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Posts tagged ‘Louis Moholo-Moholo’

Aug 28

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Farewell to Bra Tebs

There used to be a civilised convention that normal reviewing practice should be suspended for certain kinds of musical events: those put on for charity, or memorials. Of the celebration of the life of Louis Tebogo Moholo-Moholo at a packed 100 Club last night, it need really only be said that the whole evening was suffused with the indomitable spirit of the great South African drummer, who died in June, aged 85.

The trumpeter Claude Deppa, his friend and frequent bandmate in Viva La Black, started the proceedings at the head of his warm-hearted quartet. Then the pianist Steve Beresford and the drummer Mark Sanders took over for an intricate and absorbing free conversation. Evan Parker brought out his soprano saxophone, removed its mouthpiece, and tapped the keys to produce a quite extraordinary 10-minute percussion solo which managed to be both a shadow commentary on what he might have played with the mouthpiece in place and a unique tribute to his former colleague in the band Foxes Fox. The trio of Larry Stabbins on alto saxophone, Paul Rogers on bass and Sanders again on drums played a set notable for Rogers manoeuvring his bespoke seven-string instrument into the expressive space between a Celtic harp and a cello.

The heart of the celebration of Bra Tebs (as his friends knew him), which was organised by Hazel Miller and Mike Gavin of Ogun Records, came in the set by Four Blokes + 1, his last London-based band. Pictured above, this featured Jason Yarde and Shabaka on saxophones, Alex Hawkins on piano and John Edwards on bass, with the superb Sanders once more on the drum stool, embodying rather than imitating the characteristics of Louis’s playing. They came out roaring, and that’s how they were still sounding as I had to make my departure, with the darkly ecstatic closing cadences of “Dikeledi Tsa Phelo” accompanying me up the stairs and into the night.

Jul 29

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The return of Larry Stabbins

Not often does a jazz club dedicate an evening to the memory of a regular customer. Last night’s show at the Vortex was dedicated to Shirley Thompson, who died earlier this year, aged 87. For many years Shirley and her partner, John Jack, the founder of Cadillac Records, were fixtures at a table for two alongside the left-hand wall; the seating arrangements have recently changed, but a photograph of the couple and a bottle of wine were placed on a table in their old location.

As it happens, a lot of emotions were floating around the Vortex last night. The event also commemorated the late Louis Moholo-Moholo by functioning as the launch of a new CD, recorded live in Foggia during a short Italian tour 40 years ago, by a special trio: Louis on drums, Keith Tippett on piano, and Larry Stabbins on tenor and soprano saxophones and flute.

Stabbins was the featured attraction last night, leading a trio completed by the most suitable replacements possible: Alexander Hawkins on piano and Mark Sanders on drums. Having made his reputation alongside Tippett, his fellow Bristolian and mentor, in Centipede and Ark, and confirmed it with the the SME, the LJCO and others, as well the band Working Week, the saxophonist left music for 20 years. His return to activity is greatly to be applauded.

Last night he led off with “Ismite Is Might”, a beautiful Chris McGregor composition that he remembered from his experience of depping for Alan Skidmore in the Brotherhood of Breath. A sober, hymn-like piece, it displayed the strength of his tenor tone and the sharp focus of his phrasing: stronger and sharper than I remembered, indeed. There were other evocations of the South African influence throughout the set I heard, most obviously in a marvellously powerful Hawkins solo. Sanders kept the pots boiling throughout in a way that Louis would have admired. This was life-enhancing music.

* Live in Foggia is out now on the Ogun label (Ogunrecording.co.uk). There will be a full-scale tribute to Louis Moholo-Moholo at the 100 Club on August 27, featuring many musicians with whom he worked, including Claude Deppa, Evan Parker and Shabaka Hutchings, and members of his band Four Blokes (tickets: https://wegottickets.com/event/669285).

Jun 14

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The last of the Blue Notes

Louis Moholo-Moholo died on Thursday at his home in Cape Town, aged 85. He was the last survivor of the Blue Notes, the group — also including the trumpeter Mongezi Feza, the alto saxophonist Dudu Pukwana, the pianist Chris McGregor and the bassist Johnny Dyani — who arrived in Europe in 1964, fleeing South Africa’s apartheid regime. Once settled in London, they infused the British jazz scene with the warmth and directness of their playing, leaving an impression that continues to be heard in the music of later generations. Now they’re all gone.

Nobody cracked the whip from the drum stool like Louis, with the most benign of intentions. Until you saw him live, you could have only the haziest impression of his invigorating and sometimes electrifying effect on those around him — whether the other member of a duo (perhaps the pianists Keith Tippett, Livio Minafra or Alexander Hawkins) or the massed ranks of McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath or Pino Minafra’s Canto Generàl. I treasure memories of Mike Osborne’s incendiary trio with Louis and the bassist Harry Miller, another of the South African emigré cadre. Miller’s sextet, Elton Dean’s Ninesense and later on, the extraordinary quartet Foxes Fox were other bands whose fires he stoked.

And, of course, there was Four Blokes, his own final band, with Hawkins, Jason Yarde on saxophones and the bassist John Edwards. I had the thrill, when presenting the quartet at JazzFest Berlin in 2015, of hearing them start a fire the instant Louis was settled behind his kit. The effect, as always, was indescribably exhilarating. Because that’s what Louis did: he showed you what this music could do, where it could go, how it could touch your soul. Now may he rest in peace.

* The photograph of Louis Moholo-Moholo was taken at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele in 2015 by Camille Blake.