A giant tree has fallen
Zolile Kasana, Langa
A tribute to Makaya Ntshoko, October 29, 1939 to August27, 2024.
Makaya Ntshoko was born in 1939 and grew up in Cape Town. His father was a church musician, who played organ.
While in the boy scouts and cubs, Makaya played the bugle. Makaya moved a lot between Cape Town and Joburg playing American jazz and kwela.
He played gigs in Johannesburg with Kippie Moeketsi and Hugh Masekela. He performed in the Jazz Epistles with Abdullah Ibrahim (then Dollar Brand) and Johnny Gertze.
Makaya said, “I was really young. There was no time to waste. So much was happening. We did not look for problems but looked to solve the problems.”
Makaya Ntshoko was the leader of the Jazz Giants in South Africa with Aubrey Mathabatha, Khonzile Nana, Tete Mbambisa, Dudu Pukwana and Martin Mgijima.
They performed in 1962 at the Second Castle Lager National Jazz Festival. At the end of 1962, Makaya left South Africa. He went to Basel and Zürich where he joined the Dollar Brand Trio. They played at the Africana and in the Atlantis at Basel.
The Africana venue was a popular venue in Zurich that attracted many jam sessions, with musicians such as Hans Kennel and Franco Ambrosetti. John Coltrane also came to see them in Zürich at the Africana, after Makaya had gone to attend one of his concerts and had invited him.
Makaya said, “There were so many stations: Germany, Denmark, England, France, the US (California and the US) – you have to be a wanderer.”
Makaya was house drummer at the Montmartre in Copenhagen in the late 60s, the Domizil in Munich mid-70s and Jazz Jamboree in Berlin.
He also recorded records with Duke Ellington, Svend Asmussen and Sathima Bea Benjamin. He performed in the ensembles of Mal Waldron, Steve Lacy, Karl Berger and Don Cherry. He opened the first festival in Willisau in the quartet of John Tchicai and Irène Schweizer.
He has played with a host of great musician including Dexter Gordon, Ben Webster, Roland Kirk, and Joe Henderson.
He also leads his own groups such as mid-1970s “Makaya and the Tsotsi” and currently the New Tsotsis with Andy Scherrer (ts), Adam Taubitz (vl), Vera Kappeler (p) and Stephan Kurmann (b).
Makhaya Ntshoko is a long-time member of the Jazz Against Apartheid project founded by Johnny Dyani in 1986, in which he performed regularly with John Tchicai and Harry Beckett.
He was an anchor of the Swiss — SA network and started running jazz and African rhythm workshops at the music school in Basel before there was a jazz school.
The workshops were alongside Prof Döll of the Musikakademie Basel. In 2007, he joined Feya Faku’s Swiss South African Jazz Quintet and toured South Africa, including a residency at the District Six Museum in Cape Town. Hamba kakuhle Qhawe!