CDs of the week: Phillip Kakaza
Although this country still boasts a lively jazz tradition, so much of the best of it was shipped away to flourish abroad.
The Blue Notes, founded by innovative pianist Chris McGregor, went to exile in 1965. Apartheid prohibited them from performing as a racially mixed band in South Africa. These musos took South African jazz abroad, where it reached extraordinary heights. They merged their township rhythms with Western styles both traditional and radical, and took London by storm.
Tragically, very little of McGregor’s work, with or without The Blue Notes, is still available. And, until recently, what little was obtainable wasn’t obtainable in their homeland. Now, at last, two CDs on the Ogun label, distributed by Sheer Sound, can be found here.
The Blue Notes’ Legacy: Live in South Africa 1964 was recorded in Durban during the band’s farewell tour of South Africa. Chris Mc Gregor’s later band, Brotherhood of Breath, is featured on Live at Willisau, recorded at a 1973 concert in Switzerland. That big band was founded by McGregor in London in 1969. It combined all that was majestic in the legacy of the African-American standard-bearers with a new wave of musical fighters, bringing together South Africans and British musicians.
McGregor and his cohorts, South African greats Dudu Pukwana (alto sax), Nick Moyake (tenor sax), Mongezi “Kid” Feza (trumpet) Johnny Dyani (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums), may have experimented with the wilder elements of free jazz, but they never strayed entirely from the lingering echoes of marabi and kwela.
On both Live at Willisau and Live in South Africa, the music is swinging, tight and innovative. Accompanied by loud and sometimes rough rhythms, the harmonic surprises seem to have developed spontaneously.
The music on these tracks is so vibrant, so full of life and expression, it makes one ask why The Blue Notes had to go and perish in exile. And it makes one wonder how the South African record companies who have neglected this material for so long can live with themselves.
Moholo, the only surviving member, now based in London, is the only one to have returned home. His South African tour with his band, Viva la Black, is now available too. During the tour, Mholo delivered his tribute to The Blue Notes in dedicating the song Freedom to them: “You are never far from my dreams or my thoughts lately. My voice is yours, hence freedom, my brothers is you.”
As South Africa comes to terms with the evils of its past, it should not also forget the legacy of a group of musicians who forged only beauty.