In 1963, Duke Ellington changed the lives of two young South Africans forever. One of them was the composer/pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, then known as Dollar Brand. The story of Duke’s discovery of this great talent in a Zurich, Switzerland, nightclub, the recording session that he produced in Paris, and the subsequent release Duke Ellington Presents the Dollar Brand Trio is well known.
The world is less familiar with Sathima “Bea” Benjamin, the singer who persuaded Duke to visit that tiny club on a snowy winter's night. She and Ibrahim, her husband-to-be, had fled South Africa in search of freedom and opportunity. They were poor, but they were making music on their own terms. Benjamin's singing impressed Duke deeply, and he recorded her as well as Ibrahim in Paris. Sadly, her effort languished in a vault, until it was finally released to much acclaim as A Morning in Paris in 1996.
A few weeks ago, I spoke with Benjamin, in Cape Town, South Africa, where she has resettled. While we spoke about many things, the story that she told about being discovered by Ellington was especially vivid. She told me that, when Duke arrived in Zurich for a concert she already knew that Frank Sinatra had asked him to recruit new talent for Reprise records. She was determined to get his attention:
“...I don't know how I got backstage. ...there were all these women with their furs. You know, Duke Ellington loved the ladies, and the ladies loved him. So there were a whole lot of rich, elegant Swiss ladies, with their furs and jewels, waiting to get in his dressing room. ...and I'm standing there with my little Salvation Army clothes.... But every time the door would open, he would catch my eye. Then at one point he said, ‘Let her in.’ And there I was in the room. It was a miracle.
"I'm Glad There is You." Sathima Benjamin with Abdullah Ibrahim, piano. Paris, 1963.
"I said if you'd just come with me when the show is over and listen to the Dollar Brand trio, I think you would be very interested. He didn't even ask me at that point what do I do. He said ‘Ok.’
"Afterwards... we get to the club and the owner had the key in the door. Abdullah and [band members] Makaya [Ntshoko] and Johnny [Gertze] were standing outside, and they see me get out of the car with Duke Ellington. Oh, my God! ...So the owner puts the key back in the door and we go in.
"The trio played, and Duke sat there in wonderment. [He] said, ‘Listen. Be at my hotel at 10:30 am.’ We didn't sleep that night. It was February and was snowing. ...We just couldn't believe what happened. [The next day, Ellington arranged for Sathima, Abdullah, and the band to travel to Paris to record for him.]
"...when we got to Paris... they took us to the Champs-Élysées. I have never in my life lived in such a grand hotel. ...I was just amazed at the grandeur of it all. But that's what Ellington did. [At the Barclay studios], Ellington came in with little Billy Strayhorn. And he aid, ‘Strays... this is Bea. I think the two of you can do wonderful things.’ And Strayhorn sits there, he has his big glass of champagne and his cigar. He says, ‘What are we going to do?’ Instead of me coming up with an Ellington song, I said I'm going to sing ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.’
"Solitude." Sathima Benjamin with Duke Ellington, piano. Paris, 1963.
"Then Ellington said sing with the trio... When I started to sing ‘I Got It Bad,’ he ran out of the booth. He said, ‘Get off of the piano,’ to Abdullah. ‘This is my song.’ I thought, ‘Oh, first it was Strayhorn, now here's Ellington. I can either drop dead now or sing like I never sang before.’ And I know I sang like I never sang before.
"A little later I sang ‘Solitude’ for the very first time. And ever since that time, when it comes time to do ‘Solitude’ in a show, I tell the pianists ‘No, no, no.’ They tell me that I don't have to sing it alone. I say, ‘I'm not singing it alone. I'm hearing Ellington accompanying me. I'm not alone. ...Ellington is here with me.’" [Yes, she's talking about the recording directly above.]
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This interview also appears in the June 2012 issue of Ellingtonia, the publication of the Duke Ellington Society. I'm very grateful to Miss Benjamin for giving me several hours of her time.
I've sung the praises of the Monday night jam sessions at Swingers many times in the past (for instance, here), and I'm not going to miss the chance to do it again.
