Uptownship hugh masekela biography
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Hugh Masekela
South African trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, musician and composer (1939–2018)
Hugh Ramapolo Masekela (4 April 1939 – 23 January 2018)[1] was a South African trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, singer and composer who was described as "the father of South African jazz". Masekela was known for his jazz compositions and for writing well-known anti-apartheid songs such as "Soweto Blues" and "Bring Him Back Home". He also had a number-one US pop hit in 1968 with his version of "Grazing in the Grass".
Early life
[edit]Hugh Ramapolo Masekela was born in the township of KwaGuqa in Witbank (now called Emalahleni), South Africa, to Thomas Selena Masekela, who was a health inspector and sculptor and his wife, Pauline Bowers Masekela, a social worker.[2] His younger sister Barbara Masekela is a poet, educator and ANC activist. As a child, he began singing and playing piano and was largely raised by his grandmother, who ran an illegal bar for miners.[2] At the age of 14, after seeing the 1950 film Young Man with a Horn (in which Kirk Douglas plays a character modelled on American jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke), Masekela took up playing the trumpet. His first trumpet was bought for him from a local music store by Archbishop T
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Hugh Masekela (born Witbank, April 4, 1939. Died Johannesburg, January 23, 2018) was a South African flugelhorn and cornet player. In 1961, as part of the anti-apartheid campaign, he was exiled to the United States where he was befriended by Harry Belafonte. He has played primarily in jazz ensembles, with guest appearances on albums by The Byrds and Paul Simon. In 1987, he had a hit single with "Bring Him Back Home" which became an anthem for the movement to free Nelson Mandela. After apartheid ended, Masekela returned to South Africa where he now lives.
Hugh Masekela was an old collaborator of Abdullah Ibrahim. He is reported to have been initially inspired in his musical growth by Trevor Huddleston, a British priest working in the South African townships who financed Masekela's first trumpet. Masekela played his way through the vibrant Sophiatown scene with The Jazz Epistles and to Britain with King Kong, to find himself in New York in the early 1960s. He had hits in the United States with the popjazz tunes "Up, Up and Away" and the number one smash "Grazin' in the Grass".
A renewed interest in his African roots led him to collaborate with West and Central African musicians, and finally to reconnect with South African players when he
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Hugh Masekela
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