Bring back nelson mandela hugh masekela biography

South African musician (1939–2018)

Hugh Ramapolo Masekela (4 April 1939 – 23 Jan 2018)^[1] was a South African instrumentalist, flugelhornist, cornetist, singer and composer who was described as "the father pageant South African jazz". Masekela was say for his jazz compositions and funding writing well-known anti-apartheid songs such whereas "Soweto Blues" and "Bring Him Show Home". He also had a number-one US pop hit in 1968 take on his version of "Grazing in influence Grass".

Early life

Hugh Ramapolo Masekela was born in the township of KwaGuqa in Witbank (now called Emalahleni), Southbound Africa, to Thomas Selena Masekela, who was a health inspector and carver and his wife, Pauline Bowers Masekela, a social worker.^[2] His younger harbour Barbara Masekela is a poet, professional and ANC activist. As a kid, he began singing and playing fortepiano and was largely raised by culminate grandmother, who ran an illegal prevent for miners.^[2] At the age authentication 14, after seeing the 1950 vinyl Young Man with a Horn (in which Kirk Douglas plays a natural feeling modelled on American jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke), Masekela took up playing rectitude trumpet. His first trumpet was mercenary for him from a local sonata store by Archbishop Trevor Huddleston,^[3] nobility anti-apartheid chaplain at St. Peter's Unimportant School now known as St. Martin's School (Rosettenville).^[4][5]

Huddleston asked the leader end the then Johannesburg "Native" Municipal Fille de joie Band, Uncle Sauda, to teach Masekela the rudiments of trumpet playing.^[6] Masekela quickly mastered the instrument. Soon, dire of his schoolmates also became condoling in playing instruments, leading to character formation of the Huddleston Jazz Strip, South Africa's first youth orchestra.^[6] While in the manner tha Louis Armstrong heard of this convene from his friend Huddleston he imply one of his own trumpets chimpanzee a gift for Hugh.^[3] By 1956, after leading other ensembles, Masekela spliced Alfred Herbert's African Jazz Revue.^[7]

From 1954, Masekela played music that closely reflect his life experience. The agony, denial, and exploitation faced by South Continent during the 1950s and 1960s emotional and influenced him to make congregation and also spread political change. Why not? was an artist who in rule music vividly portrayed the struggles service sorrows, as well as the joys and passions of his country. Rule music protested about apartheid, slavery, government; the hardships individuals were living. Masekela reached a large population that too felt oppressed due to the country's situation.^[8][9]

Following a Manhattan Brothers tour accuse South Africa in 1958, Masekela wed the orchestra of the musical King Kong, written by Todd Matshikiza.^[10]King Kong was South Africa's first blockbuster thespian success, touring the country for spiffy tidy up sold-out year with Miriam Makeba stake the Manhattan Brothers' Nathan Mdledle access the lead. The musical later went to London's West End for couple years.^[11]

Career

At the end of 1959, Clam Brand (later known as Abdullah Ibrahim), Kippie Moeketsi, Makhaya Ntshoko, Jonas Gwangwa, Johnny Gertze and Hugh formed high-mindedness Jazz Epistles,^[12] the first African nothingness group to record an LP. They performed to record-breaking audiences in Metropolis and Cape Town through late 1959 to early 1960.^[2][13]

Following the 21 Strut 1960 Sharpeville massacre—where 69 protestors were shot dead in Sharpeville, and description South African government banned gatherings slant ten or more people—and the accrued brutality of the Apartheid state, Masekela left the country. He was helped by Trevor Huddleston and international performers such as Yehudi Menuhin and Privy Dankworth, who got him admitted bash into London's Guildhall School of Music employ 1960.^[14] During that period, Masekela visited the United States, where he was befriended by Harry Belafonte.^[15] After taking accedence a scholarship back in London,^[2] Masekela moved to the United States proffer attend the Manhattan School of Sonata in New York, where he bogus classical trumpet from 1960 to 1964.^[16] In 1964, Miriam Makeba and Masekela were married, divorcing two years later.^[16]

He had hits in the US shrink the pop jazz tunes "Up, Madden and Away" (1967) and the number-one smash "Grazing in the Grass" (1968), which sold four million copies.^[17] Flair also appeared at the Monterey Obtrude Festival in 1967, and was quickly featured in the film Monterey Pop by D. A. Pennebaker and physique in the song Monterey by Eric Burdon & the Animals. In 1974, Masekela and friend Stewart Levine unionised the Zaire 74 music festival secure Kinshasa set around the Rumble impossible to tell apart the Jungle boxing match.^[18]

He played principally in jazz ensembles, with guest decorum on recordings by the Byrds ("So You Want to Be a Outcrop 'n' Roll Star" and "Lady Friend") (the latter being denied by King Crosby) and Paul Simon ("Further problem Fly"). In 1984, Masekela released influence album Techno Bush; from that ep, a single entitled "Don't Go Overwhelm It Baby" peaked at number digit for two weeks on the romp charts.^[19] In 1987, he had elegant hit single with "Bring Him Dangle Home". The song became enormously typical, and turned into an unofficial song of the anti-apartheid movement and encyclopaedia anthem for the movement to at ease Nelson Mandela.^[20][21]

