On March 21, 1960 during popular protests against apartheid policies in South Africa’s Sharpeville township, police opened fire on crowds gathered for a peaceful demonstration, killing seventy people and injuring hundreds more. In the aftermath of the massacre, the South African country is swept by a wave of protests prompting the government to declare martial law followed by thousands of arrests, particularly of activists, and imposition of draconian government bans.
Coupled with this, The National Party, the far-right nationalist government, implements a segregationist policy toward the art forms of the African black community, including jazz. What the South African authorities are most concerned about is the possible use by thirst-quenchers of the message of social value and equality among peoples inherent in jazz to awaken and consolidate the sense of collective gathering and struggle of the black and ethnic minority community in South African townships. As a result, black musicians active on the country’s jazz circuit are banned from performing in public and their music is banned from radio, even leading exponents are threatened.
The year before the Sharpeville massacre, composer and jazz pianist Todd Tozama Matshikiza composed music and lyrics for the musical opera King Kong, based on the life of black boxer Ezekiel Dhlamini, involving important names from the South African music scene of the period: singer Miriam Makeba, alto saxophonist Kippie Moeketsi, referred to as the Charlie Parker of South Africa, saxophonist Mackay Davashe, trumpeter Hugh Masekela, and trombonist Jonas Gwangwa.
The four musicians along with pianist Dollar Brand(later known by the name Abdullah Ibrahim) are part of the Jazz Epistles group, formed in the mid-1950s. The lineup, the first to offer the be-bop genre in South Africa, recorded the 1959 record work Jazz Epistle Verse 1.
When in 1961 the entire production of the musical King Kong left for London for a series of performances, the South African government in an effort to eradicate jazz music as a propaganda medium favored issuing passports for performers determined to reach Europe. Many of these, including members of the Jazz Epistles, reap the opportunity to reach the Old Continent, where they will remain in exile for several years, depriving the South African cultural scene of a burgeoning musical heritage in terms of creativity and stylistic innovation.
At the same time, white, Scottish-born pianist and composer Chris McGregor formed the group Blue Notes in Cape Town. In fact, the group in both its membership composition and stylistic proposal established itself as a true artistic vehicle for protest against racial separation in the context of apartheid politics: the members, except for the leader, are black musicians who combine township dance music , Kwela, with U.S. jazz, particularly of the hard bop school.
The sextet included trumpeter Mongezi Feza, pianist and double bassist Johnny Dyani, saxophonists Dudu Pukwana and Nikele Moyake, and drummer Louis Moholo. The formation because of the South African government’s increasingly repressive laws, including one that does not allow black and white musicians to perform together, are forced to hold concerts clandestinely.
As was the case with the Jazz Epistles, the Blue Notes in 1964 moved to Europe, where they travelled between France, Switzerland, Denmark and Britain, giving concerts at festivals and clubs, such as the Antibes Jazz Festival and Ronnie’s Scott in London.
In the aftermath of the formation’s dissolution in the mid-1960s, Johnny Dyani and Louis Moholo met American saxophonist Steve Lacy and trumpeter Enrico Rava in London. The two South African musicians joined Steve Lacy’s quartet to replace Italian-Swiss drummer Aldo Romano, who had left the group to play with trumpeter Don Cherry, and double bassist Kent Carter. In 1966 the quartet reached Argentina, staying for about a year; during their time in the South American country the quartet held a concert at theTella Cultural Institute, later published under the title The Forest and the Zoo .
For his part, Chris McGregor founded the orchestral formation Brotherhood of Breath in 1969, bringing together former members of Blues Notes, including Dyani and Moholo, who have since returned to London, and exponents of the British avant-garde jazz scene, such as, for example, trombonist Nick Evans and saxophonist John Surman. The following year the lineup released its first self-titled record, in which McGregor combines the collective improvisation inherent in the free jazz idiom with the music of the Bantu ethnic group, Xosa, to which he had been drawn as a child in the Transkei region of the Eastern Cape province (South Africa), where he had moved with his family.
South African musicians forced into exile in Europe and the United States have managed, despite the persecution they suffered from the South African government, to keep alive the traditional and ethnic heritage of their homeland, while at the same time garnering widespread public and critical acclaim for a musical vocabulary largely unknown abroad in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
In addition, groups such as Jazz Epistles, Blue Notes and Brotherhood of Breath had a decisive impact on the British, and conversely European, jazz scene of the period by pushing musicians to engage in conceptual and stylistic experimentation more open to cultural third-worldism, effectively anticipating the musical syncretism of World Music.
Paolo Marra
