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My Life with a South African Jazz Pioneer by Maxine Mcgregor Bow the Free Improvised Sound of BAMBERGER BOOKS, Box 1126, Flint, Ml48501-L1z6, U.S.A

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My Life with a South African Jazz Pioneer by Maxine Mcgregor Bow the Free Improvised Sound of BAMBERGER BOOKS, Box 1126, Flint, Ml48501-L1z6, U.S.A n artist's life story can teach by A vivid example the univeual rules for making and living art. Maxine McGregor's celebration ot her husband's life is just that: a compelling tale of the art, li fe, and politics of a master!ul composer I bandleadec whose work for over two decades in Europe and England changed the fac:e of creath1 improvised mu sic. Penetrating the mystery of making art in an hostUe sodal atmosphere, the book cl on ides the music's rise in the reptessive South Aftican regime of the Ja e 50s enrly 60s and the changes that occurred ln the music as the composer and hiS band moved through Europe, even tually settling in the U.K. Written after the composer's death in 1990, Chris McGretor And The BrotiJerlrood Of CHRIS McGREGOR AND THE BROTHERHOOD OF BRBA TH: Brtath ls an intimate lesson of origins, My Life With A South African jazz Pioneer by MaXine McGregor bow the free Improvised sound of BAMBERGER BOOKS, Box 1126, Flint, Ml48501-l1Z6, U.S.A. Ayler and Coleman mixed with traditional Afric:an themes to create a vital new music. It is also a document get out of Lt." 1n 1964, the BlueNotes ....,hris McGregor formed the of the friendships and all1ances that left South Africa for an engagement at '-.-1 BlueNotes after a !ew years of made possible such a creative outburst. a Iau festival in Juan-les-Pins, France, moving tluoug.h the thriving first stop of a long Journey of exile. community of South African jaz: The dally Ufe of the BlueNotes and musicians. The book tells of his many other artisu in earty 1960s This .feeling of being a fugitive 'Within meetinQ' with Dudu Pukwana as beinl South Africa was a risky business. Pass one's own country was later in his ltte pivotal to the group's creation and Laws effectively separated the races, mirrored by the desolation of living as direction. Influenced by the j:w: of A creating a weird limbo for artists who an exile in the U.K. and Europe. He Blakey, Horace Silver, and Duke chose to cross colour lines delineated never lost the African roots of his Ellington, the BlueNotes were also by the racist state. McGregor himself nature, saying that as he grew older, affected deeply by the music swirling was caught up ln the pollee state he began to feel more African tban through the cities of late fifties South having to affect a disguise to perform ever. The spirit of the continent was Africa. McGregor talked about that In an aU-black jau festival. Creating an essential part of McGregor's nature, mixture of lnfiuences by way of an audience for the BlueNotes In· one that he actively cultivated ln hls debunking assumptions that some volved a process of playing small cafe music. In a radio interview, the people made about the exclusively bars and staging their own shows in composer talked about the music's American roots of Jau. theatre' throughout the state, inviting roots and its connection to African anest and detention if they were culture, suggesting an experience "African kwela and mbaqanga music caught up in a eturity police sweep. beyond the dimensions of sound. coming into contact with modern technological society tends to becomt "I adopted a kind of invisible policy ... "It shows to my tnind a certain something which one could call jazz but lt's amazing how visible you can psychic continuity which ls very muSlc. Historians talk readily about get through being Invisible. With the Important in the music. It Is some­ the melting pot t.hat was New Orlean: BlueNotes we were becoming the focus thing beyond any Individual, almost a and e"/erything that took place thete. for a lot of strange stuff. We exCited tidal movement." When asked why be think that in the world there are othe people, and when those armed had named the orchestra project, New Orleans ~ especially in Africa". policemen saw a crowd of excited Brotherhood of 'Breath, he replied, "1 black people, they started fingering had to look tor a name that expressed Maxine McGregor's book Is a rernatk· their holsters. 