The bellowing horn is stilled – farewell Mankunku

An article I posted elsewhere on the Web on the day Mankunku died. I have moved it here as I think it more appropriate.

A colossus on the South African jazz scene is no more

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.
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!
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.
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.
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 Yakhal' inKomo, recorded in 1968. This album has remained one of the top-selling jazz albums in South Africa ever since.

The band of stalwarts

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.
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.
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.”

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.”
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.

Mankunku at the Cape Town Art Centre.

 Photo by Tony McGregor

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.”
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.

Mankunku at the Greenmarket Square gig. Photo by Tony McGregor

Mankunku recorded outside of South Africa for the first time in 1986, an album called Crossroads, 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.
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.
An album made with old South African jazz stalwart Tete Mbambisa was laid down in 1997 and 1998 called Molo Africa. One of the tracks is entitled “A Song For Bra Des Tutu” which, of course I love!
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.”
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.

Copyright Notice

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.
© Tony McGregor 2009

The Blue Notes in London

Note: 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Eric Nomvete with Murray McGregor. October 1987. Photo Tony McGregor

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 here). 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.

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 Mbizo – a book about Johnny Dyani (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.

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.

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.

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”.

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.

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 Down Beat.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Mongezi's eyes say so much! Photo John Goldblatt

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.

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.

Johnny was the next to die. He died doing what he loved best – making music. It happened in Berlin.

Chris died in late May 1990 and Bra Duds about six weeks later, leaving Bra Tebs as the sole survivor of that intrepid band.

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.” (White Bicycles, London, Serpent’s Tail, 2006)

Mongezi - total commitment to the music. Photo John Goldblatt

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.

Photo John Goldblatt

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.

John Keulder. Photo Tony McGregor, 7 June 2011

A note on the photos: The photographs were taken by John Goldblatt, a photographer working for the Daily Worker 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.. 

The day the piano went silent

The silent piano. Chris's beloved Bosendorfer at the Moulin in May 1990

Musician and visionary

(This was written on 26 May 2010)
Exactly 20 years ago today my brother, jazz 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 Chris McGregor and he and his musicians between them put out some of the most amazing jazz, in trio, small group, and big band formats.
Chris was much more than a musician, though. He really was a visionary. Even the name of his big band, the Brotherhood of Breath, spoke about his vision. He was passionately committed to freedom, not only in the music, 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.

Facing his death

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 Chasing the Vibration (1994). Lock interviewed Chris in September 1984.
“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.”
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 Chris McGregor and the Brotherhood of Breath, and subtitled “My Life with a South African Jazz Pioneer.”
Maxine wrote of Chris's philosophy of life:
“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 is 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.”
And she wrote of her own experience of Chris's death:
“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 life. For if you no longer fear death what is there to fear?”

The day he died

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.
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.”
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.
“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.
“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.”

Hazel Miller, Chris and Maxine at the Moulin

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.
And I was grateful to have known him, to have called him, in blood and in spirit, my brother.
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).

The day the piano went silent

The day the piano went silent
thula sana
the day the piano stopped singing
thula sana
the day your fingers stopped dancing
thula sana
that day our hearts went quiet
thula sizwe

Now the piano song is stilled
thula sana
And our hearts are stilled with pain
thula sana
We long to hear that song again
thula sana
The way our ears were filled
thula sizwe

The way our ears were filled
thula sana
With the song of the beating heart
thula sana
But now that heart is stilled
thula sana
The heart that gave us love
thula sizwe

O brother of mine, I miss you so
thula sana
My sister is weeping also
thula sana
Your songs are still in our hearts
thula sana
And their rhythms still mark our paths
thula sizwe

The hills and valleys of our youth
thula sana
Are waiting for the song's rebirth
thula sana
And the wind blowing over the hills
thula sana
Still cries out your name to the earth
thula sizwe.

You left us before we were ready
thula sana
Before we knew how to sing
thula sana
But now in our sadness we sing
thula sana
And the people will join our song
thula sizwe

Copyright Notice

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.
© Tony McGregor 2010

Chris McGregor – the posthumous albums

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.
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.
The last album that Chris recorded with the Brotherhood of Breath in a studio was the great Virgin release Country Cooking (1988) (released again in 2001 on French label Great Winds/Musea). It is a great album, possibly the greatest Brotherhood album.
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 En Concert a Banlieues Bleues 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.
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

SA Exiles' Thunderbolt

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).
The Thunderbolt went on tour through Europe playing many festivals and other gigs. This album was recorded at Mainz, Germany, on 17 May 1986.
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).
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.
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.”
The album was released in 1997 by Popular African Music, a label of Günter Gretz.

