South Africa has a tradition of master drummers such as Tebz Lipere, Thabang Thabane, Tlale Makhene, Moseue Ketlele, Thomas Dyani. Master drummers, Louis Moholo, Gilbert Matthews and others.
There is none more important than Makaya Ntshoko. Like the compositions of Johnny Dyani, Makaya is like the glue or the spirit of ubuntu that kept generations of free-spirited musicians together in Europe. And the soundtrack to this glue that brought people of all musical cultures and backgrounds to meet and play together is South African Jazz.
How did he introduce South African elements of music to Europe. What did he receive from European musicians that kept him excited and how do we return this knowledge to South Africa. To harness the memory, influence and approach of Makaya Ntshoko is to plan further workshop, dialogue, engagement, collaboration and performance.
What is the Basel Jazz Experience ?
“The jazz workshop at the Basel Conservatory – today known as the Music Academy.”
Here Tuesdays in the hall of the Totentanz restaurant in Basel workshops were run by the flautist and visual artist Peter Fürst (1933–2021) together with Makaya Ntshoko.
“It was great fun!” recalled Stephan Kurrman. The bass player was 17 years of age at the time.
“That jazz workshop was my “nursery”. During the week, various bands rehearsed in the Totentanz pub, and their sessions were open to the public, you could go in and out, it was a really good concept. There were concerts at the weekend, so I manned the ticket desk and was able to listen to the music for no charge. On my free Wednesday afternoons, I cleaned for Peter Fürst’s stand construction company …”
“For me, that was the first of the four phases in my career, taking me “from apprentice to master”. It was a phase of “unjustified certainty”, when you feel sure of everything, even though you don’t actually know anything about anything. You’re not even aware of it, but you do a lot of things right in a playful, open-minded way.”
Makaya held everything together with his “grooves.” It was his final phase in the Dollar Brand Trio with Johnny Gertze, and he was also playing with Mal Waldron. Makaya soon retired for several years and made a major lifestyle change. He worked for a plumbing company.
If the greatest jazz musicians were self-taught and never went to school. Why does Basel have a jazz school?
There is a piece on Alive in Montreux, namely “Sketches 1989 Part II” that Ste[han composed for Makaya on CDs “Stephan Kurmann Strings-Alive in Montreux.”
When Makaya got me to join the new edition of his quartet “Makaya & The New Tsotsis”, together with the “Swiss South African Jazz Quintet”, it felt like my fourth phase, one of “justified certainty” – precisely because I had been chosen for this and for other bands.
Of Makaya’s experience in exile Stephan said: “Leaving your people behind in times of need is a cruelly difficult decision, even if it was very understandable, and everyone is entitled to leave a country that is engaged in violence … The topic of South Africa was difficult for him. I suspect it’s something in his life that he’s not proud of, or that he’s even ashamed of.”
Yet he did recall his initiation ceremony? Kurmman recalls: “Makaya grew up in the township of Langa just outside Cape Town, with what I find the insanely beautiful Xhosa language with its click sounds. He told me that in his culture, as an initiation ritual to enter the adult world, you go into the forest alone for one month at the age of fifteen and eat and drink very little. That had been an important experience for him.”
Makaya Ntshoko lives in Basel for almost 50 years. He had a strong association with the Center for African Studies at Basel University. Veit Arlt of African Music Productions initiated the South African live music series at the bird’s eye. He immediately contacted him and since then a long list of South African Musicians are appearing at the bird’s eye.
In 2007 they initiated the “Swiss South African Jazz Quintet.”
Stephan Kurmann recalled: “We played at a festival in Grahamstown, in New Brighton – the township next to Port Elizabeth where Feya comes from – in Joburg, Cape Town and several townships. Makaya was celebrated wildly down there! He had already returned to South Africa once before, but without playing. That’s why there was so much interest this time, including from the media, and crowds of people came to the concerts everywhere, including his old acquaintances and his family!” Recalled Stephan.
Makaya’s influence on the local, regional and international jazz scene has been of great importance.
In 1978 Makaya Ntshoko recorded in Basel at the very venue that is the Birds Eye today. He recorded with the New Tsotsi’s an album called Happy House. And that was that one of the first kind of collaborations between South African Swiss musicians.
(Makaya’s 1974 Enja debut was called Makaya & the Tsotsis) The New Tsotsi’s includedMakaya Ntshoko: drums; Andy Scherer: tenor saxophone; Vera Kappeler: piano; Stephan Kurmann: bass. The songs they recorded included Humpty Dumpty; Open Or Close; Morning Song; One World; I’m Your Pal; Bebbi; Happy House.
Makaya is somebody who is quite difficult to interview. On the one hand he is not so aware how important he is and how important it is to pass on one’s story and on the other hand he has been disappointed so many time by other journalists that he doesn’t feel like giving out any information.
But yet, he is well celebrated. Makaya is celebrated, in the town of Basel, a centre for Jazz studies which has absorbed his influence, the Jazz Against Apartheid movement, a depository of the johnny Dyani compositions which has extended his collaborative approach to future generations in South Africa and Europe and by his nephew, new jazz drummer Kanu.
Makaya was born in 1939. He grew up in Cape Town, his father was a church musician, who played organ. Music was always there. In the boy scouts as a cub, he played the bugle. He passed away in 2024 in Basel. Many voices with heart and soul gathered at the bird’s eye to honor Makaya’s memory on September 29, on what would have been his 85th birthday. There has of yet not been any significant commemoration in South Africa. And we are here to change that.
Jürgen Leinhos writes:
The first thing I noticed about a number of the obituaries was that they were just looking backwards: many authors stopped remembering 60 years ago and did not notice what Makaya had achieved in these last 60 years. Before writing an obituary, anyone could easily find evidence of Makaya’s work on the Internet.
Even obituaries from Switzerland often do not look beyond the time of the Cafe “Africana”.
Yes, Makaya was a musician from the very beginning here in Europe. However, that was the beginning of a new story, and I would like to make this story of Makaya clear through a few milestones:
Milestone 1:
Willisau / Switzerland 1974: a groundbreaking concert with Irene Schweizer / John Tchicai / Buschi Niebergall / Makaya Ntshoko
This concert is still a highlight of the first Willisau Festival to this day.
Irene Schweizer and John Tchicai defined it as the forerunner of jazz against apartheid.
Milestone 2:
Copenhagen 1978: Song For Biko
with Johnny Dyani / Don Cerry / Dudu Pukwana / Makaya Ntshoko
This cast alone is the first choice in the world of exile!
And Song For Biko is the anthem for a free South Africa in which education, culture and health are accessible to all citizens
Milestone 3:
Jazz against apartheid (since 1886):
Once again, Makaya is the musician of the first hour: Johnny Dyani chooses him as part of the first line-up of Jazz Against Apartheid. 100 concerts took place with Makaya in 38 years.
These “milestones” are characterized by high musicality and political commitment.
A small list of the musicians with whom Makaya was friends and with whom he walked the long path with exile and the anti-apartheid movement:
John Tchicai, Harry Beckett, Claude Deppa, Daniel , Christopher Dell, John Edwards, Tobias Delius, Allen Jacobson, Christian Lillinger, Bob Degen, Irene Schweizer, Pierre Favre, Omri Ziegele…