1t was a nervous trigger­ the fact that r was beginning to teel a able elfort that finally documents a happy atmosphere, and 1 was glad to certain universal pull in tbe music." muslc that has been mostly over· 22 CODA CHRIS McGREGOR · JUNE 19i I~~/:. RRVlR\\1~ llV ~TRVR VICRRRV . PHOTOGRAPHY B'l. VAL \VIUIEB Scandinavia, forming the band WitchDoctor's Son. His position ln McGregor's lattl bands was filled by other South African bassists, Harry Miller and Ernest Mothl c, two mu$iclans who undemood the crudal rhythmic pulse that the pianist wa$ looking for in the mus c. ~beautiful as the music was on occaslon, the stra n of pulling together a unit of fte rcely lnd1vldual artists and rthears ng a pzogram of ambitious music, only to be faced wtth making no mortey for the r trouble wa~ :t stretch tor all concerned. The marginal acceptance of the music within the fairl, staid atmosphere of 70s London also cr ated som friction within the band. looked. Her tone and sense of the he author's understanding of the HJn South Africa the spirit behind the events brings the reader stTalght into T mus\clans' lives and her empathy resistance 1s expressed in the music ... the thick of a community of artists with their struggle as exiles brings an the kind of jazz we played is not and exiles, forging a music uniquely unusual quality oflmmedlacy to thls obviously political, but 1 think our their own . The BlueNotes (McGregor biography. It l$ enlightening t<Q hear generation of musl.ctans were the fil'st piano, Dudu Pukwana alto sax.ophone, her describe the musicians lives, free to make an impact on South African Nick Moyake tenor saxophone, of the clich~s that abound concerning cultural thinking. To come ftom there Mongez.l Feza trumpd, Jol'lnny Mbiso jazz music. In the face of poverty and to here, where tn a strange way what Dyanl bass, and Louis Moholo drums) record industry indifference, the you do doesn't really milttet to were a rarity, a unit that developed a stories of success still seem sweet. anyone, is a difficult thing to adJwt rapport that verged on the telepathic. From a review of their London debut to." This ability to take the music out into at Ronnie Scott's; "The emphasis on tJ 1ther and then instantly reconnect feeling - feeling as spontaneous After l1 long tie in Copenhagen'& lv17lay a theme as an ensemble was exctternent -is the predominant Cafe Montmartre, the transition into something that the composer sought quaUty of Chris McGregor1s music. It the new music was permanent, e.n to duplicate for y~rs after the moves organically, from a delicate evolution that astonished many close eventual breakup of the BlueNotes. He theme through Individual solos, to the band. Chri$ McGregor heard later remarked: '"It seems to me very converging In a frenetic and orgiastic the Inuslc of Albert Ayler and was diff!C\.llt to take collective improv­ climax (the influence of Chulie immediately committed to playing isation as the basis of existence of a Mingus w~s evident hete)H. without the ·limitations that had big formation ... in the Brotherhood, previously been present In the music. there is not just written music, ear The book spans tough!)' three decades He had met the Ayler brothers when counts e'tlormously also, u well as the from the early formation of the they visited London and was notion of a cornmon cultural back­ BlueNotes to the years of the impressed by the strength of their ground. ln the previous orctlestra Brotherhood, a big band that music and direction. For McGregor, (Brotherhood circa 1970) the nudeus challenged the pcevaillng climate of the jump Into the new thing was not of South Africans sometimes produced jau mustc by incorporating total free a question of why, but one ot how. music that appeared totally Improvisation within the context of tmprovlsed1 but that was not the case. the written score, a notion that was "Just being with them - Albert who's It was just that, because of our origins, exbllaratlng for some and plainly so happy- it was a spiritual ble.ssing. we could synchronise With each other disturbing for others. Johnny Dyani, Things wete pressing on me like, how instantly through a rhythm or a the formidable bassist of the BlueNote.s can 1 do it? How c.an I get out that melody. Improvisation is a multiform decided that he disagreed with the speed, that en.ergy? And should 1 try notion, connected to a tradition, a direction of the music taking shape this and try to work that so as not to culture, a social life." and lett the country to go settle n lose contact wittl people?" >>>>> THE BLUENOTES • I CA. LONDON 1966 c.onA '~ he ~arne ~ue!tiom were bein~ mu~idam ha~ much apart of the Evan Parker remember~; 'The ~tran~e Tasked throughout tne mu~ic book a~ the development of he thing wa~ that in that band, Ialway~ world at that time. Drummer John muuc. The musicians' deep lon for wanted to play the charts stralghtet. tevem worked with Chtls McGre or heir work Is well documeltted In The nights when It worked twas tn the lare 60s and saw (as they aJl did) tales of endlus tourlng throughout magic, and then nights when lr didn't, that the music }'lad to move beyond Europe and the U.I<.
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