The Cuneiform Albums

Cuneiform Records of Silver Spring, Maryland, USA, released three live albums of Brotherhood of Breath gigs.
The first of these was called Travelling Somewhere 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).
The second, released in 2004, is a double album called Bremen to Bridgwater 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.
The third album, called Eclipse at Dawn, was released in 2008 and was recorded in November 1971 at the Berliner Philharmonie Jazztage.
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.
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.
The Bridgewater 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.
The Eclipse at Dawn 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.
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

The Fleg'ling Albums

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, Up To Earth, “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.”
“I do remember,” he goes on, “however, how exciting were the sessions.”
These two albums, Up To Earth, which features a septet of the best of jazz musicians playing in Britain at the time, and Our Prayer, showcase Chris's music starting to evolve from its roots into a new space and energy.
The musicians on Up To Earth 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.
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.
As Boyd wrote in his liner notes to Up To Earth: “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.”
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
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.
These two albums can also be downloaded from emusic, as well as the other Fledg'ling releases.

Township Bop

The final album of these posthumous releases is a curious one, curious in how it came about. It is called Township Bop 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.
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.
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.

Exuberance

Chris's beloved Bosendorfer at the Moulin after his death

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.

Copyright Notice

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.
© Tony McGregor 2010

Top 10 albums of the South African jazz diaspora – Tony's picks

Top 10 albums of the South African jazz diaspora – Tony's picks
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

Jazz: The African Sound

“The African Sound … spells out clearly the character and direction of South African jazz towards its own territorial identity – a vigorous, lively, good-humoured swing which you will not find anywhere else on earth, North America included.” So wrote the Johannesburg Star’s critic Richard McNeill of the original release of this album.

This album of original South African jazz is unique in many ways – it was the first album of South African jazz composed, arranged and played by an all-South African big band. At the time of its release in 1963 it was unique also in that the band members were both white and Black. At the time this was almost unthinkable in South Africa.

The uniqueness also came from the fact that the band which made it had a very circumscribed life – the band was together for a total of three weeks, during which time they rehearsed, did a number of concerts and the recording.

In September of 1963 there was a jazz festival at the Moroka-Jabavu Stadium in Soweto. This festival was underwritten by the brewers of Castle Lager Beer, South African Breweries (now SABMiller). All the best-known names in South African jazz were there and, although the festival itself was not a great success, some great music emerged from it.

Maxine McGregor, widow of Chris McGregor, who was responsible for the arrangements on the album, writes in her book Chris McGregor and the Brotherhood of Breath:

“Chris took advantage of the proximity of all the best jazz musicians in the country to persuade the breweries to back him in another venture – a big (17-piece) band with the musicians of his choice. They gave him a week to arrange, teach and rehearse with the band, and during that time he did not sleep at all. Chris was not given to arranging music very fast; he gave a lot of thought and time to his work, but once done he rarely had to amend anything. He would sit up all night writing the arrangements and during the days set about teaching each musician his part and trying them out together. Not all the musicians could read music which was an added complication, but as they were used to playing by ear they were astonishingly quick to pick up the arrangements. Twenty-four hours for each song, seven by the end of the first week; then they played several concerts in the townships round Johannesburg and in Benoni and Boksburg.”

The result was a band that, in spite of their different backgrounds and experience, came together in an amazing way to make some truly original and beautiful music, a classic in South African jazz.

It was a project that pianist, composer and arranger Chris McGregor had been dreaming of for some time: “I have waited for years to hear a band composed of the brightest stars in South African jazz and my note-books are full of projected personnel and worthwhile compositions for such a venture, the fruits of listening to and being involved with this lovely thing, jazz music in South Africa,” he wrote in the liner notes to the album.

As McGregor would say in an interview with Graham Lock some 20 years later: “I’m an absolute nut for big bands. I love the colours and the energy flow of big groups. I’ve always been ultra-attracted by that organisation and putting-together capacity that was so uniquely Duke’s. I love playing, arranging, composing – the lot!”

