‘Father of South African jazz’
Famed musician hit the mainstream with Paul Simon
Legendary South African jazz musician and antiapartheid activist Hugh Masekela died Jan. 23 at the age of 78 after a decade-long fight with cancer, his family said.
Often called the “Father of South African jazz,” Masekela died in Johannesburg after what his family said was a “protracted and courageous battle with prostate cancer.”
Masekela was a rare artist who succeeded in fusing politics with his music, making his songs and performances compelling and timeless.
Trumpeter, singer and composer Masekela was affectionately known locally as “Bra Hugh.” Born April 4, 1939 in Witbank, South Africa, he began singing and playing piano as a child and largely was raised by his grandmother, who ran an illegal bar for miners.
As a youngster, after seeing the film Young Man with a Horn (Kirk Douglas plays a character modelled on U.S. jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke), Masekela took up playing the trumpet. He quickly became an integral part of the 1950s jazz scene in Johannesburg as a member of the band the Jazz Epistles and a member of the orchestra in the groundbreaking jazz opera King Kong.
In the 1960s, he went into exile in the United Kingdom and the United States, using his music to spread awareness about South Africa’s oppressive system of white-minority rule. He scored an international No. 1 hit in 1968 with Grazing in the Grass.
Masekela spent time in both New York and Los Angeles, performing at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival with some of the era’s most iconic musicians, including Janis Joplin, Otis Redding and Jimi Hendrix. He collaborated with many musicians including Herb Alpert and was married to South African singer and activist Miriam Makeba for two years.
In the 1980s, Masekela appeared with Paul Simon and several other South African musicians as part of the Graceland album tour.
Many of his compositions were about the struggle for majority rule and full democratic rights in South Africa. Masekela’s catchy upbeat 1987 song Bring Him Back Home calling for Nelson Mandela’s release from prison became an international anthem for the antiapartheid movement.
Masekela returned to South Africa in 1990 after Mandela was freed and the African National Congress party was unbanned. He released more than 40 albums and toured in South Africa and internationally until late in 2017.
South African president Jacob Zuma expressed his condolences, saying Masekela “kept the torch of freedom alive globally, fighting apartheid through his music and mobilizing international support ... His contribution to the struggle for liberation will never be forgotten.”