Louis Moholo's tangible legacy will benefit generations of musicians

IOL News

19 hours ago

Drummer Louis Moholo was the sole surviving member of The Blue Notes and the Brotherhood of Breath. Unlike many of his bandmates, he was able to return to the new South Africa to perform.
THE biography of Louis Tebogo Moholo is in many respects the narrative of the modern jazz movement in South Africa.
It is also the tale of a specific group of extremely talented South African musicians who, after their departure from these shores, left an indelible imprint specifically on the Avant Garde school in modern jazz, associated with the musicians who emerged during the mid-sixties.
But central to that story is an individual musician, Louis Tebogo Moholo.
Louis Tebogo Moholo was born at St Monica's Hospital in Cape Town to Christian Moholo and his wife Dorah Moholo, on 10th March 1940. He passed away at home in Langa, on the morning of 13th June 2025.
Growing up as a young musician in Cape Town during the 1950s must have been an exciting time. As South Africa's oldest port city, Cape Town and the people who live and have lived here for centuries had been impacted on by virtually every cultural and intellectual current in the evolving modern world.
Louis Moholo was raised in an urban African working-class community that had developed over decades here in the Western Cape. Many of the Africans who arrived in Cape Town during the 1800s and early 1900s, first settled in District Six before they were forcibly removed to Ndabeni during the 1920s. All over the Cape Peninsula there were other pockets of African communities: in Kensington; in Blouvlei near Retreat; in Elsies River; in Athlone; Crawford. Simon's Town was effectively part of Cape Town though it is another municipality.
In most of these communities, regionally based homeboy networks formed the basis of rugby, soccer, cricket, tennis and other sports clubs. It was in music that such affiliations appeared less significant. In the bands, what counted was musical skill and talent, not one's region of origin.
Langa township spawned a number of dance bands of a highly differentiated quality. An old urbanite, like Christopher Columbus Ngcukana - 'Mra'- the late saxophone great, was renowned for his ability to listen to the songs of the migrant housed in the hostels on the outskirts of Langa, note them down, first in tonic solfa, then to transcribe them into staff notation. There were others of his stature, playing with the Merry Max, the State-lite and smaller units.
A truly modernist ethos developed amongst such musicians enabling them to also break through the racial barriers imposed by the system of white domination.
There was a very rich cultural life both within, and during the 1950s, between the artificially divided racial communities. Mixed bands of African and Coloured musicians had developed in District Six, Kensington, Athlone and Elsies River. By the late 1950s and early sixties, a handful of courageous white musicians could also be found among them. One of these was Chris McGregor.
Modern jazz, like many other musical genres, came to our country through radio, the concert and dance hall, and of course, records.
Tebs liked joking when he recalled the sort of barbs and slights he and others suffered from the more seasoned players during their molting years. The small venues, all of them outside the townships, where they performed offered spaces that the racist laws of the time considered illegal.
Interaction among music lovers and musicians of differing races broke apartheid law. Apartheid had the ironic effect of politicising even actions undertaken with no political purpose. The very act of playing in a band made up of Africans, Coloureds and whites amounted to a political statement, whether one intended to or not.
Tebogo's first band was composed of young Cape Town musicians who called themselves 'The Chordettes'. We next hear of him backing other musicians on club dates here in Cape Town. He hit the national scene at the 1962 Jabavu Jazz Festival in Johannesburg where he performed with the Jazz Ambassadors, led by Cups Nkanuka's. He joined the Blue Notes in 1963.
That turned out to be a most profoundly formative experience that also launched him on an international career.
The Blue Notes, comprising Dud Pukwana on the alto-sax; Nick Moyakhe on tenor; Mongezi Feza on pocket trumpet; Chris McGregor on piano, Sammy Maritz on bass and Louis Moholo on drums was the rage of the South African Jazz scene. Johnny Dyani replaced Maritz on bass before the group went abroad. His associates in the Blue Notes became a permanent feature of Louis's musical career, though he sought out and played with numerous bands during an impressive musical career.
Arriving on the jazz scene at a seminal moment in its evolution was both a challenge and opportunity for the group of young men who left South Africa for the Antibes Jazz Festival, France in 1964.
