The Blue Notes
Encyclopedia
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. After moving away from their home country in 1964, they established themselves on the European jazz circuit, where they continued to play and record through the 1970s. They are now considered one of the great free jazz
bands of their era, whose music was given a unique flavour by their integration of African styles such as Kwela
into the progressive jazz ideas of the time.
, they came to prominence at the 1963 National Jazz Festival in Johannesburg
. An album recorded after the festival was released as Jazz - The African Sound, but this was not a Blue Notes record per se, rather an album featuring some of the Blue Notes in a big band put together by McGregor. This big band was intended to continue touring, but proved unworkable. Instead, The Blue Notes continued as a quintet, then sextet.
Remaining in Johannesburg, they established a residency at the city's Downbeat club, but returned to Cape Town to make their first studio recordings for the South African Broadcasting Corporation
. These recordings were finally released in 2002 by the Proper Music label, on a CD entitled Township Bop. It showed the band to be playing in a relatively straight ahead bebop style compared with their later work, also tracing the coming together of the definitive sextet. On the earliest sessions, only three members of the definitive line up (McGregor, Pukwana and Moyake) were present. By the time of the last sessions, Feza, Dyani and Moholo were on board.
Like fellow South African jazz musicians Dollar Brand and Hugh Masekela
, they understood that the only way they could play freely was by escaping the oppressive social and political climate of their home country. As a mixed race band (McGregor the sole white member), they were especially prone to police harassment. In mid 1964, they left South Africa.
Jazz Festival in France, the group decided stay in Europe. They spent some additional time in France before taking up club residencies in Zurich
and Geneva
, Switzerland for nearly a year. In April 1965, they played a short residency at Ronnie Scott
's Club in London
, and decided to stay on in Britain. Unfortunately, their arrival coincided with a downturn in the fortunes of jazz in the UK, as recording and gigging opportunities began drying up. There is also the suspicion that they were deliberately frozen out of the British scene by established local musicians, who considered them interlopers.
There soon followed a period playing in Copenhagen, Denmark which McGregor identified as a turning point in their musical approach. They returned to London and were subsequently to be found playing almost exclusively at The Old Place in Gerrard Street, the former home of Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club
which had recently been transformed into a virtual laboratory for the emerging British avant garde jazz scene. Because of this, they are still considered a seminal influence on the new generation of British jazz musicians coming through in the late 1960s. Artists such as Keith Tippett
, Evan Parker
, John Stevens
and John Surman
have long hailed them as true pioneers and a massive influence. However, by late 1965 the group was also beginning to fragment. Feza returned to Copenhagen, while Dyani and Moholo went on a South American tour with the soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy
- subsequently recording the album The Forest and the Zoo for the ESP-Disk
label. Meanwhile, Moyake had decided to return to South Africa permanently even before their arrival in the UK.
The first recording opportunity for the Blue Notes came about in 1968 for the Polydor label, produced by Joe Boyd
. However, the resulting album, Very Urgent, was actually credited to 'The Chris McGregor Group'. Despite the pianist's star billing, this was very much a Blue Notes album with all the other members back in London and contributing. Compared to the 1964 South African recordings, this album demonstrated the growth of their free jazz
leanings. Another recording was made for Polydor the same year, but was not released until 2008( Up To Earth - Fledg'ling FLED 3069). Various combinations of the group recorded for the Ogun label subsequently.
Around this time, McGregor began his Brotherhood of Breath
big band project. This band, which essentially grew from the addition of British musicians to the core Blue Notes line up, would come to full fruition in the early 1970s. While Brotherhood of Breath essentially succeeded The Blue Notes, the old name was used on various projects during the 1970s. In the early 1970s, Pukwana, Feza and Moholo were also members of the afro-rock
band Assagai
.
returned to South Africa in 1965. He died of a brain tumour a year later. His place in The Blue Notes was eventually taken by another South African, Ronnie Beer, who played on the Very Urgent session.
