Hugh Masekela – Trumpeter
Hugh Masekela, born near Johannesburg in 1939, has covered the globe and played with just about every top star you can think of. Masekela was originally introduced to the trumpet by anti-apartheid activist Father Trevor Huddleston. The anti-apartheid movement became an important influence in his life, but not as important as the music that ended up taking him around the world many times. In his early days in the South African music scene Masekela played with such names as pianist Dollar Brand (now known as Abdullah Ibrahim), Jonas Gwangwa, and Kippie Moeketsi as teenageers in the Father Huddleston Band. In 1961 Masekela went into exile where Harry Belafonte helped him settle in the U.S. as a student. Hugh landed in New York where he recorded many records including his 1968 number one hit “Grazing in the Grass.”
Masekela’s vibrant trumpet and flugelhorn solos have been featured in pop, R&B, disco, Afropop and jazz contexts. He’s had American and international hits, worked with bands around the world, and played with African, African-American, European and various American musicians during a stellar career.
His style, especially on flugelhorn, is a charismatic blend of striking upper register lines, half valve effects, repetitive figures and phrases, with some note bending, slurs and tonal colors.
Though he’s often simplified his playing to fit into restrictive pop formulas, Masekela’s capable of outstanding ballad and bebop work. He began singing and playing piano as a child, influenced by seeing the film Young Man With A Horn at 13.
Masekela started playing trumpet at 14.
He played in the Huddleston Jazz Band, which was led by anti-apartheid crusader and group head Trevor Huddleston. Huddleston was eventually deported, and Masekela co-founded the Merry Makers of Springs along
with Jonas Gwangwa. He later joined Alfred Herbert’s Jazz Revue, and played in studio bands backing
popular singers. Masekela was in the orchestra for the musical King Kong, whose cast included Miriam Makeba. He was also in the Jazz Epistles with Abdullah Ibrahim, Makaya Ntshoko, Gwanga and Kippie Moeketsi. Masekela and Makeba, his wife at that time, left South Africa one year before Ibrahim and
Sathima Bea Benjamin in 1961. Such musicians as Dizzy Gillespie, John Dankworth and Harry Belafonte
assisted him. Masekela studied at the Royal Academy of Music, then the Manhattan School of Music. During the early ’60s, his career began to explode. He recorded for MGM, Mercury and Verve, developing his hybrid African/pop/jazz style. Masekela moved to California and started his own record label, Chisa. He
cut several albums expanding this formula and began to score pop success. The song “Grazing In The Grass”
topped the charts in 1968 and eventually sold four million copies worldwide. That year Masekela sold out
arenas nationwide during his tour, among them Carnegie Hall. He recorded in the early ’70s with Monk Montgomery and the Crusaders. Masekela moved in a more ethnic direction during the ’70s. He traveled to London to play with Nigerian Afrobeat great Fela Kuti and his Africa ’70; then came a session with Dudu Pukwana, Eddie Gomez and Ntshoko among others that resulted in his finest jazz/African album, Home Is
Where The Music Is. Masekela toured Guinea with the Ghanian Afropop band Hedzoleh Soundz, then recorded a series of albums with them both in California and Africa with guest stints from the Crusaders, Patti Austin and others. Masekela alternated between American and Africa, cutting a successful pop/dance album
with Herb Alpert in the late ’70s. During the ’80s, Masekela returned to South Africa. He visited Zimbabawe and Botswana, and recorded two albums with The Kalahari Band that once more merged jazz-rock, funk and pop. Masekela was part of Paul Simon’s Graceland tour in the mid-’80s, while he continued recording and produced sessions by Makeba. Starting in the mid-90′s, Masekela began releasing a stream of albums and collections that showed his versitility and growth in South African jazz. Though the jazz
content of his work has varied over the years, Hugh Masekela has far more material on the plus side than the negative.
Masekela also played with such luminaries as Miriam Makeba, Zimbabwean Dorothy Masuka, the Jazz Epistles, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Hedzoleh Soundz, Francis Fuster, Dudu Pukwana, and was instrumental in the South African Broadway-style musical King Kong with many of the same people.
Masekela went on to performd with Paul Simon on the Graceland tour and defended Simon vigorously when the tour was seen as a violation of the ANC’s cultural boycott. His 1987 hit “Bring Him Back Home” became the anthem for Nelson Mandela’s world tour following his release from prison in 1992. Masekela once again lives in South Africa and still tours throughout the world extensively.