McGregor’s love for “playing, arranging, composing” certainly comes through on this album: two of the six numbers are his own compositions, all the arrangements and of course he is leading the whole enterprise from the piano. The other four compositions on the album are two each from Kippie Morolong Moeketsi and Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim).

The album opens with Kippie’s song “Switch” which McGregor arranged “to showcase his alto playing.” It’s a medium-tempo number which McGregor writes “has no real key but has a feeling of departure and return through the riff used as introduction and coda.”At just more than six minutes it is the longest track on the album.

Next up is Dollar Brand’s “Kippie” which, as McGregor writes, “was composed by Dollar to express the way he feels about Kippie and I have arranged to express the way I feel about both of them.” After a short ensemble opening, there follows a long passage of piano, bass and drums, setting the generally reflective tone of the piece. The bridge before Kippie enters on clarinet is carried by two tenors and another alto (Nikele Moyake, Ronnie Beer and Dudu Pukwana). Kippie’s clarinet solo is simply stunning, and at its end I keep wishing for more. The somewhat Ellingtonian climax with all the horns leads into Kippie’s soulful ending.

The mood changes abruptly with the energetic opening bars of Brand’s “Eclipse at Dawn”, in which the theme is laid down by Kippie on clarinet, accompanied by Dudu Pukwana on alto and Mongezi Feza on muted trumpet, before an understated but swinging piano solo by McGregor before Kippie gets down with his clarinet again, swinging like crazy! Kippie’s solo is followed by a great tenor solo by Nikele Moyake. Some great trombone sounds in the bridge and then it’s back to the theme with Kippie, Dudu and Mongezi.

Eight years later McGregor would again record Eclipse at Dawn, this time with the Brotherhood of Breath at the 1971 Berliner Jazztage festival. This time the song becomes the springboard for an exuberant free blow, introduced by a long, slow introduction with a mostly bowed bass by Harry Miller leading interpolations from various instruments. In this version of the tune McGregor’s piano is hardly heard at all and the solos are taken by Nick Evans on trombone and Mike Osborne on alto. Altogether a very different take on the song showing what a difference exposure to the freer jazz atmosphere of Europe had made to both McGregor and Pukwana, who were in fact the only two musicians on this album who had also been part of The African Sound.

But back to The African Sound. The next track is the swinging, up-tempo “Early Bird” by McGregor, a tribute to drummer “Early Bird” Mabusa. It is marked by energetic ensemble playing by all the horns in dynamic exchanges with Mabusa’s drums, plus some great solo work by, among others, a young and up-coming alto player Barney Rachabane whose passion and exciting playing are already noticeable. An elegant solo by McGregor is also a feature of the track.

After all the energy of “Early Bird” comes Kippie’s reflective, beautiful ballad “I Remember Billy”, his clarinet leading into some wonderfully sonorous phrases from the whole band, with muted trumpets adding gentle highlights to the sonic landscape. The brass section really dominates for a few minutes before Kippie comes back with some soulful clarinet responses, before he signs off the whole thing.

Next up is another McGregor tune listed on the album as “Now” but more usually called “Manje” which is the Xhosa word for “now”. This is the only tune on this album apart from “Eclipse at Dawn” that McGregor recorded elsewhere. It was recorded twice by McGregor’s group The Blue Notes in the following year, 1964, on albums released many years later called respectively “Township Bop” and “The Blue Notes Legacy”. It was recorded twice again in 1971, this time by McGregor’s later big band the Brotherhood of Breath, on albums also released many years later: “Bremen to Bridgwater” and “Eclipse at Dawn”. Another version of the song was recorded in 1975 and also released on the “Bremen to Bridgewater” album. The Blue Notes came back to the song in 1977 on an album called “The Blue Notes in Concert Volume 1” released by Ogun in 1978.

As McGregor wrote in the liner notes this song was “about” Nikele Moyake, the great tenor player who does most of the soloing during this big band showcase number, with the rest of the horns roaring enthusiastically behind him. A fitting end to a great album of classic South African jazz.

