhood.html<br />
<h2 class="subtitle">
The Fleg'ling Albums</h2>
In 2008 English record company
Fledg'ling released two albums which had been recorded in 1969 by producer Joe Boyd and not released at the time. As Boyd writes in the liner
notes to the first of these albums, <i>Up To Earth</i>, “It's hard
to remember why this record never got released. I suppose it was
because my relationship with Polydor had soured and my new ally,
Island Records, was not exactly a jazz label.”<br />
“I do remember,” he goes on,
“however, how exciting were the sessions.”<br />
These two albums, <i>Up To Earth</i>,
which features a septet of the best of jazz musicians playing in
Britain at the time, and <i>Our Prayer</i>, showcase Chris's music
starting to evolve from its roots into a new space and energy.
<br />
The musicians on <i>Up To Earth</i>
were some British musicians Chris enjoyed playing with, and the
US/French bassist Barre Philips. The others in the septet were John
Surman on bass clarinet or baritone sax; Evan Parker on tenor; and
the South Africans Dudu Pukwana on alto, Mongezi Feza on trumpet and
Louis Moholo-Moholo on drums. Danny Thompson replaced Barre Philips
on one track.
<br />
Our Prayer was a trio date with Barre
Philips on bass and Louis Moholo-Moholo on drums. It ranges from
jaunty African rhythms to some rather free playing with Chris's
percussive playing keeping it all together.<br />
As Boyd wrote in his liner notes to <i>Up
To Earth</i>: “One day, when critics start to absorb the
compositions, the arrangements, the orchestras, the tours, the solos,
the visions, the leadership and the musicians he inspired, Chris
McGregor will be appreciated for the giant he was.”<br />
More information about these two
albums, plus the Chris McGregor re-releases by Fledg'ling, can be
found here: http://www.thebeesknees.com/?cat=10<br />
Fledg'ling have undertaken a “campaign
to document Chris McGregor’s Witchseason recordings from the late
1960s early 1970s”, of which these two albums are a part.<br />
These two albums can also be downloaded
from emusic, as well as the other Fledg'ling releases.<br />
<div class="module moduleText color0" id="mod_6199485">
<h2 class="subtitle">
Township Bop</h2>
<div class="txtd" id="txtd_6199485">
The final album of these posthumous
releases is a curious one, curious in how it came about. It is called
<i>Township Bop</i> and was released in 2002 by Proper Records. The
14 tracks on the album were all recorded in the Cape Town studios of
the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) in early 1964. How
the tapes of these recordings came into the possession of Proper
Records is something of a mystery, and one which perhaps we should
not delve into too deeply.
<br />
What is interesting about these tracks
is that they were the first recordings made by the group which Chris
put together in Cape Town in the early 1960s and which soon became
known as the Blue Notes.<br />
Chris was experimenting with different
musicians and different ideas and with these musicians soon went on a
tour of South Africa just before leaving for the Antibes Jazz
Festival where the Blue Notes created quite a stir that year,
European jazz fans never having heard something like this from South
Africa before. It was an eye-opener to many that such music was
happening there.</div>
</div>
<h2 class="subtitle">
Exuberance</h2>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-klk3vPxbQ0k/UEerHrdMSJI/AAAAAAAACuE/CaVt9PThdNs/s1600/scan+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="215" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-klk3vPxbQ0k/UEerHrdMSJI/AAAAAAAACuE/CaVt9PThdNs/s320/scan+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chris's beloved Bosendorfer at the Moulin after his death</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Altogether these seven albums add
considerably to the richness of the heritage of the South African
exile musicians. They are important documents of the South African
jazz diaspora. They are a great source of wonderful, exciting and
original jazz, with a typically South African edge despite the
European influences. To quote Joe Boyd again: “Loud, wild, fast,
abstract playing to be sure, but it seemed that for them, the best
revenge on the murderous Boers was not anger, but joy and yes,
exuberance.” And these albums are all full of that.<br />
<div class="module moduleText color0" id="mod_12948157">
