(All photos copyright John Edwin Mason, 2010. Click directly on any of the images to see larger versions.)
It's the weather, mostly. Too many days look just like this -- cold, gray, and wet. (The weather goes a long way toward explaining why so many Captonians spend so much time indoors, hanging out with friends, listening to jazz.)
It can make people grumpy.
Of course, the weather's not the only thing on people's minds. Sporadic street crime can wear you down, too.
Thank God for the Football World Cup. It's put everyone in a much better mood.
Including the good folks at Duma's Falling Leaves Jazz Rendezvous. (That's Duma himself [Gus Ntlokwana], standing second from the left, and my friend Temba Nolutshungu, standing second from the right.)
Without a doubt, Duma's Falling Leaves Jazz Rendezvous is one of the best places in Cape Town to listen to jazz, have a drink, and hang out with some terrific people.
Located in Gugulethu (a suburb that was referred to as an "African township," during the bad old days of apartheid), it's off the radar screen of most Capetonians, let alone tourists. It shouldn't be. It's a friendly place and a truly great shebeen.
Gus (Duma) Ntlokwana is your genial host. During the '50s and '60s, he was widely regarded as one of South Africa's finest jazz bassists, playing with top bands in Cape Town and Johannesburg and eventually touring southern Africa with the African Jazz and Variety Revue, the one-time musical home of stars such as Miriam Makeba.
As was the case with many African, coloured, and Indian musicians, apartheid, South Africa's old system of white supremacy and racial oppression, brought his career to an end. Laws that restricted entertainers to performing before audiences of their own racial category made it almost impossible for musicians who weren't white to earn a living. Some went into exile; others sought other lines of work. To support his family, Gus turned to driving a bus, among other things. As Gus once told me, the situation was like this: "If you want to stay in music, you’ve got to leave the country."
Gus opened the Jazz Rendezvous over a decade ago as a hang out for music lovers. (By the way, that Gus's old bass over the bar.) Usually the music you'll hear -- classic and contemporary jazz from South Africa and the United States, plus marabi and mbaqanga (both sometimes called "township jazz') -- is being played over the sound system. If you're lucky, however, you'll hear live performances from some of Cape Town's best musicians.
The walls are covered with history. Look closely, and you'll see photos of South African legends such as Louis Moholo, Hugh Masekela, and the late, great Winston "Mankunku" Ngozi. (Click directly on any of these photos to see larger versions.)
The Jazz Rendezvous is a pretty laid-back place, during the day and early evening. Things pick up at night, especially on weekends. As you can see, in Africa, music -- even jazz -- is for dancing.
The proud owner, outside of Cape Town's number one shebeen.
Winston "Mankunku" Ngozi, one of South Africa's finest musicians, died last Monday, in Cape Town. As a composer and as a saxophonist, he forever changed the shape of South African jazz. "Yakhal' Inkomo," his best known composition, has become a South African standard. Every serious musician knows it; you'll hear it everywhere the music is played. The song is deeply embedded in at least two musical traditions: the progressive African-American jazz of John Coltrane that Mankunku loved so much, and the music of his own Xhosa people.
Winston "Mankunku" Ngozi, "Yakhal' Inkomo," recorded in 1968. Performed by Mankunku, tenor sax; Lionel Pillay, piano; Agrippa Mogwaza, bass; and Early Mabuza, drums.
When he created "Yakal' Inkomo," Mankunku reached back into the South African past, beyond the marabi and mbaqanga [types of South African jazz] that he played as a young man, into the music and spirituality of the pre-colonial era. The very words "Yakal' Inkomo" refer to the bellow of a bull, when it's sacrificed in honor of the ancestors.
Winston "Mankunku" Ngozi, "Dedication (To Daddy Trane and Brother Silver)." Also performed by Mankunku, tenor sax; Lionel Pillay, piano; Agrippa Mogwaza, bass; and Early Mabuza, drums.
It's no surprise, really, that Mankunku wrote "Dedication" for Coltrane and Horace Silver. Even though he was an ocean away from them (and never met either), they inspired him to push his music far beyond the conventional and to blaze his own musical path. (It's no accident that Coltrane, a deeply spiritual musician, affected Mankunku, another spiritual soul, so greatly.
I got to know Mankunku only in the latter stages of his life. He was already weakened by the heart condition that eventually killed him, when my friend Temba Nolutshungu introduced us several years ago. Temba knew that I was working on a book about jazz in Cape Town and was eager to speak with him.
A formal interview never really happened, in part, because of Mankunku's humility--his inability to see himself as the giant that he truly was--and, in part, because of his health. Instead, we had a series of informal conversations, usually in his home in Gugulethu, an African "township" within the Cape Town municipality, a relic of apartheid, the old system of racial segregation.
It was during one of those chats that he told me that he "loved jazz before he knew what jazz was." He was thinking back to his youth, when an uncle started him in music. This uncle played marabi and mbaqanga on the piano, and the young Mankunku, singing, would improvise along with him.
All of his life, Mankunku communicated more easily--and more profoundly--in music than with words. I remember once driving him, his brother, and my friend, Temba, to visit Gus Ntlokwana, who runs Duma’s Falling Leaves Jazz Rendezvous, Gugulethu's hippest shebeen. Mankunku was sitting in the back and had been very quiet all day. Out of nowhere, he started playing his sax--a soft, haunting tune--a lament, perhaps--that seemed to have no beginning and no end. Suddenly, we were no longer in my hired Toyota and far away from the dust and heat of Gugulethu. He had taken all of us to a place where, for a moment, only music mattered.
I have many other memories of Mankunku. This one is by far my favorite.
You can read more tributes to Mankunku here, here, and here.
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