During the late 1940s, the Be-Bop pioneered by Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and others had revolutionised the jazz idiom. In their small bands, the rhythm section acquired greater significance as Afro-Cuban, Afro-Brazilian and indigenous African percussions were more aggressively integrated into it.
Before the American Civil War (1861-65), on the plantations in the non-Catholic states of North America, the drum was absolutely forbidden! Slave owners and their governments considered it an intrinsically subversive musical instrument because its sound could transcend space.
Because its sound could break the bounds of distance the drum was capable of nurturing bonds of solidarity amongst the enslaved, the indispensable ingredient of united action. The enslaved Africans were forbidden from owning and playing drums.
One might speculate why this was the instrument Louis Moholo chose to play and to master. His good fortune was that he was ripe for an age when the drum was being emancipated by the creativity and genius of masters.
The names associated with it – Kenny Clarke, Art Blakey, Max Roach, Philly Joe Jones; Elvin Jones – are easily recognised among game changers in modern jazz.
But those who truly broke out of the constraints of keeping time behind the reeds and brass, were figures like Jack DeJohnette, Sonny Murray, Ed Blackwell, Charles Moffat and our own lad from Langa township, Louis Tebogo Moholo. With the arrival of these musicians, the role of the drum was to provide rhythm and not merely to keep time.
Louis Tebogo Moholo was voted the best drummer in Europe on repeated occasions. The African Drum Ensemble he put together in 1974 stunned the audience at the Round House.
Along with the other South African artists in exile, Louis and his colleagues made their own contribution to the liberation struggle. In addition to the 'benefit gig' to raise money, the name Tebogo and Dudu Pukwana chose for their band, 'The Spear' was a conscious tribute to Mkhonto weSizwe.
Their compositions too spoke the language of the liberation movement, beginning with that spirited rendition of 'Wathint' amaDoda -Don't Stir the Beehive' in their first album, 'Very Urgent', recorded in London in 1968. By the early 1970s their names and their music was widely known all over Western Europe, and helped throw open the doors of opportunity for the South African instrumentalists who arrived in Europe later that decade.
The members of the Blue Notes, collectively and individually, made an important cultural statement in the unfolding Free Jazz movement. Tebogo, who survived his colleagues, is perhaps the one who proved most versatile during those tough years in exile.
Apart from his unfortunate sojourn in Argentina, Louis availed himself of every opportunity life afforded him to play with the most audacious musical innovators in Britain and Europe.
In addition to the sheet anchor groups he rooted himself in – the Brotherhood of Breath, The Spear and the Blue Notes - he was an important figure in the Mike Osborne Trio. He played in Tentacles, a quartet led by the pianist Stan Tracy and he enjoyed a long fruitful relationship with the Swiss pianist, Irene Schweizer. There are also the quartets, quintets and sextets led by tenor saxophonist, Evan Parker.
Elton Dean, Harry Miller Sean Bergin and his other associates in London and Europe all relied heavily on him as the centre of their rhythm sections. He played with the leftist Paul Rutherford - who called his band the Iskratra - on numerous occasions and led bands of his own, beginning with a big band in 1971.
Later came the Dedication Orchestra, in which he assembled the cream of Britain's Avant Garde and brought to South Africa. Viva la Black and Four Blokes were the last bands he personally led. German, Dutch, Italian and American musicians have all benefitted from performing alongside this native son of Cape Town.
Perhaps the longest musical relationship he developed after the dissolution of the Brotherhood of breath, was with Keith Tippet, a rare British talent of Irish descent who features in his big bands and in more intimate bands.
Louis Moholo's talent and musical achievements earned him numerous awards, first in Britain and Europe, then the Americas, and finally, post 1994, here at home. His discography reflects not only what he sought to give permanence, but also his extensive ecumenical collaborations with others.
Louis Moholo has also left his country a tangible legacy, to memorialise the Blue Notes. Funds accumulated from the exertions of these talents have been used to establish the BLUE NOTES MEMORIAL FUND, administered by the South African College of Music here at UCT. Apart from what they themselves created, Louis has passed the baton on, to generations of future musicians who will benefit from that bursary.
As we mourn the loss of a great South African musician, we also celebrate a life of impressive musical achievement. Wherever Louis Tebogo Moholo played his music, he represented South Africa well! He represented the city of his birth, Cape Town, extremely well. We are justly very proud of him.
Tsamaya sentle Moholo! Tsamaya sentle motlhankawa waÁfrika!