Hugh Masekela

At 78 years old, Hugh Masekela has this physical status:

Hugh Ramapolo Masekela (1939--February 22, 1939-2009) was a South African trumpeter, flugelhornist, coronist, and composer who has been dubbed "the father of South African jazz" by South Africa jazz legend Hugh Ramapolo Masekela.

Masekela was known for his jazz compositions and for composing well-known anti-apartheid songs like "Soweto Blues" and "Bring Him Back Home."

In 1968, he had a number one pop hit in the United States with his version of "Grazing in the Grass."

Early life

Hugh Ramapolo Masekela was born in Witbank, South Africa's Thomas Selena Masekela, a health inspector and sculptor, and his partner, Pauline Bowers Masekela, a social worker. Barbara Masekela, his younger sister, is a writer, lecturer, and ANC activist. He began singing and playing piano as an infant and was largely raised by his grandmother, who operated a proverbial bar for miners. Masekela took up playing the trumpet after seeing the 1950 film Young Man with a Horn (in which Kirk Douglas portrays a character based on American jazz coronist Bix Beiderbecke). Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, the anti-apartheid chaplain at St. Peter's Secondary School, now known as St. Martin's School (Rosettenville), bought his first trumpet from a local music store.

Huddleston begged Uncle Sauda, the head of the then Johannesburg "Native" Municipal Brass Band, to teach Masekela the basics of trumpet playing. Masekela mastered the unit within a matter of minutes. Eventually, several of his classmates became interested in playing instruments, leading to the formation of the Huddleston Jazz Band, South Africa's first youth orchestra. Louis Armstrong received a letter from his buddy Huddleston when he heard of this band. Masekela formed Alfred Herbert's African Jazz Revue in 1956, after leading other ensembles.

Masekela's music began in 1954 and closely related to his life experience. The agony, war, and exploitation suffered by South Africa during the 1950s and 1960s inspired and encouraged him to play music and also propagate political change. He was a brilliantly portrayed in his music both the struggles and pains of his time in his homeland as well as the joys and passions of his people. His music protested apartheid, slavery, and government; people were suffering as a result of the hardships. Masekela's poor population was also affected by the country's poverty.

Masekela played in the orchestra of the musical King Kong, a book by Todd Matshikiza following a Manhattan Brothers tour of South Africa in 1958. King Kong was South Africa's first blockbuster musical success, with Miriam Makeba and Nathan Mdledle in the lead. The musical later moved to London's West End for two years.

Personal life and death

Miriam Makeba, a singer and activist, was married to singer and activist Masekela from 1964 to 1966. He had subsequent marriages to Chris Calloway (daughter of Cab Calloway), Jabu Mbatha, and Elinam Cofie. He lived with the dancer Nomsa Manaka for the last few years of his life. Sal Masekela, the father of American television host Sal Masekela, was the father of the boy. Barbara Masekela, a poet and feminist, is his younger sister. Earl Sweatshirt's biological uncle was also deceased.

Masekela died in Johannesburg early on January 23, 2018 from prostate cancer, at the age of 78.

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Career

Dollar Brand (later known as Abdullah Ibrahim), Kippie Moeketsi, Makhaya Ntshoko, Jonas Gwangwa, Johnny Gertze, and Hugh formed the Jazz Epistles, the first African jazz band to record an LP at the end of 1959. They performed in Johannesburg and Cape Town from late 1959 to early 1960, attracting record-breaking audiences.

Following the killing of 69 demonstrators in Sharpeville on March 21, and the South African government barred gatherings of ten or more people—and the country's increasing brutality, Masekela left the country. Trevor Huddleston and international friends, including Yehudi Menuhin and John Dankworth, who got him accepted into the Guildhall School of Music in London, were able to assist him. Masekela returned to the United States, where he was befriended by Harry Belafonte during this period. Masekelaa began attending the Manhattan School of Music in New York, where he studied classical trumpet from 1960 to 1964. Miriam Makeba and Masekela married in 1964, two years later, and divorcing took place two years later.