By now, the sessions are a venerable institution. When I first visited, about ten years ago, they were already one of the foundation stones of the Cape Town jazz scene. I'm happy to report that the jams are still going strong. (Cape Town has a long and rich jazz history, having produced truly legendary musicians, such as Abdullah Ibrahim [Dollar Brand] and Winston "Mankunku" Ngozi. The current generation is maintaining the tradition.)
Tsepo Puoane, Swingers, 26 March 2012. {Photos copyright John Edwin Mason, 2012. Click on either image to see a larger version.}
A good jam session needs a strong house band to anchor the musical goings-on. Swingers has one of the best. Leader Alvin Dyers (guitar), bassist Alistair Andrews, and drummer Denver Furness have been stalwarts seemingly from the beginning. A number of pianists and horn players have cycled through, including the late Nick le Roux, a wonderful player who died much too young. The level at which this band plays is extraordinarily high. I remember escorting a New York horn player to Swingers a couple of years ago. He swaggered in, expecting to own the joint. He walked out full of respect for Cape Town musicians.
Last Monday, Darren English fronted the band on trumpet. He's been a regular at the jams since he was in high school. Back then, he wasn't playing with Alvin and the boys, of course. That's an honor that has to be earned. After studies at the University of Cape Town's College of Music and the Norwegian State Academy of Music, he's matured into a very creative jazz trumpeter. (That's Darren in the photo below, sitting in on drums, during one of the late sets.)
Ross Eustis, trumpet, Darren English, drums, Swingers, 26 March 2012.
The great thing about a jam session is that you never know who or what you're going to hear. Most of the time at Swingers, it's a surprise and a delight. Last Monday, for instance, I was hearing Tsepo Puoane and Ross Eustis for the first time. Both of them were impressive, fully in control of their instruments and the language of contemporary jazz. Puoane is a South African, who has been studying overseas; Eustis is an American, who has a grant to study local musical communities in various parts of the world, including South Africa.
If you're live in Cape Town and care about jazz, you already know about Swingers. If you're a visitor, the club is easy to find -- on Wetton Road (a major street) in a light industrial section of Ottery, a suburb that's about 20 minutes by car from downtown Cape Town. It's also in most tourist guides.
[If you're here for the music, scroll down to the bottom of the page, then come back and read about Mac.]
What to do in Cape Town on the next two Saturday nights? Take yourself over to the SABC Auditorium, in Sea Point, of course. That's where Mac McKenzie -- always one of most exciting and unpredictable figures on Cape Town's music scene -- will lead the Goema Orchestra in the world premiere of his Table Bay Concerto in G.
For years, Mac has been creating brilliant mashups that mix goema -- the musical soul of the Cape Town Carnival -- with various other types of music, especially jazz and rock. Lately, he's been blending it with classical music, with amazing results. I was lucky enough to be in the audience for his last series of concerts with the orchestra (they coincided with the Cape Town International Jazz Festival), and I was blown away. If you care at all about new music, you'll want to be there.
[Click on the image to see a larger version.]
Here's what Mac himself has to say about the Concerto: It's “a chronological account of Table Bay as I imagine it: my impression of its evolution from the time just before the arrival of European settlers, through the time of colonialism, up to the present. I’ve borrowed from various forms such as European hymnody, classical forms and street music -– what I sometimes call tsotsi music -– and assimilated them into goema. The goema is the heartbeat of the minstrel carnival.”
Mac's music is attracting international attention. In July, he performed in Switzerland with members of the Casal Quartet and other South African musicians, including Paul Hanmer and Feya Faku. The performances were so well received that the Swiss organisers have commissioned a new work for a 25-piece orchestra, which he'll direct, in 2012, at festivals across Switzerland.
The debuts of works by guest composers Chantal Willie, Derek Gripper, Mandla Mlangeni, and Aykes Swartz are also on the program.
For more information, call (072) 500 2204 (in South Africa).