The masters of this album were lost from the Gallo tape vaults and could not be found when the company wanted to re-release it as part of their “African Heritage” series. The re-release was made possible by a South African jazz who used to buy two copies of any South African jazz album he liked, and typically kept one of the copies sealed and unplayed. Luckily he had such a copy of this album and the CD was mastered from the sealed, unplayed vinyl. Fortunately the sound of the original album was so good that the re-mastering from vinyl was very successful and the CD sounds amazingly fresh and full.

Chris - the Brother I Loved

"With his imagination and his fingers, Chris McGregor created a rich legacy of music, infused with the rhythms and harmonies of Africa. Tony McGregor remembers his brother, the jazz giant who died in 1990." This article was first published in the South African jazz journal TwoTone in March 1992.

From a young boy running over the rolling hills of the Transkei (now the Eastern part of the Eastern Cape Province), quickly picking up the rhythm and melody happening all around him, to the owner of a peaceful farm in a beautiful valley in the South West of France - this is the story of the brother I loved.

In between lay the years of study, the years of listening and learning, which took him from the lecture halls of the College of Music in Cape Town to the shebeens and beer halls of Langa, Nyanga, Soweto and countless places between. The on to the jazz clubs, cafes and eventually the concert halls of Europe.

And always litening, picking up the rhythm, the melody, the harmony of whatever was happening around him.

One of my favourite memories of Chris is of the time I arrived at the Moulin de Madone (his farm in France) on my first visit to Europe in 1979. I was suffering from deep culture shock, not to mention the effects of a gruelling three-week tour of Germany and Switzerland with a party of journalists from South Africa. I had left the party the day before in Geneva and had flown to Paris, then taken the train first to Bordeau and then Tonneins. There I found a taxi driver who agreed to take me to the Moulin. I had no idea where it was. I was exhausted and felt lost.


After a drive of about 40 minutes through rolling green hill, not unlike those of the Transkei, we arrived at a rambling, rather ramshackly building. "Le Moulin," the driver annoiunced tersely and I got out of the cart just as Chris came to greet me, arms outstretched, long grey hair and beard flwoing, and that deep, loving voice, "Hey, Anthony!"

We spent some time talking and, getting my things sorted out, walking around the farm. Maxine, Chris' wonderful wife, was out driving with her sister who was also visiting, so Chris and I had some hours on our own.

At suppertime Chris asked what I fancied for the evening meal. "How about omelettes aux herbes sauvage?" he asked.

As we walked together Chris picked leaves from a variety of wild plants next to the road or in the fields.

Back in the kitchen - an amazing room with onions and garlic hanging next to windows garlanded with spiders' webs, posters on the walls and a grand piano in the corner - eggs were broken into a large pan and mixed with the leaves he had picked.

We ate the best omelettes I have ever tasted with thick chunks of bread - a far cry from the super-refined, homogenised food I had been eating for three weeks.

For me this episode epitomises some of Chris' most wonderful qualities - his connectedness to the environment around him and his ability to create a tasty meal from what was at hand - be it a meal for the palate or a meal for the ears. He took what he found and then transformed it with his imagination and skilled, strong fingers.

His imagination and fingers created a rich legacy of music which has been an inspiration to many musicians and a source of joy and sometimes wonder to many thousands of music lovers in Africa and Europe.

Chris' roots, through all the years in Europe, remained firmly in Africa. Through all his music the complexc rhythms and harmonies of Africa, both rural and urban, pulsate and shimmer like a heat haze over the veld, weaving patterns of light and shade like the blades of grass blown by the wind - now in unison, now in contrary mjotion, but never still, alweays full of energy and life.

I think it is no accident that he always seemed most at home musically with a rhythm section with similar African roots. During his last, most creative years he was urged on by the dynamism of drummer Gilbert Matthews and bassist Ernest Shololo Mothle. During the early Blue Note years, the time of often desperate struggle, it was Louis Tebogo Moholo on drums and Johnny Mbizo Dyani on bass who provided solid support and a foundation for the sometimes wild flights of creation. Louis and Johnny also formed the core of the first Brotherhood of Breath big band - as Gilbert and Ernest did in the last, great incarnation of the band.

We are fortunate that much of Chris' music still exists on record. From the three exciting tracks on the 1962 Moroka-Jabavu Jazz Festival ablum to the 1989 Brotherhood of Breath concert with Archie Shepp in France, Chris' genius as arranger. leader and pianist can still be heard, and, within the limitations of recording technology, experienced.

