By Struan Douglas and Iain Harris

Jazz is about surprise. About freedom, about expression, and identity. But most importantly, jazz is about stories of intensity, passion, love and perserverance.

“This is Willis Carnover, Jazz USA.” Every midnight, thick and American, Carnover would drawl down the radio. Everyone would gather at the shrine, like fishermen around a fresh catch. Tara rara ra ra badadiboop - Duke Ellington’s Take the A Train signature tune would slink in and everywhere, from Kansas City to Havana, people would dance and dance. That’s where it started and that’s how it spread, all that incredible music from America called jazz. And in Cape Town, merchants on the ships that travelled the world brought that jazz to our shores. Sometimes an American battleship would dock in Cape Town with a band on board, and those guys could play jazz. That was our advantage in Cape Town - we were an Atlantic culture more than an African culture. We had access to the rest of the world. Jazz fans and musicians read magazines, and bought records from the avant-garde record store on Long Street, mostly expensive imported 78s. Especially bebop. They wore out those old 78s jamming it up with Bird, Monk and Dizzy. He was a cool cat, Bird, all erratic and antisocial, a bit of a reprobate, but hip. Very hip. All those American jazzmen were hip. Local musos were young and very impressed by these super smooth guys, you know, and tried to be hip in berets, and fancy clothes and things, for the chicks, the bebop, for the fun of it. Kippie Moeketsie really got it though - he modelled himself on Bird, clothing, attitude, everything.

Jazz Epistles follow the Bird

But Duke, he was the king. That man could compose. His melodies, and the way his arrangements could balance sound, no other, not a one could touch him. Abdullah Ibrahim (back then we called him Dollar) and Chris Macgregor, those cats, they loved Duke Ellington. He was probably their greatest influence. Dollar and Chris were doing amazing stuff. Dollar was doing Charlie Parker- type things with the Jazz Epistles in ’59, with Hugh Masekela, Kippie and Jonas Gwanga. They only lasted six months, but they were the first black group to cut a record in South Africa. And Chris and his Blue Notes were great. He had Dudu Pakwana and Mongezi Feza, that tiny youngster on the trumpet: man, he could blow that thing. And Louis Moholo on the drums... Dudu used to play at the Vortex in Long Street every night. He’d rehearse during the day and sleep in the basement at night. One night Chris met Dudu at the club and they talked about getting a band together. Dudu was playing piano at the time but he wanted to play the sax. Perfect, says Chris, because he was a piano guy you see, so he hires a sax and the group took off. He was energetic, that Chris. He was always working, always composing. You had to because it was so impossible to survive in that political climate. Things were wild then. One time, this was in ’71, Vic Antomoni, the bass player, had a tune called Amoeboid Movement, great little title he got from Ezra Ngcukana, who was doing that stuff in matric biology. And just because of the political perceptions of the word movement, it was never given airplay. That’s the stupidity the musicians had to deal with.

Labour of love

But Dollar, he was a serious bloke. He used to lock himself in his room with only bread and milk and compose. I remember going to his house and listening to one of his tracks, Eclipse at Dawn. I teased him, you know: “Dollar, play something like Cole Porter!” “You’re a prostitute!” he’d reply. “You’re prostituting the art, you must speak the truth.” That’s how intense he was. It was a labour of love, man, they believed in what they were doing. There was a haunting edge to the sound, almost a howl in the wilderness. They played so well, they lived and died their art - Dudu, Mongezi, Chris Mac and Kippie. But the audiences wanted to dance. They wanted to hear traditional styles, the marabi and kwela of shebeen “speakeasy” culture, so musicians had to work that in, they had to continually adapt, working in new sounds and old, moving ahead but always going back.

Sad end to a vibrant era

Everything changed in the ’60s: Sharpeville, the cultural boycott, ludicrous radio restrictions, police clampdowns and bannings. The life of the black artist was becoming impossible. It was a big turning point for jazz. So far it had been difficult enough, but now it was impossible. No venues, the white musicians’ union controlling the gigs, restriction of movement. For most of the musos it was time to go. Hugh, Jonas, Miriam Makeba and Todd Matshikiza all left with the King Kong cast of ’59 and didn’t return. Abdullah went in ’62. Chris and the Blue Notes hung around until ’64. It was really the Cold Castle Jazz Fest of ’63 which signalled the end of the era. Chris Mac organised a 17 piece band consisting of all the local talent from the fest, to play a one-off in Braamfontein. The musicians grinned and nodded their heads every time 18-year-old Mongezi blew that trumpet. And the other youngster on sax, Barney Rachabane, he raised eyebrows. He and Tete Mbambisa, who played with Chris on the piano, are still playing today. There was a big gap for those that stayed behind in these Verwoerd-to-Vorster years. Musicians went back to nine to five jobs. The scene stagnated and jazz lost a lot of its identity. Cups ‘n’ Saucers was the Cold Castle musician of the year in ‘62, but he hasn’t played since. Winston Mankunku was the anchor of South African jazz in the late ’60s. He was doing wild and adventurous things, taking a leaf from Coltrane. In ’68 he released Yakhal Inkomo, a jazz classic, published by Gallo - a deal which smacked of foul play, leaving Winston without financial reward. He became really cynical about the industry. It was almost 20 years before he recorded again, with pianist Mike Perry on the Nkomo label. Significantly, it was during this period that Abdullah recorded what people have called the Cape Town anthem, Manenberg, in 1974. An old jazz mbaqanga melody from the ’50s, it was a hybrid of marabi, Xhosa ragtime, ghoema, kwela, African swing and township rhythms - a real melting pot of Cape Town sounds.

Developing personas

A great part of the music - the identity, the vibrance - was lost between ’63 and ’94. There were clubs where the Four Sounds, Jimmy Smith or Robbie Jansen would play, but they played the pop and fusion that teenagers danced to. You just couldn’t develop cultural identity, a truly South African persona. Abdullah and Hugh were doing great things overseas, but they were developing other identities, they grew as musicians on the international scene. If everyone had been able to stay and develop in their own country, we would have had a totally different jazz scene. But that couldn’t happen. Now we’re back in touch with the rest of the world: there’s freedom. It’s all pretty undirected, but we are finding ourselves again and that’s a good thing.

This article copyright (c) 1999 by Big Issue Magazine.