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I mentioned that Mac has been concocting mixtures of goema and other music for a long time. Besides the Goema Orchesta, my favorites are the recordings he made with Mr. Mac and the Genuines. (Mr. Mac was Mac's father and a well known Cape Town musician.) It's one part rock, one part jazz, and all parts goema. There's never been anything like it, before or since. Which is a shame, because it's killer music.
Released 02 February 1987.
Samuel "Mr Mac" McKenzie, banjo; Mac McKenzie, bass and vocals; Hilton Schilder, keyboards, percussion, and vocals; Gerard O'Brien, guitar; Ian Herman, drums.
Note: Ekapa, Greg Davids, Mike Campbell, Mike Rossi, and Dave Ledbetter have offered their memories of Basil. Please scroll down to read them.
Basil Moses, perhaps the finest jazz bassist that South Africa has ever produced, died on Sunday morning, after a long battle with cancer and the effects of a series of strokes. He was 70 years old. The family that he leaves behind includes his brother, Cliffie, a guitarist, singer, and bandleader, who was his closest musical collaborator. (You can read a brief obituary, here.)
Basil was usually a sideman and almost never the star, but what an amazing sideman he was. The musical foundation that he laid down with his bass was as steady as a rock. When he soloed, he combined grace and technical brilliance, a cascade of notes with a wonderful melodic sensibility.
I also like this video of Basil playing with Richard Ceasar (piano) and Ivan Bell (drums) at the Green Dolphin, the venerable Cape Town jazz club which recently shut its doors. It begins with Basil in mid-solo. Cape Town loves its smooth jazz. I'm not sure that Basil did, but he sure played the heck out of it.
I was lucky enough to have met Basil about a decade ago, just as I began my research into Cape Town's musical cultures. We became good friends, something that allowed me to spend several hours, one long summer afternoon, talking to him and Cliffie about their lives and careers. I'll have much more to say about Basil in a few days. For the moment, I want to note the passing of a wonderful man and musician.
Update, 7 June 2011: I just received word that Basil's funeral will be held on Friday, June 10th, at the Anglican church of St. Mark the Evangelist, in Athone (Cape Town), at 9:00 in the morning.
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Ekapa just left this comment. It deserves a place in the body of this post:
Yes, Basil had his reservations about international smooth jazz, the Kenny G type (he said he liked some local stuff which he regarded as fusion), but like a lot of good musicians in Cape Town, he was a practical man. In a conversation I had with him a few years ago he in essence said that he loved his audience and that he loved to play music, and if his audience wanted smooth jazz he was going to give them the best smooth jazz there was. Rest easy chief.
Greg Davids, a producer and a presenter on Cape Town's Fine Music Radio, offers this beautiful remembrance:
I had a front row seat to Basil Moses's musical might for many of my formative years, he was my first jazz hero. Basil was a mentor from the time of my being a bedazzled witness to the making of the Four Sounds only recording and for which my Dad, Robert Davids was the co- producer along with Ivan Weir. The band for the recording included Cliffie Moses on guitar and vocals, Basil on Bass, Richard Schilder on piano, Billy Dollie on drums and rounding off the section was an Italian American, Silvio with Sicilian connections and in hiding in SA on flute. His surname was never revealed in the album liner notes. I attended some rehearsals and the legendary album photo shoot that took place on a Sunday morning just down the road from our and the Moses homes. The location was the 7 Steps in District Six. After the shoot, a kind Lady who owned the house adjacent to the steps invited the crew and band in for tea and koeksisters and I acquired my first distaste for milk in tea and my first sweet tooth for Cape Malay confectionary!
Robert Davids composed two tunes on the album, Katrina and Beverley both sung by Cliffie Moses, one of the most under appreciated jazz vocalists and guitarists in this country. My uncle Stan Davids designed the album cover and another uncle, Bobby May was the album photographer. Basil Moses contributed the tunes 7 Steps and Down from Slavery, Richard Schilder, the pianist on the date composed the balance of music. Basil and Cliffie Moses were the quintessential jazz muso's for this 4 year old but also for many of our very finest jazz guitarists and bassists that have risen in their wake.
