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Before The Wind Changes
''Before the Wind Changes'' is a live album by The Blue Notes, featuring alto saxophonist Dudu Pukwana, pianist Chris McGregor, double bassist Johnny Dyani, and drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo. It was recorded on July 1, 1979, at Jazzclub De Hoop in Waregem, Belgium, and was released in 2012 by Ogun Records. Reception In a review for ''The Independent'', Phil Johnson noted that, although the recording "isn't of audiophile quality," the group is "on absolute top form." He wrote: "The power of the music is shocking... You'll need a rest halfway through, it's that intense." ''Point of Departures Bill Shoemaker stated that the album documents the band "at the height of their creative powers," and commented: "The Blue Notes were on a tear that night – that comes through loud and clear." Robert Iannapollo of ''Cadence'' remarked: "Sadly, the group was now down to a quartet... but the rousing spirit of their music was still there and still glowing strong... For those who can't tolerate a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Blue Notes
The Blue Notes were a South African jazz sextet, whose definitive line-up featured Chris McGregor on piano, Mongezi Feza on trumpet, Dudu Pukwana on alto saxophone, Nikele Moyake on tenor saxophone, Johnny Dyani on bass, and Louis Moholo-Moholo on drums. After moving away from their home country in 1964, they established themselves on the European jazz circuit, where they continued to play and record through the 1970s. They are now considered one of the great free jazz bands of their era, whose music was given a unique flavour by their integration of African styles such as Kwela into the progressive jazz ideas of the time. Early days Although the band was initially based in Cape Town (five of the group's six members came from the Eastern Cape), they came to prominence at the 1963 National Jazz Festival in Johannesburg. An album recorded after the festival was released as ''Jazz – The African Sound'', but this was not a Blue Notes record ''per se'', it was rather an albu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Jazz
Free jazz, or free form in the early to mid-1970s, is a style of avant-garde jazz or an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, Musical tone, tones, and chord changes. Musicians during this period believed that the bebop and modal jazz that had been played before them was too limiting, and became preoccupied with creating something new. The term "free jazz" was drawn from the 1960 Ornette Coleman recording ''Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation''. Europeans tend to favor the term "free improvisation". Others have used "modern jazz", "creative music", and "art music". The ambiguity of free jazz presents problems of definition. Although it is usually played by small groups or individuals, free jazz big band, big bands have existed. Although musicians and critics claim it is innovative and forward-looking, it draws on early styles of jazz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ogun Records
Ogun Records is a jazz record label created in London in 1973 by South African expatriate bassist Harry Miller, his wife Hazel Miller, and sound engineer Keith Beal. They recorded British avant-garde jazz musicians Keith Tippett, Mike Osborne, Elton Dean, Lol Coxhill, Harry Beckett, Trevor Watts and their collaborations with expatriate South Africans, including the Blue Notes, Chris McGregor, Dudu Pukwana, Mongezi Feza, Louis Moholo, and Johnny Dyani in groups like McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath, Dean's Ninesense, and Miller's Isipingo. efi.group.shef.ac.uk The label did not have any releases for several years, beginning in 1980, during which the Millers lived in the Netherlands. Harry Miller was killed in a car accident in 1983. Hazel Miller started releasing new titles on LP in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ogun Collection
''The Ogun Collection'' is a five-CD box set compilation album by The Blue Notes, featuring saxophonists Nick Moyake and Dudu Pukwana, trumpeter Mongezi Feza, pianist Chris McGregor, double bassist Johnny Dyani, and drummer Louis Moholo. It brings together the contents of four albums previously released by Ogun Records: '' Legacy: Live in South Afrika 1964'' (recorded in 1964, released in 1995); '' Blue Notes for Mongezi'' (recorded in 1975, released in 1976); '' Blue Notes in Concert'' (recorded in 1977, released in 1978); and '' Blue Notes for Johnny'' (recorded and released in 1987). The latter three albums appear here in expanded form. ''The Ogun Collection'', which also includes a booklet containing photos and essays, was released by Ogun in 2008. In 2022, the label reissued all four albums as stand-alone releases, using the expanded versions found on the compilation. Reception The editors and critics of ''The Village Voice'' ranked the album #7 in their list of the top 10 ja ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dudu Pukwana
Mthutuzeli Dudu Pukwana (18 July 1938 – 30 June 1990) was a South African saxophonist and composer. Early years in South Africa Dudu Pukwana was born in Walmer, Port Elizabeth, Walmer Township, Port Elizabeth, South Africa. He grew up studying piano in his family, but in 1956 he switched to alto saxophone after meeting tenor saxophone player Nikele Moyake."Mtutuzeli Dudu Pukwana" South African History online. In 1962, Pukwana won first prize at the Johannesburg Jazz Festival with Moyake's Jazz Giants (1962 Gallo/Teal). In his early days he also played with Kippie Moeketsi. Chris McGregor then invited him to join the pioneering The Blue Notes, Blue Notes sextet, where he played along with Mongezi Feza, Nikele Moyake, Johnny Dyani and Louis Moholo. Although the Blue Notes are often consider ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chris McGregor
Christopher McGregor (24 December 1936 – 26 May 1990) was a South African jazz pianist, bandleader and composer born in Somerset West, South Africa. Early influences McGregor grew up in the then Transkei (now part of the Eastern Cape Province), where his father was headmaster at a Church of Scotland mission institution called Blythswood. Here McGregor was exposed to the music of the local amaXhosa people. This music, as explained in Dave Dargie's book ''Xhosa Music'', is complex. Dargie mentions the following as examples of this complexity which might be seen to have influenced McGregor in his own music, both as composer/arranger and as band leader: "...a great number of style characteristics are to be found: relating not only to harmony and scale, but to melody, structure and phrasing, form, rhythm, instrumentation, singing techniques, and so on." In his book ''Chasing the Vibration'' Graham Lock quotes McGregor saying: "I have this strong imaginative reference to Afric ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johnny Dyani