He had hits in the United States with the pop jazz albums "Up, Up and Away" (1967) and "Grazing in the Grass," a one-offset (1968), which sold four million copies. He appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and was later featured in D. A. Pennebaker's film Monterey Pop and was also mentioned in Eric Burdon & the Animals' song Monterey. The Zaire 74 music festival in Kinshasa, organized by Masekela and her companion Stewart Levine, took place in 1974, near the Rumble in the Jungle boxing match.

He appeared on jazz ensembles mostly ("So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star") and "Lady Friend"), as well as "Further to Fly"). Masekela released the album Techno Bush in 1984; from that album, a single titled "Don't Go Lose It Baby" reached number two for two weeks on the dance charts. "Bring Him Back Home" was his hit single in 1987. The song became a hit among the anti-apartheid movement and an anthem for the liberation of Nelson Mandela.

Masekela's revival of interest in his African roots led him to collaborate with West and Central African musicians, and eventually, reunite with Southern African musicians when he opened Jive Records, a mobile studio in Botswana, just over the South African border, from 1980 to 1984. Here he absorbed and re-used mbaqanga strains, a style he continued to use after returning to South Africa in the early 1990s.

Masekela established the Botswana International School of Music (BISM), which held its first workshop in Gaborone in 1985. The annual Botswana Music Camp, which is still in existence, gives local musicians of all ages and from all backgrounds the opportunity to perform and perform together. Masekela gave the jazz course at the first workshop and performed at the final concert.

Masekela performed with Paul Simon in support of Simon's album Graceland, which featured other South African artists such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Miriam Makeba, Ray Phiri, and other aspects of the band Kalahari, which was co-founded by guitarist Banjo Mosele and which backed Masekela in the 1980s. He also assisted with the Broadway performance Sarafina!, which premiered in 1988, as well as recording with Kalahari.

In 2003, he appeared in the documentary film Amandla! Harmony in Four Parts. Hugh Masekela's Autobiography, Still Grazing: The Musical Journey of Hugh Masekela, co-authored with journalist D. Michael Cheers, chronicled Masekela's struggle against apartheid in his homeland, as well as his personal struggles with alcoholism from the 1970s to the 1990s. He migrated from mbaqanga, jazz/funk, and the blending of South African sounds into two albums, Techno-Bush (recorded in his Botswana's studio), Beatin' Aroun de Bush (a lush-sounding ode to American R&B), Sixty, Time, and Revival in this period. His song "Soweto Blues," sung by Miriam Makeba's estranged wife, is a blues/jazz record that recalls the 1976 Soweto riots. He also gave interpretations of songs composed by Jorge Ben, Antônio Carlos Jobim, Caiphus Semenya, Jonas Gwangwa, Dorothy Masuka, and Fela Kuti.

Michael A. Gomez, a Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at New York University, referred to Masekela as "the father of African jazz" in 2006.

Masekela's second album for 4 Quarters Entertainment/Time Square Records, "to get well, to heal," released the album Phola (meaning "to get well, to heal). It contains songs he wrote in the 1980s but never completed, as well as a reinterpretation of "The Joke of Life (Brinca de Vivre)," which he recorded in the mid-1980s. He was a board member of the Woyome Foundation for Africa from October 2007.

Masekela appeared in a series of ESPN videos in 2010, as did his son Selema Masekela. During ESPN's coverage of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, the series, Umlando – Through My Father's Eyes, was broadcast in ten parts. Hugh and Selema's travels through South Africa were the subject of the series. Hugh brought his son to the places he grew up. It was Selema's first trip to his father's homeland.

Masekela appeared with the Dave Matthews Band in Johannesburg, South Africa, on December 3, 2013. For "Proudest Monkey" and "Grazing in the Grass," Rashawn Ross joined Rashawn Ross on trumpet.

For the first time in 60 years, at Emperors Palace, Johannesburg, Masekela, and Abdullah Ibrahim performed together, reuniting the Jazz Epistles in honor of the historic 16 June 1976 youth protests.

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