Concert: This is for Makaya (1939-2024)

A memorial concert and jam session for the late Makaya Ntshoko of Jazz Epistles' fame

On 27 August the legendary drummer Makaya Ntshoko passed away in Basel - the city where he had made his home for half a century. Makaya belonged to the first generation of jazz musicians who left South Africa with the tightening of the apartheid regime in the ealry 1960s and who had a great influence on the European jazz scene. Ntshoko first came to Switzerland in 1962 together with pianist Abdullah Ibrahim as part of the Dollar Brand Trio.

Born in Cape Town in 1939, the musician (and, in his younger years, boxer!) was a member of the legendary Jazz Epistles at the end of the 1950s, who recorded ‘Verve’, the first modern jazz LP by black musicians in South Africa. He also formed a trio with pianist Dollar Brand and Johnny Gertze (bass) and founded the Jazz Giants with Kippie Moeketsi, Dudu Pukwana, Gideon Nxumalo and Martin Mgijima. After the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 and a year in England with the musical ‘King Kong’, Makaya Ntshoko and Johnny Gertze followed their pianist to Zurich in 1962 and played at the Cafe Africana. Duke Ellington heard the trio there after his concert at the Zurich Congress Centre, was delighted and recorded the famous LP ‘Duke Ellington presents the Dollar Brand Trio’ in Paris just four days later. It was not until the 1990s that ‘A Morning in Paris’ from the same recording session with singer Sathima Bea Benjmin and the pianists Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Dollar Brand - and Makaya Ntshoko on drums - was released. The Paris session marked the beginning of Dollar Brand's international career, and Makaya Ntshoko went on to play with greats such as Dexter Gordon, Ben Webster, Roland Kirk, George Gruntz, Irène Schweizer, Don Cherry, Pierre Favre, Andy Scherrer and the Stephan Kurmann Strings.

His polyrhythmic playing was admired worldwide, from the public to luminaries such as Elvin Jones, the drummer of John Coltrane. Ntshoko was also successful with his own band ‘Makaya and the Tsotsis’ with Heinz Sauer (saxophone), Bob Degen (piano) and Isla Eckinger (bass). Makaya Ntshoko was a mainstay of the Frankfurt project ‘Jazz against Apartheid’, which was co-founded by South African bassist Johnny Dyani, for many years and until almost the end - together with saxophonist John Tchicai, among others. Together with pianist Irene Schweizer, who died this year, and saxophonist Omri Ziegele, for a decade he formed the trio ‘Where is Africa’.

Since its beginnings in 1994 he was also associated with the jazz club the bird's eye. As part of a residency project organised by the Centre for African Studies at the University of Basel, Ntshoko toured Switzerland in 2006 with the Swiss-South African Jazz Quintet (Feya Faku, tr, Andy Scherrer, ts, Colin Valon, p, Stephan Kurmann, b) and celebrated a much-noticed homecoming in South Africa in 2007 with the same band (this time with Domenic Landolf on tenor saxophone). During this time he recorded his last CD ‘Happy House’ with his New Tsotsis (Andy Scherrer, ts, Vera Kappeler, p, Stephan Kurmann, b), which was released by Steeple Chase in 2008.

Makaya Ntshoko died on 27 August 2024 in Basel, the city where he had lived modestly and almost unnoticed by the public since the 1960s. News that made national headlines in South Africa!

The bird's eye jazz club invites friends and admirers of Makaya Ntshoko for a jam session and concert with some of his companions. Details will be published shortly on the website of the club www.birdseye.ch.

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