<h2 class="subtitle">
Copyright Notice</h2>
<div class="txtd" id="txtd_12948157">
The text and all images on this page, unless otherwise indicated, are by Tony McGregor
who hereby asserts his copyright on the material. Should you wish to
use any of the text or images feel free to do so with proper attribution
and, if possible, a link back to this page. Thank you.<br />
©
Tony McGregor 2010</div>
</div>
<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-81179139627955995952009-12-18T17:16:00.001+02:002009-12-18T17:17:32.300+02:00electricjive: Assagai: Zimbabwe (1971)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/Syuc_5VTf_I/AAAAAAAAAOY/Bv8kyzLSdK8/s1600-h/Assagai+Zimbabwe+front.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 389px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/Syuc_5VTf_I/AAAAAAAAAOY/Bv8kyzLSdK8/s400/Assagai+Zimbabwe+front.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5416595598379024370" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://electricjive.blogspot.com/2009/12/assagai-zimbabwe-1971.html">electricjive: Assagai: Zimbabwe (1971)</a><br /><br />This 1971 prog-rock offering by Assagai includes one of my favourite voices, Martha Mdenge. A follow-up to their self-titled debut album, "Zimbabwe" showcases some of South Africa’s best exile musicians at the time – Dudu Pukwana, Louis Moholo and the special trumpeter, Mongezi Feza. It also features some cover songs and musical back-up from Vertigo “stable-mates” Jade Warrior,<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-53157991897064647092009-11-15T20:43:00.001+02:002009-11-15T20:44:49.499+02:00electricjive: Morris Goldberg's Urban Jazz Band (1975)<a href="http://electricjive.blogspot.com/2009/11/morris-goldbergs-urban-jazz-band-1975.html">electricjive: Morris Goldberg's Urban Jazz Band (1975)</a><br />When talking of Cape Jazz pioneers Morris Goldberg’s name is usually mentioned in the same sentence along with Dollar Brand and Chris McGregor. This gem was recorded in 1975 when Goldberg was visiting South Africa from his New York base. Both Goldberg and percussionist Monty Weber were part of the “Manenburg” legend. Goldberg was the third saxophone player whose name does not appear on the cover credits. Read some of the back-story <a href="http://heritage.thetimes.co.za/memorials/wc/MannenBerg/article.aspx?id=568850">here</a>.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-90726894849660831772009-11-15T12:47:00.001+02:002009-11-15T12:49:23.310+02:00electricjive: The birth of Heshoo Beshoo<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/Sv_cnqboV1I/AAAAAAAAAOQ/jYAS5iaT3yU/s1600-h/ernie+071109+132.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 199px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/Sv_cnqboV1I/AAAAAAAAAOQ/jYAS5iaT3yU/s400/ernie+071109+132.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5404280651831072594" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://electricjive.blogspot.com/2009/11/birth-of-heshoo-beshoo.html">electricjive: The birth of Heshoo Beshoo</a><br />The band Heshoo Beshoo grew out of a great friendship. formed in the home of jazz promoter and founder of the Johannesburg Jazz Appreciation Society, Ray Nkwe.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-85101546320192807302009-11-02T11:45:00.002+02:002009-11-02T12:00:45.746+02:00Top 10 albums of the South African jazz diaspora – Tony's picks<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/Su6qjQpzZQI/AAAAAAAAAOI/4JeTSkuaYoI/s1600-h/Nhlengethwa+Ode+to+Gideon+and+Chris.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 284px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/Su6qjQpzZQI/AAAAAAAAAOI/4JeTSkuaYoI/s400/Nhlengethwa+Ode+to+Gideon+and+Chris.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399440526006248706" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/Top-10-albums-of-the-South-African-jazz-diaspora-Tonys-picks?done">Top 10 albums of the South African jazz diaspora – Tony's picks</a><br />Exile was a two-edged sword for the South African musicians who left their homeland for the freedom of Europe and the United States. This is a selection of some of the finest albums to come out of the great South African jazz diaspora<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-66423299625703103252009-10-16T23:28:00.001+02:002009-10-16T23:30:06.863+02:00Top 10 South African jazz albums – Tony's picks<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/Stjl09zrilI/AAAAAAAAAOA/iCgjMHGfvxQ/s1600-h/trains+cover.