After the 1963 Moroka-Jabavu festival Chris put together a big band, his first, for a three-week period, with sponsorship from the Festival sponsors. This band made a recording - Jazz: The African Sound - which was remarkable, not only for the quality of the arrangements, the exciting musicians featured and the great compositions played, but also for the recording quality.

Featured on the album were established greats like Kippie Morolong Moeketsi and then up-and-coming young musos like Barney Rachabane, Bra Duds Pukwana, and the 17-year-old trumpet wizard Mongezi Feza - who blew them all away!

The album showcased Chris' arrangemnts of two songs by Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim), two by Kippie and two of his own compositions.

This gem of an album has been unavailable for many years, but is soon to be re-released by Gallo Music Publishers.

In 1964 Chris left for Europe with the Blue Notes, a band made up of people he enjoyed playing with, many of whom had been on the big band album of the previous year.

The group consisted of Dudu Pukwana on alto, Nikele Moyake on tenor, Mongezi Feza on trumpet, Mbizo Dyani on bass, Louis Moholo on drums, and Chris on piano. Ronnie beer, another tenor player, joined the group in 1965.

In 1968 Chris' first album recorded outside South Africa was released on the Polydor label. It was called Very Urgent and featured the same musicians - with the exception of Nikele Moyake who had died tragically.

On this album the Blue Notes showed their mastery of the freer form of jazz then in vogue in Britain and Europe, as well as their deep African roots.

The song Don't Stir the Beehive harks back powerfully to a Transkei evening with herders whistling and calling to each other, snatches of song and the random rhythm of insects in the thorn trees. Listening to this track I can almost smell the cooking fires and see the sun setting behind the hills in a dusty purploe and orange haze. I certainly feel the longing for home that pervades the track.

In all the recordings Chris made - whether with the Blue Notes, the Brotherhood of Breath, or with other musicians such as District Six (Brian Abraham's wonderful group) and Courtney Pine - this rootedness in Afrioca is apparent.

But more than the great musician, I miss the great person, a giant both physically and intellectually. I wish that his many recordings (at the time of writing this was about 14) were more readily available to his brothers and sisters back home. But even more I wish he could have experienced the amazing flowering of music, the music to which he devoted his life - both here, in this country he loved so dearly, and internationally.

It seems so much like a vindication of all he strove for.

Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath - Spiritual Brotherhood

This is the second part of the Brotherhood of Breath story and was published in the South African jazz journal TwoTone in October 1992. The first part was was called Prophets Without Honour, which was published in the same journal in September 1992.

Brotherhood of Breath's 1971 album was followed by a second RCA release the following year, Brotherhood.

In 1974 came a live album recorded at the jazz festival in Willisau, Switzerland. This featured an impressive number by famous Nigerian percussionist Tungi Oyelana called, appropriately enough, Tungi's Song, featuring a breathtaking solo from Mongezi Feza (trumpet).

Chris had met Tungi during a six-week visit to Nigeria in 1969, while he was writing the score for a movie version of Wole Soyinka's play, Kongi's Harvest. Sadly, the movie was never released and the recorded score is still gathering dust in a tape vault somewhere. Any offers for local release from a record company - I'm sure it would be a commercially viable project?

Another live album was recorded at Toulouse in France in 1977. It contained only three tracks - but what great tracks they are: Chris' own Sunrise on the Sun, Mongezi's lovely Sonia and Dudu Pukwana's Kwhalo.

On this date the band featured two South African basses - Mbizo Dyani and Harry Miller. In the liner notes Keith Beal wrote that the South Africans in the band "...will tell you that all music is a religious experience." That was certainly true of the Brotherhood in all its incarnations: the music exhuded a spiritual quality which reflected the vision of all its members.

Another highly-charged album was Yes Please, recorded at the time of the 1981 Angouleme Jazz Festival - not a live album but one which shows a 17-member line-up in great form.

For me, one number which seems to epitomise the spiritual quality Beal refers to is Uqonda from this Angouleme album. Hearing Shololo Mothle lay down the theme with support from Peter Segona on trumpet and Bruce Grant's flute obligato is an emotionally involving excperience.

In 1988 Virgin released possibly the greatest Brotherhood album, Country Cooking, which has been available in South Africa for some time, but only in limited quantities.

