Book Review: STILL GRAZING.HUGH MASEKELA

Book: Still Grazing
Written by: Hugh Masekela
Publisher: Johnson Publishing Co.
www.amazon.com
Reviewed by: Kwelagobe Sekele

This book has been out for a couple of years now and I’m surprised that such little noise has been made about it. ‘Still Grazing’ is the life of the legendary veteran trumpeter, composer, songwriter and activist, Hugh Masekela in his own words, co-written by Michael Cheers. I’m an autobiography type of person, only because they are the first hand experience and the word of the writer-subject as opposed to biographies, words about a subject. He’s been working on this life story for years now and I have to admit honestly, it’s a brilliant read. A week before I read this book I had just finished reading Richard Branson’s autobiography and Still Grazing just made me realize how we don’t value our talent, elders, pioneers and ourselves as a country in transition, with a trillion colorful stories to tell. The book is an account of Bra Hugh’s life from his childhood days in the mining town of Witbank where he grew up with his Shebeen Queen grandmother and was exposed to Jazz and all types of music, which he says was always overflowing from all houses. It’s a very personal book and Bra Hugh’s command of language, images and storytelling is outstanding.

The book takes you to Alexandra where his family moved after his father got a job, a place he says wasn’t as good as Witbank. He paints a picture of the streets of Alexandra back then with images of street fighting, the dusty streets and the neighbors. The images just put you there and reading this book will make one feel like the legendary Hugh Masekela is talking to you in person. There’s also accounts of his moving to a boarding school where he was exposed to Jazz, Bebop, sex, shoplifting, cigarette smoking, Father Trevor Huddleston and getting his first trumpet, shipped from the U.S., a gift from Satchmo (Louis Armstrong) himself – who he meets years later. The picture on the cover of this book is of Bra Hugh leaping and jumping high in joy on the day he got the trumpet. His sense f humour is bountiful with the account of how he met the legendary Miriam Makeba who was already a house-hold name then, how he charmed her, their on and off affair and their not so successful and very dramatic marriage years later while in exile in New York. There’s also humorous accounts of how he met legends such as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Jimi Hendrix, Thelonious Monk, Harry Belafonte, Bill Cosby, Fela Kuti and the great times he spent with all these legends. When talking about these legends, people like poet and Professor Willie Kgositsile, trombonist Jonas Gwangwa, composer & songwriter Caiphus Semenya and Mama Letta Mbulu, and other legends such as Todd Matshikiza make up the long list of legends.

Some interesting parts of the book are the hectic life of drugs, booze, parties, self-indulgent and self-destructive life he lived, he has been through the roughest of times and has survived it all and lived to tell. The drug busts, the failed marriages and the endless women in his life. Talking about women, he has dated the beautiful, famous and movers & shakers in his life, but I wont reveal much. Politically, Bra Hugh has played big a role like most political activists and South African exiles of then, with his music previously banned by the apartheid regime and his image nearly destroyed by its media propaganda. Musically, he has paid his dues, played with the most respected, shared the stage with greats, toured, played at the most prestigious festivals and released many albums and hits. One outstanding hit was ‘Grazing in the Grass’, which made it big in the charts in the U.S.A. making Hugh Masekela a bit timer and a big-shot in 60s L.A. particularly. His accounts of his musical journey, in U.S.A and the African tour which crossed his path with the likes of Fela Kuti – who had wanted to play with Bra Hugh so much, Franco of Zaire (the now Congo) and how he got to perform with the young Tshepo Tshola are classical stories.

In this book he takes you through his experiences with the likes of Don King and James Brown during his involvement with the Zaire-Congo ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman and how he met Malcolm X and the young Bob Marley and doing a session on the reggae icon’s first album. Bra Hugh is one of the pioneers of World Music and all-embracing credit should be given to him and people like him. He went to the United States with a strong urge of playing jazz and bebop and once there was advised by particular people like Miles Davis not to be one of the jazz statistics. He then fused jazz with indigenous African sounds, especially South African elements, the music of BaPedi, MaNdebele and Zulu, including folk songs and traditional healers songs, filled with political text and came with the sound that we today know as World Music. Read the book and see how the musical turned movie Sarafina, one of the best South African musicals since King Kong came about, how its songs came about, how Hugh Masekela touched the life of Madiba and vice-versa. It’s a book about music, the history of South Africa and apartheid. The bottom line is that Still Grazing is an excellent read and should grace non-fiction and autobiography shelves of every library, be included in school’s South African and music history curriculum and your book collection if you are proud African-South African reader and music lover. The book has a compilation c.d. of Hugh Masekela’s earliest songs, something you can play in the background while reading the history of this legend. It’s a great read – period! And should kill all the negative publicity you’ve heard about Bra Hugh. Someone should turn this book into a movie, and I’ll do it if no one sees the potential I’m talking about.