Early life

Masekela was born in Kwa-Guqa Township, Witbank, South Africa. He began singing and playing piano as a child. At the age of 14, after seeing the film Young Man with a Horn (in which Kirk Douglas plays a character modelled on American jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke), Masekela took up playing the trumpet. His first trumpet was given to him by Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, the anti-apartheid chaplain at St. Peter's Secondary School.

Huddleston asked the leader of the then Johannesburg "Native" Municipal Brass Band, Uncle Sauda, to teach Masekela the rudiments of trumpet playing. Masekela quickly mastered the instrument. Soon, some of his schoolmates also became interested in playing instruments, leading to the formation of the Huddleston Jazz Band, South Africa's first youth orchestra. By 1956, after leading other ensembles, Masekela joined Alfred Herbert's African Jazz Revue.

Since 1954, Masekela has played music that closely reflects his life experience. The agony, conflict, and exploitation South Africa faced during the 1950s and 1960s inspired and influenced him to make music and also spread political change. He was an artist who in his music vividly portrayed the struggles and sorrows, as well as the joys and passions of his country. His music protested about apartheid, slavery, government; the hardships individuals were living. Masekela reached a large population that also felt oppressed due to the country's situation.

Following a Manhattan Brothers tour of South Africa in 1958, Masekela wound up in the orchestra of the musical King Kong, written by Todd Matshikiza. King Kong was South Africa's first blockbuster theatrical success, touring the country for a sold-out year with Miriam Makeba and the Manhattan Brothers' Nathan Mdledle in the lead. The musical later went to London's West End for two years.

Career

At the end of 1959, Dollar Brand (later known as Abdullah Ibrahim), Kippie Moeketsi, Makhaya Ntshoko, Johnny Gertze and Hugh formed the Jazz Epistles, the first African jazz group to record an LP and perform to record-breaking audiences in Johannesburg and Cape Town through late 1959 to early 1960. Following 21 March 1960 Sharpeville massacre—where 69 peacefully protesting Africans were shot dead in Sharpeville, and the South African government banned gatherings of ten or more people—and the increased brutality of the Apartheid state, Masekela left the country. He was helped by Trevor Huddleston and international friends such as Yehudi Menuhin and John Dankworth, who got him admitted into London's Guildhall School of Music. During that period, Masekela visited the United States, where he was befriended by Harry Belafonte. He attended Manhattan School of Music in New York, where he studied classical trumpet from 1960 to 1964. In 1964, Makeba and Masekela were married, divorcing two years later.

He had hits in the United States with the pop jazz tunes "Up, Up and Away" (1967) and the number-one smash "Grazing in the Grass" (1968), which sold four million copies. He also appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, and was subsequently featured in the film Monterey Pop by D. A. Pennebaker. In 1974, Masekela and friend Stewart Levine organised the Zaire 74 music festival in Kinshasa set around the Rumble in the Jungle boxing match. He also participated as guest artist playing on the song "So you wanna be a rock'n roll star" on the Byrds "Younger than yesterday album.

He has played primarily in jazz ensembles, with guest appearances on recordings by The Byrds ("So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star" and "Lady Friend") and Paul Simon ("Further to Fly"). In 1984, Masekela released the album Techno Bush; from that album, a single entitled "Don't Go Lose It Baby" peaked at number two for two weeks on the dance charts. In 1987, he had a hit single with "Bring Him Back Home", which became an anthem for the movement to free Nelson Mandela.

A renewed interest in his African roots led Masekela to collaborate with West and Central African musicians, and finally to reconnect with Southern African players when he set up with the help of Jive Records a mobile studio in Botswana, just over the South African border, from 1980 to 1984. Here he re-absorbed and re-used mbaqanga strains, a style he has continued to use since his return to South Africa in the early 1990s. In the 1980s, he toured with Paul Simon in support of Simon's album Graceland, which featured other South African artists such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Miriam Makeba, Ray Phiri, and other elements of the band Kalahari, with which Masekela recorded in the 1980s. He also collaborated in the musical development for the Broadway play, Sarafina! He previously recorded with the band Kalahari.

In 2003, he was featured in the documentary film Amandla!. In 2004, he released his autobiography, Still Grazing: The Musical Journey of Hugh Masekela, co-authored with journalist D. Michael Cheers, which thoughtfully detailed Masekela's struggles against apartheid in his homeland, as well as his personal struggles against alcoholism from the late 1970s through to the 1990s. In this period, he migrated, in his personal recording career, to mbaqanga, jazz/funk, and the blending of South African sounds, through two albums he recorded with Herb Alpert, and solo recordings, Techno-Bush (recorded in his studio in Botswana), Tomorrow (featuring the anthem "Bring Him Back Home"), Uptownship (a lush-sounding ode to American R&B), Beatin' Aroun de Bush, Sixty, Time, and Revival. His song "Soweto Blues", sung by his former wife, Miriam Makeba, is a blues/jazz piece that mourns the carnage of the Soweto riots in 1976. He has also provided interpretations of songs composed by Jorge Ben, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Caiphus Semenya, Jonas Gwangwa, Dorothy Masuka and Fela Kuti.

