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1950s and 60s
The cross-cultural influences that had been
brewed in Sophiatown continued to inspire musicians
of all races in the years that followed. Just as
American ragtime and swing had inspired earlier jazz
forms, so the new post-war American style of bebop
had begun to filter through to South African
musicians.
In 1955, the most progressive jazz-lovers of
Sophiatown had formed the Sophiatown Modern Jazz
Club, propagating the sounds of bop innovators such
as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.
The club sponsored gatherings such as "Jazz
at the Odin", at a local cinema, and from such
meetings grew South Africa's first bebop band, the
highly important and influential
 Jazz Epistles,
whose earliest membership was a roll-call of
musicians destined to shape South African jazz from
then on: Dollar
Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim), Kippie Moeketsi, Jonas Gwangwa and
Hugh Masekela
among them.
In 1960, the Jazz Epistles recorded their first
and only album, Jazz Epistle Verse One. At the same
time, composers such as Todd Matshikiza (who
composed the successful musical King Kong) and
Gideon Nxumalo (African Fantasia) were experimenting
with combinations of old forms and new directions.
King Kong (the tale of South African black boxer
Ezekiel Dlamini) became a hit, and travelled
overseas. Many of South Africa's leading black
musicians were attached to the show, and many found
the freedom on offer outside the country an
irresistible lure, and remained in exile there.
Among them was singer
Miriam Makeba,
who had achieved fame in South Africa with The
Manhattan Brothers and later with her own band The
Skylarks; she went on to a highly successful
international career.
As the apartheid regime increased its power, political repression in South Africa began
in earnest. In the wake of the Sharpeville Massacre
in 1960 and the subsequent State of Emergency, mass arrests, bannings and trials of activists
forced more and more musicians
to leave the country.
Thus many of the most adventurous strains in
South African jazz were pursued outside its borders
for several decades.
Lekker Links
Source:
SouthAfrica.info
The all-in-one official
guide and web portal to South Africa.
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1970s and 1980s
Dollar
Brand (later
Abdullah
Ibrahim),
Hugh Masekela,
Jonas Gwangwa, Caiphus Semenya, Letta Mbulu,
Miriam Makeba
- all these key figures in South African
jazz developed their talents and their
careers outside the country in the years of
increasing repression.
One key South African jazz performer,
and one of the country's most innovative
musicians, remained at home to pursue his
unique vision. He was Philip Tabane, a
guitarist who brought together the deepest,
oldest polyrhythmic traditions with the
freest jazz-based improvisation.
Influenced by the political ideas of
Black Consciousness as well as by his own
links with African spirituality, Tabane kept
a shifting group of musicians playing in
different combinations under the name of
Malombo (which refers to the ancestral
spirits in the Venda language). He has
toured the world, but has always returned
home.
From the early 1960s until today, Tabane
has produced some of South Africa's most
interesting and adventurous sounds.
Jazz continued to be played in South
Africa during the years of severe
repression, with groups such as The African
Jazz Pioneers and singers such as Abigail
Kubheka and Thandi Klaasen keeping alive the
mbaqanga-jazz tradition that had enlivened
Sophiatown. Cape jazzers such as Basil
Coetzee, Robbie Jansen and Hotep Idris
Galeta kept developing the infectious Cape
style.
1990s to 2000s
The 1980s saw the appearance of
Afro-jazz bands such as Sakhile and Bayete,
marrying the sounds of American fusion and
ancient African patterns, to considerable
commercial success.
Others such as the band Tananas took the
idea of instrumental music into the
direction of what became known as "world
music", creating a sound that crosses
borders with a mix of African, South
American and other styles; this versatile
and inventive group is now one of South
Africa's best-loved, beyond any category.
 In recent years, important new jazz
musicians such as Paul Hanmer, Moses
Molelekwa and Zim Ngqawana have taken the
compositional and improvisatory elements of
jazz in new directions, bringing them into
contact with today's contemporary sounds, as
well as drawing on the oldest modes, to
provide the country - and appreciative
overseas audiences - with a living, growing
South African jazz tradition.
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