A new musical about the famous saxophonist Kippie Moeketsi is in rehearsal at Windybrow. Gwen Ansell watched
It’s been said you can classify creative artists as Apollonian or Dionysian. The Apollonians are the cool intellectuals who think their shit out logically and fastidiously, eschewing guts and passion: it was probably their crew who invented New Adult Contemporary. Dionysians on the other hand – well, just think Brenda.
Saxophonist Kippie “Morolong” Moeketsi has been consigned by music historians to the Dionysian ranks, on the strength of latter days spent falling drunk off more stages than you’d care to number. Some of those same historians seem to think it all adds to his glamour.
For the cast members and musicians rehearsing his life for next Thursday’s Civic Theatre opening, however, Moeketsi’s sad decline and death before the age of 60 are tragic – and yet, in terms of his music, almost irrelevant. “He had a tremendous originality,” says the play’s musical director McCoy Mrubata. “His compositions were deeply melodic and he had this incredibly sophisticated understanding of the changes.”
For Mrubata, the dramatic tribute is long overdue. “He was just so influential on a whole generation of jazz musicians. That is much more important than his lifestyle – although his life also tells us what apartheid did to black creative artists.”
Actor Tsheop Desando is just 22, but the music of nearly half a century ago still speaks to him. “I grew up in this music. Despite what happened in his life, Kippie is a legend whose music can still speak to all of us. And anyway, what artists give us on a stage is such a huge part of them that it’s not necessary to pick their lives apart as well.”
Macks Papo, who plays Kippie (Mike Makhalemele blows the notes), says the deeper he gets into the part, the more he empathises with the man. “He was frustrated by his genius, which had no outlet. He was frustrated by the system, as all black people were.
“He wasn’t just playing an instrument, or playing the role of the bad cat on stage, he was also fighting the system – and he wasn’t winning. And he was challenging audiences who drank and talked through his playing: almost saying: if you can do it, so can I.”
But what about Moeketsi the musician? Is the play just going to give us that good- time shebeen jive nostalgia all over again? A brief sampling of a rehearsal provided few clues. But talk to the musicians and you long for a play that will link the unique music to the life. Much as he also played the alto saxophone (and the Dionysian), Kippie’s jazz peers feel the “South Africa’s Charlie Parker” label is a disservice.
Dennis Mpale, who worked with Kippie in the prizewinning 1961 Jazz Dazzlers band and recorded Our Boys Are Doing It with him in 1973, says: “He was influenced by ‘Bird’ and by bebop – we all were. You couldn’t help it: it hit us all like a thunderbolt. But Kippie was an original, with his own voice. He was a composer who created some of our best standards. And when you heard him woodshedding, he was adventurous – his approach was closer to Eric Dolphy.”
Musicians are also keen to point out that drink may have been one element in Kippie’s downfall, but that (as well as the crushing environment of apartheid) Kippie was also the target of an effort by managements to deprive him of gigs because he was seen as a troublemaker.
He suffered the confiscation of his instrument by border authorities on a Malawi trip and was deprived of his work pass – which together kept him out of professional music for around seven years from the mid-1960s. And no one knows what effects he continued to suffer from the electric shock treatment administered in England at the behest of the King Kong management – in the 1960s such methods were not a subtle curative instrument.
Much as the play will sample Moeketsi’s music, there’s no way it can do justice to his range. What’s now needed is an intelligent programme of re-mastering and re-releases of his music. If we can call him our Charlie Parker, maybe it’s time to start treating him like the United States music industry treats theirs.
Kippie previews from November 8 and opens on November 13 at the Civic Theatre
For Papo, it’s a stunning part. “There’s so much that’s unresolved in such a complex character. The more I work on the part, the more I find out, about Kippie – and about myself as an actor.”
KIPPIE MOEKETSI – A DISCOGRAPHY
Early 1950s Unoya Kae and other ’78s, with Mackay Davashe, Ntemi Piliso, Shanty City Septet and others
1957 Jazz in Africa Vols 1 & 2 with Hugh Masekela, Jonas Gwangwa, John Mehegan and others
Date unknown Zonk movie soundtrack (unreleased)
1960 King Kong soundtrack with Todd Matshikiza, etc.
1961 Jazz Epistle volume 1 with Gwangwa, Masekela, Brand, etc.
1962Cold Castle Jazz Festival (one track)
1963Castle Lager Big Band: Jazz, the African Sound (with Chris McGregor, etc.)
1973 Dollar Brand +3 with Kippie Moeketsi
1973 Our Boys Are Doing It (with Dennis Mpale)
1975 Tshona! (with Pat Matshikiza)
1976 Sikiza Matshikiza (with Pat Matshikiza)
1976 Title unknown (with Mike Faure)
1977 Blues Stompin’ (with Hal Singer)