Through the years Basil guided my earliest knowledge of the form, selflessly conducting lessons on jazz and letting me into his world via deep conversations about favourite musicians like Bill Evans and Scott Lafaro and pin sharp analysis on Shorter compositions or Hancock phrasing. It was to Basil that I went to first, armed with a cassette of Jaco Pastorius music, what followed was hours in blissful bass world. Often something I would play him would lead to him becoming tearful and then me too. These impromptu meetings all took place at Bonds clothing stores, first in Claremont, then in Kenilworth Centre Cape Town and where Basil secured my first real casual earning job as a student. The money was not great, in fact my travel costs left just enough for a coke and pie but the music lessons were priceless. The other platform for ingesting this giant’s musicality was with him as member of both the Four Sounds and Henry February’s bands which performed at clubs like the Five 2 Four jazz club. All of the jazz standards of the day by Parker, Miles, Monk and Evans were performed by talent that could easily of been deputies for the original musicians performing in those bands. Basil’s strong hands, bold statements and perfect intonation summonsed the bass brigade seated in the audience to attention one Saturday after another. He cut through the front line of Mankunku and brothers Ngcukana to sway, swing and soiree us into bass heaven. Basil was a good guitarist as well with that most valuable asset, a great feel. I was enamored by Basil's big sound on bass, something he achieved on both Fender and the double basses. To me, he was a writer, a Walt Whitman, a James Baldwin. He wove beautiful lines into the music and told wonderful tales, his use of glissando was his poetic license. I remember when he decided to stop walking on the bass, a very conscious decision but it never stopped him from swinging. His playing was solid with a great sense of time. When Basil soloed a presence emerged, one found in great leaders, he spoke in a way that captured your attention, his tone was firm but gentle. Basil Moses was our Master of the subterranean and Captain of the 4 strings.
Mike Campbell, a superb bassist and a professor at the University of Cape Town's South African College of Music, left this comment:
I knew Basil for many years, since the 60s actually. We never crossed paths on the stand much, both being bassists, but I always loved the way he played and will remember him with much admiration and respect. He played bass the way it should be, with passion and total commitment to the music, as if every note was the last he would ever play. I hope he's with Jimmy Blanton and Ray Brown now, because they deserve his company.
A comment from Mike Rossi, jazz saxophonist, composer, and professor at the University of Cape Town's South African College of Music:
Basil was not only a great musician but a great human spirit. His energy was contagious, he made you play; he never went through the motions. It was always a joy to play with him especially when playing material not often heard in Cape Town. He knew all the tunes, changes and sure helped a bunch of less experienced pianists along the musical path.
We will miss you Basil however, the music and that smiling persona you left us will always remain.
From Dave Ledbetter, pianist, guitarist, bandleader, and composer:
I played duo , trio , quartet and quintet music with Basil on guitar or piano for over twenty years and what a time we had. We never once had a bad gig. Instead we had an absolute ball creating wonderful music effortlessly and without fear.
I miss him a lot and on the bandstand most of all. I would never need to discuss what we would play and in fact would often just play one song into the next. When we played with Kevin Gibson (which was a lot) I would just start and Basil would hear immediately and respond like he had been playing that song that way his whole life. What a giant!
We would also as a rule try not to play the same song the same way or in the same key more than once. Basil's musicality was such that one could just do this on the fly. He loved that on the edge approach to the music so much. His eyes would light up , we would both smile and he would just dig deep and find that place every time.
There are not too many musicians that one can say one has that rappore with in a lifetime. Basil was certainly one of those key figures to me and too many I am sure. I am eternally grateful for the love and support he showed me as both friend and musician over the years. I wrote a Blues for him which always reminds me of him called, "Blues for Basil," which he used to love playing. I feel really so blessed to have been able to play with him so often and in terms of swing... he was King! A beautiful gentle soul with the sweetest of hearts and a smile that lit up a room.
As many of you know, I've been blogging about the festival (which ran from 23 to 26 March 2011) for the last two weeks. In the posts, I go into much more detail about the performances than I do in the African Lens story. You can find those posts (about Wayne Shorter, Esperanza Spalding, Youssou N'Dour, Patricia Barber, and other performers), here.
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