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Ever
since the day in 1954 when Archbishop Trevor Huddleston
gave him his trumpet, Masekela has played music that
closely reflects his beginnings as a little boy in
Witbank.
The street songs, church songs, migrant labor
work songs, political protest songs and the sounds of
the wide cross-section of ethnic culture South Africa
possesses from Xhosa, Zulu, Swazi, Khoi-sa, Griqua,
Sotho and Tswana peoples of the South, South East,
Central and Western Regions to the Ndebele, Tsonga,
Venda and Pedi provinces of the North and North West.
The urban sounds of the townships, the influences
of the Manhattan Brothers, Dorothy Masuka, the Dark City
Sisters, the Mahotella Queens and Mahlathini, Ladysmith
Black Mambazo, Miriam Makeba, Spokes Mashiyane, Lemmy
Mabaso, Elijah Nkwanyana, Kippie Moeketsi, Mackay
Davashe, all these form an intrinsic part of his musical
roots, intertwined with vivid portraits of the struggles
and the sorrows, the joys and passions of his
country.
After
Huddleston asked the leader of the Johannesburg
“Native” Municipal Brass Band, Uncle Saude to teach
him the rudiments of trumpet playing, Hugh quickly
proceeded to master the instrument after having been
inspired by the film “Young man with a horn” in
which Kirk Douglas portrait the great American Jazz
trumpeter, Bix Beiderbeck.
Soon, some of his music – loving schoolmates
also became interested in playing instruments, leading
to the formation of the Huddleston Jazz Band, South
Africa’s very first youth orchestra formed at St.
Peters Secondary School where the anti-apartheid priest
was chaplain.
Huddleston
was deported by the racist government of the time for
his emancipation militancy and when Hugh kept on
badgering him to help him leave the oppressive country
for music education opportunities abroad, the priest
worked very hard to get him to England.
After playing in other dance bands led by the
great Zakes Nkosi, Ntemi Piliso, Elijah Nkwanyana and
Kippie Moeketsi, he joined the star studded African Jazz
Revenue in 1956.
Following a 77Manhattan Brothers tour of the
country in 1958, he ended up playing in the orchestra
for the “King-Kong” musical written by Todd
Matshikiza, with Jonas Gwangwa and some of the afore
–mentioned musicians.
King-Kong” was South Africa’s first record
– breaking blockbuster theatrical success that toured
the country for a sold – out year with Miriam Makeba
and the Manhattan Brother’s Nathan Mdledle in the
lead.
The musical later went to London’s West End for
two years.
At the end of 1959, Abdullah Ibrahim, Kippie,
Jonas, Makhaya Ntshoko, Johnny Gertz and Hugh formed
Jazz Epistle Verse 1, the first African group to record
an LP and perform to record-breaking audiences in J.H.B.
& Cape Town through late 1959 to early 1960.
After
the March 21, 1960 Sharpville Massacre where 69 Africans
peacefully protesting the pass laws along the thousands
of their fellow comrades were mercilessly mowed down,
the ensuing national outrage caused the government to
proclaim a state of emergency and the banning of
gatherings by more than ten people.
As
the brutality of the Apartheid state increased, Hugh
finally left the country with the help of Trevor
Huddleston and his friends Yehudi Menuhin and Johnny
Dankworth who got him admitted into London’s Guildhall
School of music. Miriam
Makeba who was already enjoying major success in the USA
later helped him with Harry Belafonte, Dizzy Gillepsie
and John Mehegan to get admission to the Manhattan
school of Music in New York.
Hugh finally met Louis Armstrong who had sent the
Huddleston Band a trumpet after Huddleston told the
trumpet king about the bank he helped start back in
South Africa before deportation. With immense help from
Makeba and Belafonte, Hugh eventually began to record,
gaining his first breakthrough with “The
Americanization of Ooga-Booga” produced by the late
Tom Wilson who had been producer of Bob Dylan and Simon
& Garfunkel’s debut successes. Stewart Levine his
business partner in Chissa Records went on to produce
hit records for Hugh on Uni Records, beginning with
“Alive and Well at the Whisky” in 1967 and then
“”Promise of A Future” which contained the
gigantic hit song “Grazing in the Grass” in 1968.