Mongezi Feza
played with Robert Wyatt
, Elton Dean
and Henry Cow
among others, before his death in 1975 aged only 30. The other Blue Notes then regrouped to record Blue Notes For Mongezi as a tribute, on Ogun Records
.
Johnny Dyani
moved to Denmark in the early 1970s, where he continued to play and record extensively with a number of great musicians including Don Cherry
and Mal Waldron
. He died in 1986, prompting another reunion of the surviving Blue Notes to record Blue Notes For Johnny.
Chris McGregor
kept his Brotherhood of Breath
going in various forms until his death in 1990. He had been a resident of France since the early 1970s.
Dudu Pukwana
continued to make records in Britain, both under his own leadership and with McGregor. He died in 1990, only a month after McGregor.
Of the definitive line up, only Louis Moholo
is still alive. He has participated in a huge amount of recordings with such musicians as Cecil Taylor
, Evan Parker
and Stan Tracey
. He has now returned to live in South Africa, but continues to tour with different groups, now using the name Louis Moholo-Moholo. He formed the Dedication Orchestra, a big band of all-star improvisors dedicated to playing the music of the South African exiles.
On 21 September 2007 President Thabo Mbeki
gave official recognition to the contribution of the Blue Notes to South African music by awarding the group the national Order of Ikhamanga in Silver. The citation for the award stated, in part: "Blue Notes goes back to a golden age in South Africa's musical history. The multiracial band's eclectic and uniquely South African rendition of jazz made them a noteworthy jazz band in the international halls of fame. They were once one of the most popular jazz bands in the country, often defying the tyrannical race laws of the country in order to perform."
Chris McGregor
Christopher McGregor , was a South African jazz pianist, bandleader and composer born in Somerset West, South Africa.- Early influences :...
on piano, 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...
on trumpet, Dudu Pukwana
Dudu Pukwana
Mtutuzel Dudu Pukwana was a South African saxophonist, composer and pianist .-Early years in South Africa:...
on alto saxophone, 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...
on tenor saxophone, 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....
on bass, and Louis Moholo
Louis Moholo
Louis Tebugo Moholo , is a South African jazz drummer.He formed The Blue Notes with Chris McGregor, Johnny Dyani, Nikele Moyake, Mongezi Feza and Dudu Pukwana, and emigrated to Europe with them in 1964, eventually settling in London, where he formed part of a South African exile community that made...
on drums. After moving away from their home country in 1964, they established themselves on the European jazz circuit, where they continued to play and record through the 1970s. They are now considered one of the great free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
bands of their era, whose music was given a unique flavour by their integration of African styles such as Kwela
Kwela
Kwela is a happy, often pennywhistle-based, street music from southern Africa with jazzy underpinnings and a distinctive, skiffle-like beat. It evolved from the marabi sound and brought South African music to international prominence in the 1950s....
into the progressive jazz ideas of the time.
Early days
Although the band was initially based in Cape TownCape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
, they came to prominence at the 1963 National Jazz Festival 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...
. An album recorded after the festival was released as Jazz - The African Sound, but this was not a Blue Notes record per se, rather an album featuring some of the Blue Notes in a big band put together by McGregor. This big band was intended to continue touring, but proved unworkable. Instead, The Blue Notes continued as a quintet, then sextet.
Remaining in Johannesburg, they established a residency at the city's Downbeat club, but returned to Cape Town to make their first studio recordings for the South African Broadcasting Corporation
South African Broadcasting Corporation
The South African Broadcasting Corporation is the state-owned broadcaster in South Africa and provides 18 radio stations as well as 3 television broadcasts to the general public.-Early years:Radio broadcasting began in South Africa in 1923...
. These recordings were finally released in 2002 by the Proper Music label, on a CD entitled Township Bop. It showed the band to be playing in a relatively straight ahead bebop style compared with their later work, also tracing the coming together of the definitive sextet. On the earliest sessions, only three members of the definitive line up (McGregor, Pukwana and Moyake) were present. By the time of the last sessions, Feza, Dyani and Moholo were on board.
