I was born in 2000, but jazz music has had my heart ever since, I don't get other genres that my friends love, lol. There is so much tranquility and serenity with Jazz music. Beautiful indeed
Ezra, tenor and soprano saxophonist and his older brother Duke Ngcukana, trumpet/flugel horn were two of the greatest jazz jazz musicians in Cape Town. They were also academic in the sense that Ezra graduated with a BSc honours and later MBA, his brother was always a high school teacher in maths and science. It goes without saying that they were both geniuses. They performed with a of other great jazz musicians of Cape Town, Winston "Mankunku" Ngozi, Metton Barrow, Chris Schilder, Mitch Pyke, Bugs Gonco, Lous Moholo, Max Dayimani, Mafisto Ndingane, Cliffy Moses, Willie Nettie, etc. Their father, Chris Columbus "Mra" Ngcukana was also great saxophonist/composer who played with Chris McGregor and the blue notes where he was inluential as a baritone sax player and assistant composer/arranger. Ezra was more a jazz sax player than a composer but it amazed a lot of music lovers when he took a Xhosa hymn in 1989 and arranged it into a jazz hit song, with a kind of blues/spiritual favour. It is also amazing that he and his brother were more like the American jazz brothers, Cannonball on alto sax and Nat Adderley on trumpet inasmuch as they played together a lot. Cyril Ngcukana is a cousin who started playing piano in the late 1970s. Ezra and Duke are the real products of 'Apartheid" and they rarely left South Africa but when you listened to their playing they were like any other great jazz players in America, they mastered their instruments and the art of jazz improvisation. The great Mankunku Ngozi respected them a lot as fellow great musicians. I myself I have been inspired a lot by them in the late 70s when I decided to be a jazz saxophonist. Ezra would tell me to come at 6 a.m. to his house for saxophone lesson and I would protest and he would tell me, he wakes up at 4 a.m. everyday for his Science studies, and if I come after 7 a.m. he would be gone. He was a gentleman, nice and friendly, though. He was like smiling all the time!!! May God bless his soul.
Found this gem while feeding my 3month at 2am...looking at her and listening to this, I appreciated the power of our creator and understood more the love of a parent to their child...
Till date cllgs this music is going on it reminds me of my late son Stjovi Vusumuzi FAKU young legend of Jazz music founder of Ziyaduma Jazz Band in the North West Province Jouberton under Matlosana municipality in the Dr Kenneth Kaunda District
I saw Ezra, Winston Mankunku and Jonathan Butler play most Saturdays in the late 1980s. Cliffy Moses and the Four Sounds were often the house band. Venues were Brass Bell, Landrost Hotel and Club Montreal in Manenburg. Wonderful memories!
Amidst the political turmoil and chaos of the late 80's, there resonated out of the townships a vibrant jazz scene whose sounds, so soothing and melodious, defied the knife-edge atmosphere of the time.