By
the beginning of the 1970’s he had attained
international fame, selling out all of America’s
festivals, auditoriums and top nightclubs. Heeding the call of his African roots, he moved to Guinea,
then Liberia and Ghana after recording the historical
“ Home is where Music is” with Dudu Pokwana.
After
a pilgrimage to Zaire in 1973, he met Fela in Nigeria
and again with Stewart Levine, he met “Hedzoleh Soundz”
a grassroots Ghanaian bank Fela introduced them to.
For the next five years they produced a string of
ground breaking records, which included international
favorites such as “The Marketplace”, “Ashiko”. “The Boy’z doin it”, “Vasco Da Gama”, “African
Secret Society” and the evergreen “Stimela”.
After a tour and two duet albums with Herp
Albert, Hugh and Miriam played a Christmas Day concert
in Lesotho in 1980 where 75 000 people came to see them
after they had been away for 20 years from the region.
In 1981, Hugh moved to Botswana where he started
the Botswana international School of Music with Dr.
Khabi Mngona. His record label Jive Records, helped him to set up a mobile
studio in Gaborone where Stewart produced “Techno
Bush” from which came the hit single “Don’t Go
Lose it Baby” in 1986, he unexpectedly had to leave
with his band Kalahari for England, his wife Lindi
Phahle along with 14 people in the pretext of raiding
“communist terrorist camps” manned by South African
Anti-Apartheid activists.
While
in England, Hugh conceived the Broadway musical
“Sarafina” with Mbongeni Ngema and recorded another
runaway song “Bring Back Nelson Mandela bring him back
home to Soweto” with Kalahari in 1986. After touring in “Graceland” with Paul Simon, Black
Mambazo and Miriam Makeba, Masekela returned home
following the un-banning of political parties and the
release of Nelson Mandela in 1990. in 1991, he launched his first tour of South Africa called
“Sekunjalo This is it” with Sankomota and Bayete; it
was a four-month tour, selling out in the country’s
major cities. His recent albums “Black to the
Future” and sixty “have both gone platinum.
He
uses his position to give a platform to a fresh
generation of South African talent, some of whom will be
playing in his band on tour, Masekela was heavily
influences by African-American music since his infancy,
having been raised on the 78 RPM gramophone records of
Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Bessie Smith, Ma
Rainey, Chick Webb, Ella Fitzgerald, Sy Oliver, Lucky
Millinder, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Erskine Hawkins,
Coleman Hawkins, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, Sarah
Vaughen, Billy Eckstine, Louis Jordan, The Ink Spots,
The Mills Brothers, Billie Holiday and Charlie
Christian. In his teens, he fell in love with Dizzy Gillepsie, George
Shearing, Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, Coltrane, Cannon
ball, Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, Kenny
Dorham, Oscar Peterson, Bud Shank, Dave Brubeck, Paul
Desmond, Stan Getz, Jackie & Roy Krak, June Christy
Shorty Roger, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Bud Powell,
and Mahalia Jackson.
He went to school with Dave Grusinm, Herbie
Hancock, Chick Correa, David Izenzon, Donald Byrd, Eric
Dolphy, John Handy, Les Mc Ann, Edie Gomez, Richard
Davis, Ron Carter and many other jazz greats.
He played on some of Bob Marley’s very first
readings and a very strong Brazilian influence.
His favorite musician today is the late Franco of
Zaire and he claims that he’s still learning music.
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Live
at the Market Theater
press release:
Before
jazz had a name and “world music” was a concept, a
young trumpet player emerged from another hemisphere and
landed alongside some of the greatest icons in American
music. Louis Armstrong sent him a trumpet. Harry
Belafonte arranged for him to come to
New York City
to study music. Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis took him
under their wings. That man, Hugh Masekela, born out of
apartheid
South Africa
, has consistently toured worldwide and his
genre-bending dynamism has led to his own icon status.
His uncategorizable sound comes to life on Live at the
Market Theatre, a momentous, new recording on Times
Square/4 Q Records in collaboration with Chissa
Entertainment Group, timed for release alongside
Masekela’s North American tour in July, August, and
September.