Like fellow South African jazz musicians Dollar Brand and 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...
, they understood that the only way they could play freely was by escaping the oppressive social and political climate of their home country. As a mixed race band (McGregor the sole white member), they were especially prone to police harassment. In mid 1964, they left South Africa.
In Europe
After an appearance at the 1964 AntibesAntibes
Antibes is a resort town in the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France.It lies on the Mediterranean in the Côte d'Azur, located between Cannes and Nice. The town of Juan-les-Pins is within the commune of Antibes...
Jazz Festival in France, the group decided stay in Europe. They spent some additional time in France before taking up club residencies in Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
and Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, Switzerland for nearly a year. In April 1965, they played a short residency at Ronnie Scott
Ronnie Scott
Ronnie Scott was an English jazz tenor saxophonist and jazz club owner.-Life and career:Ronnie Scott was born in Aldgate, east London, into a family of Russian Jewish descent on his father's side, and Portuguese antecedents on his mother's. Scott began playing in small jazz clubs at the age of...
's Club 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 decided to stay on in Britain. Unfortunately, their arrival coincided with a downturn in the fortunes of jazz in the UK, as recording and gigging opportunities began drying up. There is also the suspicion that they were deliberately frozen out of the British scene by established local musicians, who considered them interlopers.
There soon followed a period playing in Copenhagen, Denmark which McGregor identified as a turning point in their musical approach. They returned to London and were subsequently to be found playing almost exclusively at The Old Place in Gerrard Street, the former home of Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club
Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club
Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club is a jazz club which has operated in London since 1959.The club opened on 30 October 1959 in a basement at 39 Gerrard Street in London's Soho district. It was managed by musicians Ronnie Scott and Pete King. In 1965 it moved to a larger venue nearby at 47 Frith Street...
which had recently been transformed into a virtual laboratory for the emerging British avant garde jazz scene. Because of this, they are still considered a seminal influence on the new generation of British jazz musicians coming through in the late 1960s. Artists such as 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...
, 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...
, John Stevens
John Stevens (drummer)
John William Stevens was an English drummer. He was one of the most significant figures in early free improvisation, and a founding member of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble .-Biography:Stevens was born in Brentford, the son of a tap dancer...
and John Surman
John Surman
John Douglas Surman is an English jazz saxophone, bass clarinet and synthesizer player, and composer of free jazz and modal jazz, often using themes from folk music as a basis...
have long hailed them as true pioneers and a massive influence. However, by late 1965 the group was also beginning to fragment. Feza returned to Copenhagen, while Dyani and Moholo went on a South American tour with the soprano saxophonist 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....
- subsequently recording the album The Forest and the Zoo for the ESP-Disk
ESP-Disk
ESP-Disk is a New York-based record label, founded in 1964 by lawyer Bernard Stollman.From the beginning, the label's goal has been to provide its recording artists with complete artistic freedom, unimpeded by any record company interference or commercial expectations—a philosophy summed-up by the...
label. Meanwhile, Moyake had decided to return to South Africa permanently even before their arrival in the UK.
The first recording opportunity for the Blue Notes came about in 1968 for the Polydor label, produced by Joe Boyd
Joe Boyd
Joe Boyd is an American record producer and former owner of the Witchseason production company. Boyd was instrumental in launching the careers of Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, and The Incredible String Band.-Career:...
. However, the resulting album, Very Urgent, was actually credited to 'The Chris McGregor Group'. Despite the pianist's star billing, this was very much a Blue Notes album with all the other members back in London and contributing. Compared to the 1964 South African recordings, this album demonstrated the growth of their free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
leanings. Another recording was made for Polydor the same year, but was not released until 2008( Up To Earth - Fledg'ling FLED 3069). Various combinations of the group recorded for the Ogun label subsequently.
