(NEWZIMBABWE) Masekela, Black Mambazo to perform at jazz festival

Masekela, Black Mambazo to perform at jazz festival
by
12/04/2010 00:00:00

IT IS billed as the jazz show of the year as South African giants meet Zimbabwean big acts in Saturday’s Harare Jazz Festival at the Harare Sports Club. Hugh Masekela and Ladysmith Black Mambazo will perform at the festival together with Zimbabwe’s Oliver Mtukudzi and the Cool Crooners.

Other artists confirmed for the festival are Sibongile Khumalo, Jazz Invitation, Mbare Trio and Silvia Manco (from Italy).

“To be with those great people at the festival will give me an opportunity to bond with the great people of Zimbabwe. I am looking forward to that show with great friends,” Masekela told RadioVop on Monday.

Shepherd Mutamba, TukuMusiks’ publicist, said it would be the superstar’s first performance in Zimbabwe following the death of his son, Samson, in a tragic car accident.

“He is ready to do what he knows best. It’s going to be blast,” he said.

But it is Masekela’s appearance that has jazz fanatics drooling.

Masekela has played primarily in jazz ensembles, with guest appearances on albums by The Byrds ("So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star") 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.

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 set up a mobile studio in Botswana, just over the South African border, in the 1980s.

Here he re-absorbed and re-used mbaqanga strains, a style he has continued to use since his return to South Africa in the early 1990s.

In the 1980s, he toured with Paul Simon in support of Simon's album Graceland, which featured other South African artists such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Miriam Makeba, Ray Phiri, and other elements of the band Kalahari, which Masekela recorded with in the 1980s.

He also collaborated in the musical development for the Broadway play, Sarafina! He previously recorded with the band Kalahari. - RadioVoP