Louis Tebugo Moholo is a South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

n jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 drummer

Drummer

A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...

.

He formed The Blue Notes

The Blue Notes

The Blue Notes were a South African jazz sextet, whose definitive line up featured Chris McGregor on piano, Mongezi Feza on trumpet, Dudu Pukwana on alto saxophone, Nikele Moyake on tenor saxophone, Johnny Dyani on bass, and Louis Moholo on drums...

 with Chris McGregor

Chris McGregor

Christopher McGregor , was a South African jazz pianist, bandleader and composer born in Somerset West, South Africa.- Early influences :...

, Johnny Dyani

Johnny Dyani

Johnny Mbizo Dyani was a South African jazz double bassist and pianist, who played with such musicians as Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, David Murray and Leo Smith....

, Nikele Moyake

Nikele Moyake

Nikele Moyake was a jazz musician from South Africa, who played tenor saxophone in the sextet The Blue Notes alongside Chris McGregor, Dudu Pukwana, Mongezi Feza, Johnny Dyani and Louis Moholo. He was born in the early 1930s, making him by far the oldest member of the band, but he was also the...

, Mongezi Feza

Mongezi Feza

Mongezi Feza was a South African jazz trumpet player and flautist.-Biography:Feza was born in Queenstown, South Africa in 1945. A member of The Blue Notes, he left South Africa in 1964 and settled in Europe, living in London and Copenhagen. As a trumpeter, his influences included hard bopper...

 and Dudu Pukwana

Dudu Pukwana

Mtutuzel Dudu Pukwana was a South African saxophonist, composer and pianist .-Early years in South Africa:...

, and emigrated to Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 with them in 1964, eventually settling in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, where he formed part of a South African exile community that made an important contribution to British jazz. He was a member of the Brotherhood of Breath

Brotherhood of Breath

The Brotherhood of Breath was a big-band created in the late 1960s by South African pianist/composer Chris McGregor , essentially an extension of McGregor's previous band The Blue Notes....

, a big band comprising several South African exiles and leading musicians of the British free jazz scene in the seventies and is the founder of Viva la Black and The Dedication Orchestra

The Dedication Orchestra

The Dedication Orchestra is a jazz ensemble formed as a tribute to the exiled South African musicians who formed the core of the The Blue Notes and the Brotherhood of Breath, it features Alan Skidmore, Radu Malfatti, Django Bates, Kenny Wheeler, Elton Dean, Lol Coxhill, Evan Parker, Paul Rutherford...

. His first album under his own name, Spirits Rejoice on Ogun Records

Ogun Records

Ogun Records is a record label created by the husband and wife team of Hazel Miller and Harry Miller, to document the music being created by a group of open-minded musicians in London in the early 1970s....

, is considered a classic example of the combination of British and South African players. In the early 1970s, Moholo was also a member of the afro-rock

Afro-rock

Afro rock is is a popular dance music pioneered in the late 1960s and early 1970s by such groups as Monomono, Osibisa and Alhaji K. Frimpong. It is a style of which relies heavily on the use of Western string instruments and guitar effects...

 band Assagai

Assagai

Assagai was an Afro-rock band from South Africa, active in the early 1970s in London. It consisted of five members: drummer Louis Moholo, trumpeter/flautist Mongezi Feza, tenor saxophonist Bizo Muggikana, guitarist Fred Cocker, and alto saxophonist Dudu Pukwana....

.

Moholo has played with many musicians, including Derek Bailey, Steve Lacy

Steve Lacy

Steve Lacy , born Steven Norman Lackritz in New York City, was a jazz saxophonist and composer recognized as one of the important players of soprano saxophone....

, Evan Parker

Evan Parker

Evan Shaw Parker is a British free-improvising saxophone player from the European free jazz scene.Recording and performing prolifically with many collaborators, Parker was a pivotal figure in the development of European free jazz and free improvisation, and has pioneered or substantially expanded...

, Enrico Rava

Enrico Rava

Enrico Rava , is a prolific jazz trumpeter and arguably one of the best known Italian jazz musicians. He originally played trombone, changing to the trumpet after hearing Miles Davis. His first commercial work was as a member of Gato Barbieri's Italian quintet in the mid-1960s; in the late 1960s...

, Roswell Rudd

Roswell Rudd

Roswell Rudd is a Grammy Award-nominated American jazz trombonist and composer....

, Irène Schweizer

Irène Schweizer

Irène Schweizer is a notable Swiss jazz and free improvising pianist. She was born in Schaffhausen, in 1941.She has performed and recorded numerous solo piano performances as well as performing as part of the Feminist Improvising Group, whose members include Lindsay Cooper, Maggie Nichols, Georgie...

, Cecil Taylor

Cecil Taylor

Cecil Percival Taylor is an American pianist and poet. Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and...

, John Tchicai

John Tchicai

John Martin Tchicai is a Danish jazz saxophonist. He was one of the earliest European free jazz musicians. He is of Danish and Congolese descent....

, Archie Shepp

Archie Shepp

Archie Shepp is a prominent African-American jazz saxophonist. Shepp is best known for his passionately Afrocentric music of the late 1960s, which focused on highlighting the injustices faced by the African-Americans, as well as for his work with the New York Contemporary Five, Horace Parlan, and...

, Peter Brötzmann

Peter Brötzmann

Peter Brötzmann is a German artist and free jazz saxophonist and clarinetist.Brötzmann is among the most important European free jazz musicians. His rough, lyrical timbre is easily recognized on his many recordings.-Early life:...

, Mike Osborne

Mike Osborne

Michael Evans Osborne was an English jazz alto saxophonist, pianist and clarinetist, perhaps most noteworthy for his contributions as a member to the Chris McGregor band Brotherhood of Breath in the 1960s and 1970s.He was born in Hereford and attended Wycliffe College in Gloucestershire and the...

, Keith Tippett

Keith Tippett

Keith Tippett is a British jazz pianist and composer.Tippett, the son of a local police officer, went to Greenway Boys Secondary Modern school in Southmead, Bristol. He formed his first jazz band called The KT7 whilst still at school and they performed numbers popular at the time by The Temperance...

, Elton Dean

Elton Dean

Elton Dean was an English jazz musician who performed on alto saxophone, saxello and occasionally keyboard....

 and
Harry Miller

Harry Miller (jazz bassist)

Harold Simon 'Harry' Miller was a South African jazz bass player.Miller began his career as a bassist with Manfred Mann, and came to settle in London...

.

Moholo returned to South Africa in September 2005, performing with George Lewis

George Lewis (trombonist)

George E. Lewis is a trombone player, composer, and scholar in the fields of jazz and experimental music. He has been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians since 1971, and is a pioneer of computer music.- Biography :Lewis graduated from Yale University with a...

 at the UNYAZI Festival of Electronic Music in Johannesburg

Johannesburg

Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...

. He now goes under the name Louis Moholo-Moholo because the name is more ethnically authentic.

External links

• When free jazz means freedom by Gary May, originally published in French in 2005 in the magazine ImproJazz. This site also includes a 2010 interview with Moholo-Moholo by Olivier Ledure, also originally published in ImproJazz.
• FMP releases