The
two-disc outing includes Masekela favorites “Grazing
in the Grass,” which, in 1968, was one of the only
instrumentals to ever hit number on the Billboard Hot
100 chart; the Fela-inspired Pan-Africanist groove of
“The Boy’s Doin’ It;” and “Mandela,” a jazzy
reprise of Masekela’s historic anthem calling for the
release of the ANC leader Nelson Mandela. Two
other stand-out tracks of the album are Fela Kuti’s
“Lady” and O.J. Ekemode’s “Ashiko,” both
representing Masekela’s forays into Nigerian and
Afro-Beat sounds. Masekela’s musical and physical
travels found him visiting and residing in a variety of
countries throughout Africa, and in Europe and the
U.S.A.
After
many years spent in exile from the violence and
oppression of apartheid-era
South Africa
, Masekela returned 17 years ago to help rebuild his
homeland. Live at the Market Theatre represents
Masekela’s status as a musical freedom fighter in
South Africa
while demonstrating what he’s known for best in the
outside world: his energetic and groove-driven freedom
sound.
The
Market Theatre is an apt representation of Masekela’s
commitment to South African identity and Pan-African
nation-building. The Theatre itself is one of the most
significant cultural institutions of
South Africa
, having survived through the apartheid regime to today.
With origins in liberation theater, it became an
incubator for the nation’s great playwrights, actors,
and other cultural workers. It is there that
Masekela’s highly acclaimed musical “Sarafina” was
born. For its recent 30th year anniversary,
Masekela was included in a month-long series of
performances representing the defining acts of the South
African nation. Live at the Market Theatre was recorded
during these celebrations.
“I
come from a nation that has fought very hard for its
dignity, liberation, and human freedom,” says
Masekela. “Yet as Africans, we’ve never been able to
project our image ourselves. We’ve been hoodwinked
into thinking our culture is barbaric and savage. A lot
of people think progress is what they see on TV.
They’ve been turned into consumers who don’t produce
anything. But our heritage is our biggest wealth. It’s
more diverse and richer than anything else we have. And
it is the only thing that cannot be taken away from
us.”
So
in addition to continuing a rigorous schedule of
international touring, in recent months Masekela has set
his sights on transforming the entertainment industry
throughout
Africa
. “So far, it’s been foreign owned, even on the
ground here,” says Masekela. By forming partnerships
in different parts of the continent he is on the way to
creating an African-owned entertainment network and
record company. In addition to the label and
distribution company, Masekela and his Chissa
Entertainment company also develop screenplays and
musical theater.
“I’ve
always been involved with community and I think I owe
everything I am to that,” Masekela proclaims. “I
will never be able to pay even the interest of what I
got from them. That is what I am obsessed with. Anything
I can do to create platforms for the excellence of the
continent to be seen and heard.”
Masekela’s
summer tour in
North America
brings to life the connection between his African sound
and his musical alliance with the original American
classical music: jazz.
“We
identified with jazz because in those days, jazz showed
the excellence of a people who had been enslaved and
racially discriminated against,” explains Masekela.
“Dizzy and Miles were not looked on with love from the
Western establishment. They were independent Black
people who didn’t take crap from anybody. Louis
Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and Count Basie represented
triumph in spite of oppression. And to a certain extent,
America
owes its fame to those people. Though they will never be
awarded the respect they deserve. They reached all over
the world.”
“I
come from a country that fought for liberation for 400
years without a break,” Masekela says. “There
wasn’t a day in this country when people were not
fighting for their country, from 1650 to 1994. When I
was growing up, we were able to survive this country
because of the inspiration from Black American
musicians. There was a sociopolitical umbilical cord
that joined us.”
Though
Masekela’s summer tour reinforces that connection when
it reaches all major cities and several smaller town in
the
U.S.A.
and three Canadian festivals, in the end it is still
about making people feel good. “We’re coming there
to play and make people happy,” concludes Masekela.
“They get off and dance their asses off at our shows.
They are spiritually uplifted and that’s all you can
be proud to be a part of. They go out of there way to
come to our shows, so you gotta’ make them feel
good!”
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