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 393px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/Stjl09zrilI/AAAAAAAAAOA/iCgjMHGfvxQ/s400/trains+cover.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393313251883453010" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/Top-10-South-African-jazz-albums-Tonys-picks">Top 10 South African jazz albums – Tony's picks</a><br />Tony's picks of the top ten South African jazz albums of the post-war years. A look at albums made in South Africa during that time - the apartheid and post-apartheid years.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-795989475694467092009-10-14T21:27:00.008+02:002009-10-14T21:49:58.338+02:00A fellow-musician reminisces about Mankunku<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/StYqpH-j6FI/AAAAAAAAAN4/ADGCxJozwpM/s1600-h/Mankunku+onstage+1987.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 210px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/StYqpH-j6FI/AAAAAAAAAN4/ADGCxJozwpM/s400/Mankunku+onstage+1987.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5392544489827199058" border="0" /></a><br />Today I had a meeting with my friend, bass player Ernest Mothle, who came to my home for one of our regular talk sessions. I am getting him to talk about his life in music, as he is one of a disappearing group of South African jazz musicians born during, or around, the years of World War Two, with the hope of later publishing the story of his life in some form or other.<br /><br />Obviously with the death of Mankunku still in our minds, the talk turned to Ernest's meeting with, and learning from, the great tenorman. During our meeting last week Ernest had spoken a bit about Mankunku, but now he wanted to tell the story in more depth, to indicate more fully his sense of indebtedness to Mankunku.<br /><br />The following is more or less how the conversation went.<br /><br />“I was playing with a band called the Big 5, with Early Mabuza on drums, Pat Matshikiza on piano, and myself on bass, we were asked by Ray Nkwe, who founded the Johannesburg Jazz Appreciation Society, to back Mankunku for a gig because Mankunku had not brought his band up from Cape Town with him. Ray had brought him up for promotional purposes.”<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/StYn48VySsI/AAAAAAAAANw/1npPaWrGENs/s1600-h/Mekoa,+Johnny+at+Carling+Circle+of+Jazz+gig.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 361px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/StYn48VySsI/AAAAAAAAANw/1npPaWrGENs/s400/Mekoa,+Johnny+at+Carling+Circle+of+Jazz+gig.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5392541463046408898" border="0" /></a><br />“Early, Pat and myself rehearsed a song that had no title. Johnny Mekoa (a well-known trumpeter and jazz educator in South Africa) was listening to this. He commented that since Mankunku had hit town, all the tenor players around sounded<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/StYne908apI/AAAAAAAAANo/SWdZDTCcwtI/s1600-h/Mankunku+ykhal+inkomo+cover.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 397px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/StYne908apI/AAAAAAAAANo/SWdZDTCcwtI/s400/Mankunku+ykhal+inkomo+cover.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5392541016768932498" border="0" /></a> like cows.<br /><br />“Mankunku then said he would call the tune 'Yakhal' inKomo'. That's how the song was named.<br /><br />“The band was also rehearsing for a recording we were going to make for Professor Yvonne Huskisson of the SABC. We were asked to do about 10 songs.<br /><br />“For me, two<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/StYm1mGCBJI/AAAAAAAAANY/5EbcaBn2lp0/s1600-h/Ernie+Mabatho.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 268px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_gpRTBXx66bs/StYm1mGCBJI/AAAAAAAAANY/5EbcaBn2lp0/s400/Ernie+Mabatho.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5392540306023515282" border="0" /></a> of these songs stood out – one was the ballad 'It Might As Well Be Spring' (from the 1945 movie <span style="font-style: italic;">State Fair</span> by Rogers and Hammerstein) and the other was 'Yakhal' inKomo'.<br /><br />The latter was so good that there was huge public demand for it to be recorded.