Mongezi Feza was a South African 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...

 trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

 player and flautist

Flautist

A flautist or flutist is a musician who plays an instrument in the flute family. See List of flautists.The choice of "flautist" versus "flutist" is the source of dispute among players of the instrument...

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Biography

Feza was born in Queenstown

Queenstown, Eastern Cape

Queenstown, named after Queen Victoria, is a town in the middle of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, roughly half way in between the towns of Cathcart and Sterkstroom. It is currently the commercial, administrative, and educational centre of the prosperous surrounding farming district...

, South Africa in 1945. A member of 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...

, he left South Africa in 1964 and settled in Europe, living 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...

 and Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

. As a trumpeter, his influences included hard bop

Hard bop

Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...

per Clifford Brown

Clifford Brown

Clifford Brown , aka "Brownie," was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter. He died aged 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings...

 and free 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...

 pioneer Don Cherry

Don Cherry (jazz)

Donald Eugene Cherry was an innovative African-American jazz cornetist whose career began with a long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman. He went on to live in many parts of the world and work with a wide variety of musicians.-Biography:Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and...

. After The Blue Notes splintered in the late 1960s, he played with British rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 musician Robert Wyatt

Robert Wyatt

Robert Wyatt is an English musician, and founding member of the influential Canterbury scene band Soft Machine, with a long and distinguished solo career...

, progressive rock

Progressive rock

Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...

 band Henry Cow

Henry Cow

Henry Cow were an English avant-rock group, founded at Cambridge University in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together, but drummer Chris Cutler and bassoonist/oboist Lindsay Cooper were important long-term members...

, and most extensively with fellow ex Blue Notes 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....

, Chris McGregor

Chris McGregor

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

 and Dudu Pukwana

Dudu Pukwana

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

. His compositions "Sonia" and "You Ain't Gonna Know Me ('Cause You Think You Know Me)" remained in the repertoire of his colleagues long after his death. In the early 1970s, Feza was also 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....

.

He died in London in December 1975 of untreated pneumonia

Pneumonia

Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...

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Albums

• Free Jam with Bernt Rosengren
  Bernt Rosengren
  Bernt Rosengren is a Swedish jazz tenor saxophonist. His recordings have earned him five Gyllene Skivan awards in Sweden.-Biography:...
  
   Quartet, Ayler Records (1972)
• Music For Xaba Vol 1 and Vol 2. Mongezi Feza, Johnny Dyani, Okay Temiz. (1972)
• "Rejoice" Mongezi Feza, Johnny Dyani, Okay Temiz (1972)
• "Brotherhood of Breath" (Chris McGregor) (1970)
• "Assagai" by "Assagai" (1971)
• "Very Urgent" by Chris McGregor's Blue Notes (1968)
• "In Praise of Learning" by Henry Cow (1975)
• "Theatre Royal Drury Lane" by Robert Wyatt (1974)

with Dudu Pukwana

• In The Townships by Dudu Pukwana
  Dudu Pukwana
  Mtutuzel Dudu Pukwana was a South African saxophonist, composer and pianist .-Early years in South Africa:...
  
   & Spear, Virgin C1504 (1973). This album dedicated to the memory of Mongezi Feza.
• Diamond Express by Dudu Pukwana
  Dudu Pukwana
  Mtutuzel Dudu Pukwana was a South African saxophonist, composer and pianist .-Early years in South Africa:...
  
  , Freedom FLP 41041, (1977)
• "Flute Music" by Spear (Dudu Pukwana) 1975

Underground recordings

• 1965 The Blue Notes featuring vocalist Patrice Gcwabe
• 1967 The Blue Notes featuring vocalist Tunji Oyelana
• 1968 Unissued LP (Bootleg) of Brotherhood of Breath.