Knowing The Jazz Master, Hugh Masekela
By: Draxon Maloya
Sometimes known as the “father of South African jazz,” Bra Hugh Masekela was born on 5th April in 1939 and at the age of 14, after seeing the 1950 film “Young Man with a Horn” (in which Kirk Douglas plays a character modelled on American jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke), Masekela took up playing the trumpet.
His first trumpet was bought for him from a local music store by Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, an anti-apartheid chaplain.
Soon, some of his schoolmates also became interested in playing) , leading to the formation of the Huddleston Jazz Band, South Africa’s first youth orchestra.
When Louis Armstrong heard of the band, he sent one of his own trumpets as a gift for Hugh.
From 1954, Masekela played music that closely reflected his life experience, the agony, conflict, and exploitation faced by South Africa during the 1950s and 1960s that inspired and influenced him to make music and also spread political change.
He was an artist who in his music vividly portrayed the struggles and sorrows, as well as the joys and passions of his country as his music protested about apartheid, slavery, government; the hardships individuals were living.
From the 2015 International Jazz Day Global Concert comes “Bring Him Back Home (Nelson Mandela)” w/ Lee Ritenour, Marcus Miller, Avishai Cohen (trumpet), Guillaume Perret, John Beasley, Mino Cinelu, Terri Lyne Carrington, Kellylee Evans, Michael Mayo
