{"id":163301,"date":"2020-07-23T10:50:33","date_gmt":"2020-07-23T08:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/gilbert-matthews-a-pioneer-and-a-visionary-of-south-african-jazz-the-conversation\/"},"modified":"2020-07-23T10:50:33","modified_gmt":"2020-07-23T08:50:33","slug":"gilbert-matthews-a-pioneer-and-a-visionary-of-south-african-jazz-the-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/gilbert-matthews-a-pioneer-and-a-visionary-of-south-african-jazz-the-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"Gilbert Matthews \u2013 a pioneer and a visionary of South African jazz | The Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gilbert Matthews \u2013 a pioneer and a visionary of South African jazz<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Gilbert Matthews during an interview a few years before his death.<\/span> Aryan Kaganof<\/span>, CC BY-SA<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

South Africa has done little to acknowledge the passing of a jazz great and titan of drums, Gilbert Matthews. For Bra Gil, who brought credit to South Africa from a host of international jazz stages, the official silence remains deafening.<\/p>\n

Matthews was a visionary of the South African jazz scene. Although his beginnings were on the conventional Cape Town club jazz circuit, his talent took him across the world \u2013 he was, for a time, Ray Charles\u2019 regular drummer \u2013 and the music he was exposed to sparked innovation when he returned home. <\/p>\n

South African musicians working in the 1970s credit him as inspiring the country\u2019s jazz fusion explorations of that era through the band Spirits Rejoice, which he founded and which was, in turn, the forerunner of groundbreaking ensembles such as Sakhile.<\/p>\n

Matthews was born in Graaff-Reinet in the Cape in 1943. Veteran trumpeter John Ntshibilikwana, his relative, recalled<\/p>\n

\n

Because of the poverty there, it was virtually impossible for people to acquire instruments. If you wished to play guitar, you had to take an oil tin and make a guitar out of it. That is how Gilbert started \u2013 with a paraffin-tin guitar!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Despite these straitened circumstances, his guitar-playing was good enough for him to begin gigging professionally, eventually securing work at the first (there have been several successors) Tiffany\u2019s Club in Cape Town. There he taught himself to play drums and switched instruments. His playing caught the ear of the city\u2019s jazz elite and in the late 1960s he featured on Ibrahim Khalil Shihab (Chris Schilder\u2019s) Spring<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
In the Spring<\/em> years, the 1960s.<\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After those sessions, Matthews travelled to the US via London. He was mentored by both Max Roach and Elvin Jones, secured an 18-month engagement as Ray Charles\u2019 regular drummer and worked with Sarah Vaughan.<\/p>\n

A return home<\/h2>\n

But home called. By the mid-1970s he was back in Johannesburg, gigging with the then-Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim), Kippie Moeketsi and more. He worked in the house band of the Black Mikado<\/em> musical staged at Diepkloof Hall and as a session musician on various tours, including what he found to be a particularly dispiriting series of hotel gigs in Swaziland.<\/p>\n

On his return, he began making South African jazz history, calling his Black Mikado<\/em> band-mates and others together to form Spirits Rejoice, named in honour of an Albert Ayler recording. Spirits aimed to create the kind of imaginative, exploratory jazz and fusion music that Earth Wind and Fire, Weather Report and others were pioneering in the US.<\/p>\n

Spirits Rejoice was not only a band, but a symposium and university for a whole generation of South African modern jazz players. Its first incarnation included Bheki Mseleku, Robbie Jansen, Duku Makasi, George Tjefumani, Thabo Mashishi, Sipho Gumede and Russell Herman; later incarnations included Mervyn Afrika, Khaya Mahlangu, Paul Petersen, Themba Mehlomakhulu, singer Felicia Marion and later the whole vocal lineup of Joy. <\/p>\n

\"\"
Spirits Rejoice on the African Spaces album.<\/span> Atlantic<\/span><\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the much younger Mahlangu, it was the innovative approach of Spirits that inspired him \u2013 \u201cIt was a beautiful learning experience\u201d \u2013 with Gumede, to want \u201cto do stuff like that \u2013 but in a more African context\u201d.<\/p>\n

The band released two albums, African Spaces<\/em> in 1977 and the self-titled Spirits Rejoice<\/em> in 1978 and won, according to pianist Mervyn Afrika, nine Sarie Awards, the highest honours open to South African popular musicians. According to the late Ezra Ngcukana, <\/p>\n

\n

They were a very high-powered band. They made history.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But despite these accolades and some residencies \u2013 including at Cape Town\u2019s Sherwood Hotel, Beverly Lounge and Landrost Hotel, as well as legendary jazz spot, Manenberg\u2019s Club Montreal \u2013 respect and the freedom to innovate further were scarce as the 1970s came to a close.<\/p>\n

Back to foreign shores<\/h2>\n

In 1979, Matthews left for Sweden. There, he married and established an extremely distinguished career that let him stretch his innovative vision out further. He worked regularly with the group of saxophonist Christer Boustedt and, after the reedman\u2019s death, re-established it as The Contemporary Bebop Quintet. <\/p>\n

\"\"
Matthews on tour in 2017.<\/span> Aryan Kaganof<\/span>, CC BY<\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He also worked with Chris McGregor\u2019s Brotherhood of Breath, regularly with Archie Shepp, and with Mischa Mengelberg, Roscoe Mitchell, John Tchicai, Albert Mangelsdorff and Charlie Mariano among others. He was the drummer on the SA Exiles Thunderbolt recording, and on bassist Johnny Dyani\u2019s revolutionary Born Under The Heat<\/em>. He did get to see the hopes of that music being realised, when he visited South Africa in 1991, at the dawn of change. <\/p>\n

Matthews was playing and recording in Europe, always in distinguished company, well into the 21st Century. But in recent years ill-health gradually imprisoned him away from the stage.<\/p>\n

There can be no better way to end than with Matthews\u2019 own description of the soaring improvisatory fusions that Spirits Rejoice pioneered: <\/p>\n

\n

It\u2019s like a game\u2026 We play anything that is in our heads and later rearrange it into a meaningful tune. At first, it sounds like some mad musicians just making noise with their instruments. Then, later, we remove the noise, and all we are left with is music.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For the South African cultural landscape, Matthews and Spirits Rejoice did indeed make history. Now, indeed, all we are left with is the music. <\/p>\n

\n

Ansell is the author of Soweto Blues: Jazz, Politics and Popular Music in South Africa. Read her updates on South African jazz over here<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

Gwen Ansell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Source:<\/strong> The Conversation \u2013 Articles (AFRICA)<\/a><\/small>
\n<\/p>\n

Read more on The Conversation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Gilbert Matthews \u2013 a pioneer and a visionary of South African jazz: Gilbert Matthews during an interview a few years before his death. Aryan Kaganof, CC BY-SA South Africa has done little to acknowledge the passing of a jazz great and titan of drums, Gilbert Matthews. For Bra Gil, who brought credit to South Africa […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[3050,8890,38489,8304,11451,9848,3576,35969],"class_list":{"0":"post-163301","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-african","8":"tag-conversation","9":"tag-gilbert","10":"tag-jazz","11":"tag-matthews","12":"tag-pioneer","13":"tag-south","14":"tag-visionary","15":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}