Jazz Articles about Mongezi Feza

Selwyn Lissack: Friendship Next of Kin

by Terrell Kent Holmes
February 28, 2007

South African drummer Selwyn Lissack returned to the New York jazz scene for the first time in over thirty years this past December, playing a one-nighter at the Stone to celebrate the reissue of Friendship Next of Kin (1969), his only album as a leader--and an underground classic. Friendship is an example of the evolving musical exploration of the era; each tune on the original album took up an entire side and defined a kind of free ...

Mongezi Feza: Free Jam

by Andrey Henkin
July 25, 2004

When South African trumpeter Mongezi Feza passed away in 1975 at age thirty, a mere eleven years after leaving the oppressive regime of his native country, jazz lost a musician who bridged the gap between Freddie Hubbard and Don Cherry.

“Mongs," as he was affectionately called, was not an avant-garde player or a trad player--rather he was pure energy, directed in a tight beam at whatever group of musicians he was working with: the members of the Blue Notes, the ...