Around this time, McGregor began his 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....
big band project. This band, which essentially grew from the addition of British musicians to the core Blue Notes line up, would come to full fruition in the early 1970s. While Brotherhood of Breath essentially succeeded The Blue Notes, the old name was used on various projects during the 1970s. In the early 1970s, Pukwana, Feza and Moholo were also members 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....
.
After The Blue Notes
Nikele MoyakeNikele 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...
returned to South Africa in 1965. He died of a brain tumour a year later. His place in The Blue Notes was eventually taken by another South African, Ronnie Beer, who played on the Very Urgent session.
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...
played with 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...
, Elton Dean
Elton Dean
Elton Dean was an English jazz musician who performed on alto saxophone, saxello and occasionally keyboard....
and 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...
among others, before his death in 1975 aged only 30. The other Blue Notes then regrouped to record Blue Notes For Mongezi as a tribute, 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....
.
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....
moved to Denmark in the early 1970s, where he continued to play and record extensively with a number of great musicians including 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...
and Mal Waldron
Mal Waldron
Malcolm Earl Waldron was an American jazz and world music pianist and composer, born in New York City.Like his contemporaries, Waldron's roots lie chiefly in the hard bop and post-bop genres of the New York club scene of the 1950s; but with time, he gravitated more towards free jazz and composition...
. He died in 1986, prompting another reunion of the surviving Blue Notes to record Blue Notes For Johnny.
Chris McGregor
Chris McGregor
Christopher McGregor , was a South African jazz pianist, bandleader and composer born in Somerset West, South Africa.- Early influences :...
kept his 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....
going in various forms until his death in 1990. He had been a resident of France since the early 1970s.
Dudu Pukwana
Dudu Pukwana
Mtutuzel Dudu Pukwana was a South African saxophonist, composer and pianist .-Early years in South Africa:...
continued to make records in Britain, both under his own leadership and with McGregor. He died in 1990, only a month after McGregor.
Of the definitive line up, only Louis Moholo
Louis Moholo
Louis Tebugo Moholo , is a South African jazz drummer.He formed The Blue Notes with Chris McGregor, Johnny Dyani, Nikele Moyake, Mongezi Feza and Dudu Pukwana, and emigrated to Europe with them in 1964, eventually settling in London, where he formed part of a South African exile community that made...
is still alive. He has participated in a huge amount of recordings with such musicians as 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...
, 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...
and Stan Tracey
Stan Tracey
Stanley William Tracey CBE is a British jazz pianist and composer, most influenced by Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk.-Early career:...
. He has now returned to live in South Africa, but continues to tour with different groups, now using the name Louis Moholo-Moholo. He formed the Dedication Orchestra, a big band of all-star improvisors dedicated to playing the music of the South African exiles.
On 21 September 2007 President Thabo Mbeki
Thabo Mbeki
Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki is a South African politician who served two terms as the second post-apartheid President of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008. He is also the brother of Moeletsi Mbeki...
gave official recognition to the contribution of the Blue Notes to South African music by awarding the group the national Order of Ikhamanga in Silver. The citation for the award stated, in part: "Blue Notes goes back to a golden age in South Africa's musical history. The multiracial band's eclectic and uniquely South African rendition of jazz made them a noteworthy jazz band in the international halls of fame. They were once one of the most popular jazz bands in the country, often defying the tyrannical race laws of the country in order to perform."
Discography
- "The Blue Notes Legacy" Ogun OGCD 007 (1995, rec 1964)
- "Township Bop" Proper PRPCD 013 (2002, rec 1964)
- "Very Urgent" (as Chris McGregor Group) Polydor 184 137 (1968)
- "Up To Earth" (as Chris McGregor Group) Polydor 583 072 (1968)Fledg'ling FLED 3069(2008)
- "Blue Notes for Mongezi" Ogun OGD 001/002 (1975)
- "In Concert Vol.1" Ogun OG 220 (1978)
- "Blue Notes for Johnny" Ogun OG 532 (1987)