In 1989 the band toured Europe with US reedman Archie Shepp. One of the concerts was released on CD in France - the last Brotherhood album with Chris at the piano. On this CD they paly typical Brotherhood numbers like Country Cooking and Sweet as Honey, as well as two Shepp numbers, Steam and Bessie Smith's Blues, the latter featuring some great blues shouting by Shepp himself.

Brotherhood's story is a great chapter in then history of South African music. Sadly, its one little known to most South African music lovers. There is talk of some members of the band visiting the country later in the year. Maybe that will provide the opportunity for jazz fans to read at least a little of this lost chapter.

A short discography of the Brotherhood of Breath

Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath RCA Neon 1971

Brotherhood RCA Victor 1972

Live at Willisau Ogun 1974

Live at Toulouse: Procession Ogun 1978

Yes Please In and Out 1981

Country Cooking Virgin 1988

Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath with Archie Shepp 52 Rue Est 1989

Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath

This article was originally published in the South African jazz journal TwoTone in October 1992. The editor introduced the piece with this superscript header: "In the first of a two-part series, Tony McGregor uses the re-release of a little-known classic as an opportunity to review the recording career of the Blue Notes and Brotherhood of Breath and argue that tragically, they remain in South Africa Prophets Without Honour."

For nearly thirty years, only a few diehard fans knew the album existed.

Now Gallo/Teal has re-released Jazz: The African Sound, a gem of an album by Chris McGregor and the Castle Lager Big Band. It was recorded in 1963, a year before Chris and five fellow-musicians left South Africa, never to record or play together here again.

The re-release is a poignant reminder of how much we South Africans have paid, in cultural terms at least, for apartheid.

Even most serious South African jazz fundis (fundi - a South African word meaning one who knows, an expert) are unaware that a group of six South African musicians turned the European music scene upside down from the mid-Sixties on.

Never mind the British Musicians' Union and Equity bans - apartheid drove these musicians out of South Africa and kept their immeasurable contribution to South African music a secret from most Sou8th Africans.

Perhaps the opening up of South Africa and the slow and painful demise of apartheid will at least bring appreciation for the legacy of those musicians who, long before Paul Simon and the rest, saw the huge potential of our indigenous musical heritage. Dud Pukwana, Mongezi Feza, Nikele Moyake, Johnny Mbizo Dyani, Louis Tebogo Moholo and Chris McGregor, calling themselves "The Blue Notes", left South Africa in 1964 after a nation-wide tour, to play at the Antibes-Juan-les-Pins Jazz Festival on France's famed Cote d'Azur, where they attracted very favourable critical notice. They went on to busk around Europe for a year before settling in Britain where they promptly began blowing up quite a storm.

In the words of British jazz critic and author Valerie Wilmer, they "literally upturned the London jazz scene, helping create an exciting climate in which other young players could develop their own ideas about musical freedom."

Wilmer described the change brought about by The Blue Notes like this: "There were times when rooms more accustomed to the anodyne four-in-a-bar jocularity of an Acker Bilk took on the gritty character of a Soweto shebeen..."

Some of this character and energy can be heard on the relatively few recordings made by the band - what a shock numbers like Don't Stir the Beehive, We Nduna and others must have been to most British jazz fans.

From the energetic core of The Blue Notes McGregor developed his next big band, called the Brotherhood of Breath, reflecting in the name something of Chris's deeply-felt belief about music transcending and breaking down what he termed "outdated concepts of national identity and the nation state."

The band went through a number of incarnations from its formation until Chris' death at 53 in May 1990. Over the years it became what Dutch jazz writer Frits Lagerwerff called "the best free jazz big band in the world."

It was formed early in 1967 and had its first public outing at the famed Ronnie Scott's "Old Place" in March of that year. Clive Crickmer of Melody Maker was moved to write of its debut: "This must be it. The most urgent, and explosive, and powerfully swinging new big band to have appeared in years."

In the Daily Telegraph (yes, indeed!) Peter Clayton wrote about the "kwela jauntiness...plus a sort of ceremonial abandon which seems to inform some of Dudu Pakewana's (sic) more inspired flights."

In an interview at the time (with Chris Bird of Melody Maker) Chris said: "I'm not interested in that highly organised, compositional aspect of big band music, I go for moods, for feelings and textures and most of my things are very sketchy. That way the guys themselves can contribute more to what's going on."

