Author: Nigel Williamson
View album and artist detailsArtist/band: |
Hugh Masekela |
Label: |
Retroworld |
Magazine Review Date: |
Jan/Feb/2018 |
With Masekela's live dates cancelled while he recovers from prostate cancer, this budget-price reissue of a trio of classic albums from the 90s comes as some small compensation and a timely reminder of the burnished sound of his horn. Notes of Life (1995) was the first album he recorded back in South Africa after three decades in exile. The exuberant hopes of those times is evident on tracks such as ‘Father of Our Nation’, ‘Whooh! Africa’ and ‘Thank You Madiba’. Black to the Future was recorded two years later and is a more diverse collection, ranging from a funky version of ‘The Boy’s Doin' It' to the Latin-tinged ‘Nina’ via the uplifting traditional township jazz of ‘Khawuzela’ and ‘Excuse Me Baby Please’. Yet despite the joys of freedom, the 90s were also filled with a degree of personal darkness for Masekela as he spent time in rehab. He emerged clean and reinvigorated to record 1999's Sixty, a celebration of reaching his sixth decade, featuring re-workings of some of his favourite songs from his long career. Sibongile Khumalo steps up to the plate to play Miriam Makeba's singing role on the swaying rhythms of ‘Mbombela’; ‘Bo Masekela’ is an atmospheric revisiting of a jazz instrumental written for him by fellow exile Caiphus Semenya that Masekela first recorded in 1968; and ‘Lizzy’ is a laid-back, six-minute mellow wallow in a 1949 township hit from his childhood. Get well soon, Bra Hugh.
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