<br /><br />At around that time Ernest was arrested on charges for which he was later acquitted. But the result of his being in jail for a while was that when the group went to make the recording of 'Yakhal' inKomo' they thought Ernest was still in jail and got Agrippa Magwaza to play instead. That's how Ernest missed being on the biggest-selling jazz album in South Africa.<br />“Ray Nkwe had access to lots of jazz records (because of his position as head of the Jazz Appreciation Society) and so a group of us used to spend a lot of time at his place listening to his records – that was myself, Mankunku (who was staying with Ray at the time), guitarist Cyril Magubane and drummer Gilbert Matthews. From those hours of listening emerged a band which eventually became Heshoo Beshoo (this band made the great album Armitage Road, now sadly no longer available).<br /><br />“I learnt a lot from Mankunku – especially involvement, the use of tonic solfa, and concentration.<br />“Mankunku was totally involved in his music, totally emotionally there. I liked that even though I was in awe of it.<br /><br />“Tonic solfa helped us to grasp and understand the music very quickly. We would not have managed to learn so much so fast with staff notation.<br /><br />“Concentration – Mankunku taught us this by getting us to climb a tree with our shoes on, after a few, actually a lot of, brandies! This led to my riding a motorbike for the first time in my life. It happened like this – we were having a lala-vuka (an all-night drinking session) and in the early hours of the morning ran out of booze. One of the people there had a motorbike ad so I said I would go and buy some more liquor if I could use the bike. So the guy showed me the gears and how they worked and I went off on it.<br /><br />“The others were very worried, especially Mankunku, as we had been drinking for a long time. But I came back safely with the booze. I managed because of the lesson in concentration that Mankunku had given me.”<br /><br />“He's always stood by me – we've always been there for each other. I remember once a tenor ploayer called Mike Faure came to play at a club where we were playing. People were drawn to him because he was doing a new thing, a sort of Archie Shepp thing. I noticed Mankunku sitting to one side, feeling left out, so I went and spoke to him and told him I'm with him.<br /><br />“After the recording of 'Yakhl' inKomo' there was a jam session at Early Mabuza's house in Dube, Soweto. There were a lot of musicians, young and old and at that time I was just a face in the crowd because of the euphoria and excitement around 'Yakhal' inKomo'. I'll never forget Mankunku chose my favourite song on the programme, the ballad 'It Might as well be Spring' and came and asked to take the bass. I was shy and only reluctantly took the bass. We did the song and there was that emotional thing happening again and I could see him crying.<br /><br />“After the song ended he asked a question to the people in the room: 'Why don't we always play like this?'<br /><br />“I was a little confused at first but then I realised he was talking about getting emotionally involved when playing – giving it all.<br /><br />“This is my form of dedication and I want to thank him for his contribution to my career.<br /><br />“Go well, my dear friend.”<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4548794337966985204.post-72984489161782743032009-10-13T10:43:00.000+02:002009-10-13T10:43:22.578+02:00Tonight - 'A great loss for jazz music'<a href="http://www.tonight.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5200873&fSectionId=431&fSetId=251">Tonight - 'A great loss for jazz music'</a><br />South African jazz legend Winston Monwabisi Mankunku Ngozi, 66, has died.<br /><br />His younger brother Thuli said today the saxophonist had been ill for a while. "He was suffering from heart disease and has been in and out of hospital. In the end, his kidneys and liver packed up," he said.<br /><br />Ngozi died at the Victoria Hospital in Cape Town at around 2am.<br /><br />Friend and music promoter Rashid Lombard said Ngozi's death was a great loss for jazz music in Cape Town and South Africa.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script src="http://www.mg.co.za/feeds/legacy/freenews.aspx"></script></div>tonymcgregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594829999259691083noreply@blogger.com0