JAZZ pianist Moses Molelekwa admits to a degree of=20 schizophrenia. “Musically, I’ve always lived in two=20 worlds,” he says. “First, there’s the jazz world of home=20 and of the Fuba Academy where I trained. My grandfather was=20 a musician, although I never knew that — or him — until=20 just before his death in the mid-1980s. From my family’s=20 records, I’d listened to a huge amount of American jazz=20 before I even reached my teens.=20
“But then there’s the other world: the traditional sounds=20 of the township, and in particular travelling Pedi=20 musicians and dancers. When I first heard them, I was=20 knocked out. I couldn’t believe that drums could sound like=20 that. Hearing those rhythms gave me the freedom of a bigger=20 room to compose in.”=20
That composing, and Molelekwa’s very distinctive keyboard=20 voice, has just made it on to CD, on the album Finding=20 One’s Self out on the B&W label and to be released here on=20 June 5.=20
So far, it’s been a short and crowded career for the 22- year-old. He was already playing the piano at 12, when his=20 father recognised his talent and took him along to the Fuba=20 Academy for lessons. He formed a band with fellow students,=20 and professional engagements followed with singer Thembi=20 Mtshali, guitarist Bheki Khoza and singer Jennifer Ferguson=20 (as musical director). He has also worked with prizewinning=20 bands Brotherhood (led by McCoy Mrubatha) and Umbongo.=20
In 1992, Molelekwa joined Hugh Masekela’s band Lerapo and=20 toured in the US and Europe. That experience broadened his=20 listening horizons. “In the United States I heard=20 recordings of pianist Julian Joseph. What he was doing –=20 the freedom he was working with — blew my mind. Also=20 overseas, I saw so many albums by South African artists=20 like Abdullah Ibrahim, which you can’t find here.”=20
Ibrahim is a long-time influence. “At first I only knew his=20 tune Manenberg, but when I was about 16, I bought an album=20 and learned what a great composer he was. Then he visited=20 Fuba.” But the influence isn’t directly musical. “Abdullah=20 inspired me to choose my direction and be confident in it.=20 But the musical tradition I’m picking up on, at least in=20 this first album, is much more the jazz fusion tradition of=20 great bands like Sakhile in the 1980s.”=20
In that sense, Finding One’s Self is a historic album. It=20 picks up one thread from South Africa’s tangled jazz skein:=20 the fusion explorations which marked the music of Sakhile,=20 Pacific Express and to some extent even the Malopoets.=20 Sakhile’s Isililo was that music’s swansong. After those=20 Soweto killings, the sort of gigging which would have=20 allowed it full flowering became impossible. On the album,=20 Molelekwa revisits that genre in the gentle Nomkhosi, the=20 ambience of the Cape in Mountain Shade, and township marabi=20 in Bo Molelekwa — but looks at all these styles through=20 the eyes and ears of the 1990s and his own unmistakable=20 approach to the piano.=20
It was that voice and that technique which startled=20 Johannesburg during Molelekwa’s 1994 solo recital at the=20 Arts Alive Festival. On the album, the piano often takes a=20 secondary role to inventive arrangements which display a=20 different aspect of his talents. “These are 90 percent=20 numbers I’d written at school — and as a composer, you=20 have that yearning to hear how they’ll sound with a band.=20 The next album will have more piano — but this album is=20 also about the musical relationships I’ve forged here. I=20 don’t want to lose those.”=20
The next album is also likely to spring some musical=20 surprises. In London, launching the album, Molelekwa’s=20 fascination with rhythm took him to a few dozen jungle=20 music gigs, where the dazzling electronic cross-cutting of=20 pulses caught his imagination. “Melody and rhythm together=20 make music. Sometimes, audiences are too fixated just on=20 melodies. And working with Airto (Moreira), I’ve also=20 learned how you can just put musicians together in a room=20 and make music spontaneously that’s good enough to record:=20 free improvisation. People tell me that Chris McGregor and=20 his bands worked like this — but although he was a South=20 African, I can’t find his recordings here.”=20
Molelekwa’s right. And that freewheeling South African=20 tradition has been so neglected since McGregor’s Blue Notes=20 left town that audiences were shocked when Louis Moholo=20 brought it home again in 1993. Molelekwa — undaunted by=20 conservatism — might just be the player to revive it. For=20 him, “Music is everywhere. You just have to stick your head=20 out and grab some.”=20