Considered the father of South African jazz, legendary musician Hugh Masekela has died.

The news was confirmed by Bra Hugh’s family via a statement, reports Times LIVE:

“After a protracted and courageous battle with prostate cancer, he passed peacefully in Johannesburg, South Africa surrounded by his family.”

In October, we learnt that the musician had been battling prostate cancer since 2008:

The statement explained that the jazz veteran underwent eye surgery in March 2016 after the cancer spread, and had to go into theatre again in September 2016 as another tumour was discovered.

In December, Georgiou told TshisaLIVE that he was fighting the disease with everything he had.

Masekela was born in KwaGuqa township in Witbank in April 4, 1939, explains eNCA:

As a child, he began playing the piano, but a movie about jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, Young Man with a Horn, inspired him to shift his musical allegiances.

Anti-apartheid activist Father Trevor Huddleston helped Masekela to acquire a trumpet and ensured he received tuition, resulting in his rapidly joining South Africa’s first youth orchestra, the Huddleston Jazz Band.

In the late 50s, Masekela joined up with Dollar Brand (later known as Abdullah Ibrahim), Kippie Moeketsi, Jonas Gwangwa, Johnny Gertze and alternately Early Mabuza or Makaya Ntshoko on drums, to form The Jazz Epistles, who regularly performed at the Odin Theatre in Sophiatown.

In 1959, Masekela joined the cast of Todd Matshikiza’s “all-African jazz opera” King Kong. The musical, which also helped launch the career of Miriam Makeba, received permission to perform in London in 1961.

With the Sharpeville massacre in mind and with jazz being seen as an expression of resistance, performances and broadcasts in South Africa were severely restricted. Masekela took the opportunity, along with many other members of the cast, to remain in England, effectively going into exile, and enrolled at the London Guildhall School of Music, later moving to the Manhattan School of Music in New York.

Here he befriended musician and political activist Harry Belafonte, and his music increasingly began reflecting the harsh realities of repression and discrimination back home.

Masekela married Miriam Makeba in 1964, but the couple divorced in 1966.

Masekela had success in the United States with a pop-jazz tune, “Up, Up and Away”, in 1967.

He performed at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, alongside Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, before releasing Grazing in the Grass in 1968, which reached number one on the pop and R&B charts.

In 1970, he toured Guinea with Miriam Makeba and met Nigerian AfroBeat musician Fela Kuti and the Ghanian band Hedzoleh Soundz.

This led to his breakthrough album “Introducing Hedzoleh Soundz”, one of the most highly regarded Afro-jazz albums of the decade.

He will be sorely missed by everyone who appreciated his fantastic music, as well as for showcasing South African talent on the international stage.

[source:enca&timeslive]