Jonas Mosa Gwangwa has been an important figure in South African jazz

South African jazz

South African jazz is the jazz music of South Africa, also often mistakenly called "African jazz".-History:As in the United States, South African jazz was strongly influenced by the music styles of the black population. That said influences from the US led to its formation...

 for over 40 years. He first gained significance playing trombone with The Jazz Epistles

The Jazz Epistles

The Jazz Epistles were South Africa's first important bebop band. Inspired by Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, its members included Dollar Brand on piano, Kippie Moeketsi on alto saxophone, Jonas Gwangwa on trombone, Hugh Masekela on trumpet, Johnny Gertze on bass, and Early Mabuza or Makaya Ntshoko...

. After the group broke up he continued to be important to the South African music scene and then later abroad.

In the 1960s he began to gain noticed in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and in 1965 he was featured in a "Sound Of Africa" concert at Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

. The others at the concert included Miriam Makeba

Miriam Makeba

Miriam Makeba , nicknamed Mama Africa, was a Grammy Award winning South African singer and civil rights activist....

, Hugh Masekela

Hugh Masekela

Hugh Ramopolo Masekela is a South African trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, composer, and singer.-Early life:Masekela was born in Kwa-Guqa Township, Witbank, South Africa. He began singing and playing piano as a child...

, and Letta Mbulu

Letta Mbulu

Letta Mbulu is a South African jazz singer born and raised in Soweto. She has been active since the 1960s, but left for the United States in 1965 due to Apartheid. In the U.S. she worked with Cannonball Adderley, David Axelrod and Harry Belafonte...

. Despite that he was not seen favorably by the apartheid government so left his homeland in the early 1970s

In later life he became important as a composer doing the scores of films like Cry Freedom

Cry Freedom

Cry Freedom is a 1987 British drama film directed by Richard Attenborough, set in the late 1970s, during the apartheid era of South Africa. It was written from a screenplay by John Briley based on a pair of books by journalist Donald Woods...

 and at the 60th Annual Academy Awards in 1988 he performed his nominated song Cry Freedom. Also in 1988 he performed at the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute

Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute

The Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute was a popular-music concert staged on June 11, 1988 at Wembley Stadium, London and broadcast to 67 countries and an audience of 600 million. It was also referred to as Freedomfest, Free Nelson Mandela Concert and Mandela Day...

 in Wembley Stadium

Wembley Stadium

The original Wembley Stadium, officially known as the Empire Stadium, was a football stadium in Wembley, a suburb of north-west London, standing on the site now occupied by the new Wembley Stadium that opened in 2007...

. In 1991 he returned to South Africa and in 1997 he composed the theme for their Olympic bid.

His autobiography has recently been written by acclaimed music academic Colette Szymczak.

External links

• Allmusic

Reference

• Jürgen Schadeberg, Don Albert Jazz, Blues and Swing: Six Decades of Music in South Africa. 2007, ISBN 9780864867056