Johnny Mbizo Dyani (30 November 1945 – 24 October 1986) was a South African jazz double bassist, vocalist and pianist, who, in addition to being a key member of The Blue Notes, played with such international musicians as Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, David Murray, Finnish guitar player Jukka Syrenius, Pierre Dørge, Peter Brötzmann, Mal Waldron, fellow South African Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim), and Leo Smith, among many other prominent players. Biography Dyani was born (3 years before the establishment of Apartheid) and grew up in Duncan Village, East London, in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality, eastern Cape Province of South Africa. In the early 1960s, he was a member of South Africa's first integrated jazz band, The Blue Notes, with Mongezi Feza on trumpet, Dudu Pukwana on alto saxophone, Nikele Moyake on tenor saxophone, Chris McGregor on piano, and Louis Moholo on drums. In 1964, the band fled South Africa to seek musical and political freedom. Moholo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Moholo-Moholo
Louis Tebogo Moholo (10 March 1940 – 13 June 2025) was a South African jazz drummer. He was a member of several notable bands, including The Blue Notes, the Brotherhood of Breath and Assagai. Biography Born in Cape Town, Moholo formed The Blue Notes with Chris McGregor, Johnny Dyani, Nikele Moyake, Mongezi Feza and Dudu Pukwana, and emigrated to Europe with them in 1964, eventually settling in London, where he formed part of a South African exile community that made an important contribution to British jazz. In 1966, he toured Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he performed at the Theatron with Steve Lacy, Johnny Dyani and Enrico Rava and recorded the album ''The Forest and the Zoo'' with the same musicians. He was a member of the Brotherhood of Breath, a big band comprising several South African exiles and leading musicians of the British free jazz scene in the 1970s and was the founder of Viva la Black and The Dedication Orchestra. His first album under his own name, ''Spirits R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
All About Jazz
''All About Jazz'' is a website established by Michael Ricci in 1995. A volunteer staff publishes news, album reviews, articles, videos, and listings of concerts and other events having to do with jazz. Ricci maintains a related site, ''Jazz Near You'', about local concerts and events. The Jazz Journalists Association voted ''All About Jazz'' Best Website Covering Jazz for thirteen consecutive years between 2003 and 2015, when the category was retired. In 2015, Ricci said the site received a peak of 1.3 million readers per month in 2007. Another source said that the site has over 500,000 readers around the world. Ricci was born in Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ..., Pennsylvania, United States. He heard classical and jazz from his father's music coll ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was published on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only the online edition. The daily edition was named National Newspaper of the Year at the 2004 British Press Awards. ''The Independent'' won the Brand of the Year Award in The Drum Awards for Online Media 2023. History 1980s Launched in 1986, the first issue of ''The Independent'' was published on 7 October in broadsheet format.Dennis Griffiths (ed.) ''The Encyclopedia of the British Press, 1422–1992'', London & Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992, p. 330. It was produced by Newspaper Publishing plc and created by Andreas Whittam Smith, Stephen Glover and Matthew Symonds. All three partners were former journalists at ''The Daily Telegraph'' who had left the paper towards the end of Lord Hartwell' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cadence (magazine)
''Cadence: The Independent Journal of Creative Improvised Music'' is a quarterly review of jazz, blues and improvised music. The magazine covers a range of styles, from early jazz and blues to the avant-garde. Critic and historian Bob Rusch founded the magazine as a monthly in 1976 and served as publisher and coordinating editor through 2011. Musician David Haney became editor and publisher in 2012. History and profile ''Cadence'' began publication in 1976. The magazine's original parent company, Cadnor, Ltd. (based in Redwood Sequoioideae, commonly referred to as redwoods, is a subfamily of Pinophyta, coniferous trees within the family (biology), family Cupressaceae, that range in the Northern Hemisphere, northern hemisphere. It includes the List of superlative tree ..., New York), also owns a pair of jazz record labels ( CIMP and Cadence Jazz), a record distributorship (Cadence/North Country), and an audio equipment retailer (Northcountry Audio). The magazine was publ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mackay Davashe
Makwenkwe "Mackay" Davashe (1920–1972) was a South African musician. He achieved success as a saxophonist and composer with the Manhattan Brothers and later the Jazz Epistles. Biography Davashe was born in 1920 in the South African city of East London. He played the pennywhistle in his youth before switching to the saxophone. He toured with several older musicians, including the Jazz Maniacs, a top South African orchestra, in the mid-1940s. In 1952 several bands in the Johannesburg region sought to cover "Majuba", a song he wrote. That year, ''Drum'' magazine wrote that Davashe's "renditions of African themes are the best we have had so far". In 1950 he was leading a group called the Shantytown Sextet, in which Kippie Moeketsi played. Davashe's style at the time was described as similar to that of tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins. By the mid-1950s Davashe had developed an interest in bebop, and began collaborating with Dollar Brand (later known as Abdullah Ibrahim). The duo f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