In 2009, Masekela released the album Phola (meaning "to get well, to heal"), his second recording for 4 Quarters Entertainment/Times Square Records. It includes some songs he wrote in the 1980s but never completed, as well as a reinterpretation of "The Joke of Life (Brinca de Vivre)", which he recorded in the mid-1980s. Since October 2007, he has been a board member of the Woyome Foundation for Africa.

In 2010, Hugh Masekela was featured, with his son Salema, in a series of videos on ESPN. The series, called Umlando - Through My Father's Eyes, was aired in 10 parts during ESPN's coverage of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa. The series focused on Hugh and Sal's travels through South Africa. Hugh brought his son to the places he grew up. It was Sal's first trip to his father's homeland.

On 3 December 2013, Masekela guested with the Dave Matthews Band in Johannesburg, South Africa. He joined Rashawn Ross on trumpet for "Proudest Monkey" and "Grazing in the Grass".

Social initiatives

Masekela is involved in several social initiatives, and serves for instance as a director on the board of the Lunchbox Fund, a non-profit organization that provides a daily meal to students of township schools in Soweto.

Awards and honours

Grammy history

• Career Wins:2
• Career Nominations: 7

Hugh Masekela Grammy Awards History
Year	Category	Title	Genre	Label	Result
1968	Best Contemporary Pop Performance - Instrumental	Grazin' in the Grass	Pop	Uni Records	Nominated

Honours

• Rhodes University: Doctor of Music (honoris causa), 2015
• University of York Honorary Doctorate in Music 2014
• Order of Ikhamanga: 2010 South African National Orders Ceremony, 27 April 2010.
• Ghana Music Awards: 2007 African Music Legend award
• 2005 Channel O Music Video Awards: Lifetime Achievement Award
• 2002 BBC Radio Jazz Awards: International Award of the Year
• Nominated for Broadway's 1988 Tony Award as Best Score (Musical), with music and lyrics collaborator Mbongeni Ngema, for Sarafina!

Discography

Year	Title	Label (original issue)
1962	Trumpet Africaine	Mercury (Aug)
1966	Grrr	Mercury MG-21109, SR-61109 (Apr)
1966	The Americanization of Ooga Booga	MGM E/SE-4372 (Jun)
1966	Hugh Masekela's Next Album	MGM E/SE-4415 (Dec)
1966	The Emancipation of Hugh Masekela	Chisa Records CHS-4101
1967	Hugh Masekela's Latest	Uni 3010, 73010
1967	Hugh Masekela Is Alive and Well at the Whisky	Uni 3015, 73015
1968	The Promise of a Future	Uni 73028
1968	Africa '68	Uni 73020
1968	The Lasting Impression of Hugh Masekela	MGM E/SE-4468 (Dec)
1969	Masekela	Uni 73041
1970	Reconstruction	Chisa CS 803 (Jul)
1971	Hugh Masekela & The Union of South Africa	Chisa CS 808 (May)
1972	Home Is Where the Music Is (aka The African Connection)	Blue Thumb Chisa BTS 6003
1973	Introducing Hedzoleh Soundz	Blue Thumb Chisa BTS 62
1974	I Am Not Afraid	Blue Thumb Chisa BTS 6015
1975	The Boy's Doin' It	Casablanca NBLP-7017 (Jun)
1976	Colonial Man	Casablanca NBLP-7023 (Jan)
1976	Melody Maker	Casablanca NBLP-7036
1977	You Told Your Mama Not to Worry	Casablanca NBLP-7079
1978	Herb Alpert / Hugh Masekela	Horizon SP-728
1978	Main Event Live (with Herb Alpert)	A&M SP-4727
1981	Home	Moonshine/Columbia
1984	Techno-Bush	Jive Afrika
1985	Waiting for the Rain	Jive Afrika
1987	Tomorrow	Warner Bros.
1988	Uptownship	Jive/Novus Records
1992	Beatin' Aroun de Bush	Novus Records
1993	Hope	Triloka Records
1994	Stimela	Connoisseur Collection
1995	Notes of Life	Columbia/Music
1998	Black to the Future	Shanachie Records
1999	The Best of Hugh Masekela on Novus	RCA
2000	Sixty	Shanachie
2001	Grazing in the Grass: The Best of Hugh Masekela	Sony
2002	Time	Columbia
2003	The Collection	Universal/Spectrum
2003	Hope	Triloka Records
2004	Still Grazing	Blue Thumb
2005	Revival	Heads Up
2005	Almost Like Being in Jazz	Chissa Records
2006	The Chisa Years: 1965-1975 (Rare and Unreleased)	BBE
2007	Live at the Market Theatre	Four-Quarters Ent
2009	Phola	Four-Quarters Ent
2011	We Are One (Black Coffee featuring Hugh Masekela)	Vega Records
2012	Playing @ Work	House of Masekela
2012	Friends (Hugh Masekela & Larry Willis)	House of Masekela

Bibliography

• H. Masekela, D. Michael Cheers, Still Grazing: The Musical Journey of Hugh Masekela, Crown, 2004. ISBN 978-0-609-60957-6

[ Source: Wikipedia ]