In another interview at that time he said: "There are so many ways of making music and they all interest me."

Tragically, to my knowledge at least, no recordings of this band exist. At the time journalist Miles Kington wrote that soem of Chris' South African recordings (Jazz: The African Sound, in fact) were available to Decca, "but there seems little hope of their becoming more than merely available."

Kington prophetically continued: "This is a great shame because by the time these bands (he was writing about the Brotherhood as well as Graham Collier's septet and the Mike Westbrook Band) are well-known enough to force companies to record them, whole stages of their development will have vanished forever."

The band did not last long and there was a three-year gap before it was reborn, but what a rebirth it was.

"If anyone tells you that happiness has gone out of jazz, tell them about the Brotherhood of Breath," wrote Valerie Wilmer in Melody Maker. "If anyone says that the New Music is committed to overtones of anger and hatred, tell them about Chris McGregor's Big Band. If anyone asks you where have all the firemen gone, tell them about Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath.

"And say it loud, for if you don't, the band will stow away their charts and fold up their music stands for another three years," she continued. "They keep on trying to tell us that jazz is dead and rock's the thing, but not so, folks. With men like McGregor's around, jazz will never die."

The band, in its second incarnation, got its recording break in 1971 when RCA chose it to launch their new Neon label and over the following years in its various versions, made some outstanding recordings. Limited availability in South Africa has meant that these are all too little-known.

A total of seven Brotherhood albums were released: two on the RCA label, two on Ogun, and one on Virgin. The other two were released on French labels only.

This period also saw many concert, festival and club appearances and many ups and downs for Chris and the other Blue Notes pioneers.

The Brotherhood fluctuated in size from around ten to around 17, and Chris went out of his way to find musicians from many different backgrounds to bring their own particular gifts and insights to the music.

But it was always the South African core of musicians who contributed theior energy and the creative edge to the band. The music, however "far out" it became, however "free", was always grounded in African harmonies and rhythms.

The South Africans in the early Brotherhood included Mongezi Feza (trumpet), Dudu Pukwana and Ronnie Beer (saxes), Harry Miller (bss) and Louis Moholo (drums). By the early Eighties the new generation of South African members were Brian Abrahams and Gilbert Matthews (drums), Ernest Shololo Mothle (bass) and Peter Segona (trumpet).

By the late Eighties the band included, besides the now "older" generation represented by Mothle and Matthews, "younger" musicians like Claude Deppa (trumpet), Frank Williams and Robert Juritz (saxes).

Singers like Peggy Phango, Phinise Saule, Sonti Mndebele and Aura Lewis sang with the Brotherhood from time to time. Cosmo Pieterse recited his poems to their backing.

The longest serving member of the Brotherhood is trumpeter Harry Beckett, the only person besides Chris to have been in all the band's various incarnations.

Two women have played with the band - Annie Whitehead on trombone and Caroline Collins on cello. And if the cello is an unusual instrument in a big band, Brotherhood has also featured a bassoon (Robert Juritz) and has had from time to time two basses and two drummers together in its line-up (coincidentally one each French and South African - namely Didier Levallet and Ernest Mothle on basses and Jean-Claude Montredon and Brian Abrahams on drums).

Beside compositions by Chris and other Blue Notes' members the band has played songs by Makaya Davashe (Lakutshon' iLanga), Mike Osborne (Think of Something), trombone player Radu Malfatti (the exciting Yes Please), Ernest Mothle (Thunder in the Mountain) and George Lee (Big G). And the surviving original members of the Blue Notes were meanwhile all actively pursuing their own individual musical careers.

Mbizo Dyani, Dudu Pukwana and Louis Moholo were playing with some international jazz greats like Steve Lacy, Don Cherry and John Tchicai as well as then also expatriot fellow-South Africans Abdullah Ibrahim, Hugh Masekela and others.

Some of these recordings have been seen on local record shop shelves, but they have certainly not been given the exposure they deserved. Ironically, musicians who were sought out by European and US musicians, had less success in their own country than these very same international performers.
It is still easier to get albums by Max Roach than Louis Moholo, David Murray than Dudu Pukwana and John Patitucci than Mbizo Dyani, despite the international acclaim for these South Africans' talent.