Hamba kahle, Bra Hugh

HUGH MASEKELA, who died yesterday, was more than a great jazz trumpeter. He was also one of South Africa’s great patriots, who never stopped loving his country through more than 30 years of exile.

And he was a freedom fighter too, who fought and won his battles through the medium of music.

One of his great songs, Bring Him Back Home, was written for one of his biggest fans, ANC icon Nelson Mandela, who had smuggled a letter to him from Pollsmoor Prison.

This song, and others, inspired those striving to throw off the yoke of apartheid.

One of Masekela’s proudest moments was performing in front of 72 000 people – and a worldwide television audience (with apartheid South Africa being an exception) of hundreds of millions at a concert celebrating the still-jailed Mandela’s 70th birthday at Wembley Stadium in London.

Like so many South African musicians, Masekela’s career was filled with searing highs and depressing lows.

At 14, as a member of the Trevor Huddleston Jazz Band, he was playing a trumpet given to him by the great Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong – thanks to some gentle persuasion on his behalf by Huddleston, the activist Anglican priest.

In 1961, faced with the choice of second-class citizenship and limited career opportunities in South Africa, or exile, Masekela chose exile.

His time away from home was heart-breaking, as his close friend Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuse recalled in an interview a few years ago.

Mabuse himself was in tears as he related having to say goodbye to the then banned Masekela and Miriam Makeba at an airport in Belgium during the 1980s, after they had collaborated on an album

He said the most touching moment was when he had to return to South Africa. “I could see it in their eyes – they wanted to come home.”

He said Bra Hugh had looked at him and asked: “When are we coming home?”

Bra Hugh was intensely loyal to his friends, as Tony Cedras, who played the piano accordion on Boy in a Bubble on Paul Simon’s Graceland album, remembers.

“Bra Hugh recommended me, even though I hadn’t played the piano accordion for 26 years,” Cedras said.

Loyal friend though he was, Masekela asked no favours in fighting his own demons – including alcoholism and prostate cancer.

We will miss you, Bra Hugh. Hamba kahle.