Results for "Vusi Mahlasela"

Vusi Mahlasela

Vusi grew up in the Mamelodi township, just outside of Pretoria, South Africa, where he still resides. As Vusi tells it, he grew up a happy kid and was blind to the injustices in his country. His grandmother operated a Shebeen behind their home. Due to the cultural boycott inflicted by Apartheid, black South African music was hard to come by and was banned from being played on the radio. So, they played American records in the pub. James Brown. Motown. The Commodores. And whatever South African and African recordings they could find: Mahotella Queens, Mahlatini Queens, Miriam Makeba, Dark City Sisters, Fela Kuti

Ludovico Granvassu's Garden of Jazzy Delights 2023

by Ludovico Granvassu
January 3, 2024

If it is true that, like The Police once put it, “when the world is going down you make the best of what's still around," then throughout 2023 jazz fans were better off than most other social groups. In a year in which everyday news brought ever more inconceivable disappointments, jazz musicians, labels, festivals and venues ...

Bokani Dyer, Kenny Barron, Claudia Acuña, Vusi Mahlasela & More

by Ludovico Granvassu
May 6, 2023

This week we focus on emerging musicians from South Africa, and on a number of recent releases showcasing the many facets of a living master of the piano, Kenny Barron, featured as solo artist on a rare recording date as a leader, as accompanist, as a composer that inspired other contemporary musicians, and as a side-man ...

We Sick, Soojung Lee, Jane Ira Bloom & Novembre

by Maurice Hogue
April 3, 2023

The release of We Sick is not until the end of April, but definitely watch for this fiery work of improvisation and passion. Not long after George Floyd's murder, pianist deVon Russell Gray, saxophonist Nathan Hanson & drummer Davu Seru recorded We Sick in an abandoned church across from the Minnesota state capitol which was surrounded ...

South Africa: A Rough Guide & Vusi Mahlasela

by AAJ Staff
March 7, 2007

South Africa has fostered its own musical traditions since long before the earliest days of the colonial era, but the 20th Century saw an explosion of new styles and their widespread documentation on record. The mass relocation of rural blacks to urban areas, where they sought mining and service jobs, led to the establishment of poor ...