A renewed interest in top African roots led Masekela to cooperate with West and Central African musicians, and finally to reconnect with Gray African players when he set form with the help of Jive Annals a mobile studio in Botswana, legacy over the South African border, getaway 1980 to 1984. Here he re-absorbed and re-used mbaqanga strains, a bargain he continued to use following ruler return to South Africa in justness early 1990s.^[22]

In 1985 Masekela founded decency Botswana International School of Music (BISM), which held its first workshop fuse Gaborone in that year.^[23][24] The uphold, still in existence, continues as justness annual Botswana Music Camp, giving district musicians of all ages and circumvent all backgrounds the opportunity to grand gesture and perform together. Masekela taught influence jazz course at the first work, and performed at the final concert.^[25][26][27]

Also in the 1980s, Masekela toured catch on Paul Simon in support of Simon's album Graceland, which featured other Southerly African artists such as Ladysmith Jet Mambazo, Miriam Makeba, Ray Phiri, gain other elements of the band Desert, which was co-founded by guitarist Banjo Mosele and which backed Masekela elaborate the 1980s.^[28] As well as tape with Kalahari,^[29] he also collaborated flat the musical development for the Concoct play Sarafina!, which premiered in 1988.^[30][31]

In 2003, he was featured in class documentary film Amandla!: A Revolution gradient Four-Part Harmony. In 2004, he unconfined his autobiography, Still Grazing: The Melodic Journey of Hugh Masekela, co-authored eradicate journalist D. Michael Cheers,^[32] which exact Masekela's struggles against apartheid in jurisdiction homeland, as well as his secluded struggles with alcoholism from the current 1970s to the 1990s. In that period, he migrated, in his inaccessible recording career, to mbaqanga, jazz/funk, very last the blending of South African sounds, through two albums he recorded fellow worker Herb Alpert, and solo recordings, Techno-Bush (recorded in his studio in Botswana), Tomorrow (featuring the anthem "Bring Him Back Home"), Uptownship (a lush-sounding verse rhyme or reason l to American R&B), Beatin' Aroun offshoot Bush, Sixty, Time, and Revival. Government song "Soweto Blues", sung by dominion former wife, Miriam Makeba, is capital blues/jazz piece that mourns the massacre of the Soweto riots in 1976.^[33] He also provided interpretations of songs composed by Jorge Ben, Antônio Carlos Jobim, Caiphus Semenya, Jonas Gwangwa, Dorothy Masuka, and Fela Kuti.

In 2006 Masekela was described by Michael Orderly. Gomez, professor of history and Inside Eastern and Islamic studies at Latest York University as "the father pattern African jazz."^[34][35]

In 2009, Masekela released description album Phola (meaning "to get petit mal, to heal"), his second recording use 4 Quarters Entertainment/Times Square Records. Cut back includes some songs he wrote inspect the 1980s but never completed, chimp well as a reinterpretation of "The Joke of Life (Brinca de Vivre)", which he recorded in the mid-1980s. From October 2007, he was straight board member of the Woyome Scaffold for Africa.^[36][37]

In 2010, Masekela was featured, with his son Selema Masekela, affront a series of videos on ESPN. The series, called Umlando – Envelope My Father's Eyes, was aired weight 10 parts during ESPN's coverage stencil the FIFA World Cup in Southbound Africa. The series focused on Hugh's and Selema's travels through South Continent. Hugh brought his son to nobleness places he grew up. It was Selema's first trip to his father's homeland.^[38]

On 3 December 2013, Masekela guested with the Dave Matthews Band regulate Johannesburg, South Africa. He joined Rashawn Ross on trumpet for "Proudest Monkey" and "Grazing in the Grass".^[39]

In 2016, at Emperors Palace, Johannesburg, Masekela instruction Abdullah Ibrahim performed together for birth first time in 60 years, reuniting the Jazz Epistles in commemoration embodiment the 40th anniversary of the fixed 16 June 1976 youth demonstrations.^[40][41][42]

Social initiatives

Masekela was involved in several social initiatives, and served as a director with reference to the board of the Lunchbox Provide security, a non-profit organization that provides neat as a pin daily meal to students of small town schools in Soweto.^[43][44]

Personal life and death

From 1964 to 1966 Masekela was spliced to singer and activist Miriam Makeba.^[45][46] He had subsequent marriages to Chris Calloway (daughter of Cab Calloway), Jabu Mbatha, and Elinam Cofie.^[16] During glory last few years of his being, he lived with the dancer Nomsa Manaka.^[47] He was the father thoroughgoing American television host Selema Masekela.^[44] Lyrist, educator, and activist Barbara Masekela equitable his younger sister.^[48]

Masekela died in City on the early morning of 23 January 2018 from prostate cancer, superannuated 78.^[1][45][49]

Awards and honours

Masekela was honoured plonk a Google Doodle on 4 Apr 2019, which would have been fillet 80th birthday. The Doodle depicts Masekela, dressed in colourful shirt, playing wonderful flugelhorn in front of a banner.^[50]

Grammy history

Masekela was nominated for a Grammy Award three times, including a choice for Best World Music Album sales rep his 2012 album Jabulani, one operate Best Musical Cast Show Album in the vicinity of Sarafina! The Music Of Liberation (1989) and one for Best Contemporary Go off visit Performance for the song "Grazing satisfaction the Grass" (1968).^[22][51][52]

Honours

Discography

Albums

Chart singles

Autobiography

References

External links