Jazz community mourns death of renowned SA drummer Makaya Ntshoko

The family of renowned South African drummer Makaya Ntshoko confirmed his passing on Wednesday morning.

“It is with deep sorrow that we announce the passing of our beloved father, a renowned global figure, multi-award-winning legendary musician, mentor and lecturer.

“He peacefully departed in the early hours of August 27, 2024,”.averred the statement.

Ntshoko was born in October 1939 in Cape Town and grew up in Langa Township.

The 84-year-old drummer was part of the band that recorded the first album by a black South African ensemble, Jazz Epistle, Verse 1 in 1959.

Jazz Epistles was a collective made up of South African Jazz doyens such as Kippie Moeketsi on alto saxophone, Jonas Gwangwa on trombone, Hugh Masekela on trumpet, bassist Johnny Gertze and Abdullah Ibrahim, who still went by the name Dollar Brand before converting to Islam, on piano.

Reflecting on his time with the Jazz Epistles in an interview with the online platform Vuka Radio in 2021, Ntshoko said the sextet was an amalgamation of two trios who were located in separate parts of the country at the time.  He, Ibrahim and Gertze hailed from Cape Town.

“So when Kippie, Jonas Gwangwa and Hugh Masekela came to Cape Town for a show, this is how we got together. So it was pretty nice because it was a different thing; different people, different friends and different music because everybody had an idea and got together somehow and played together,” he shared.

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A Jazz giant

Speaking in the aforementioned interview, Ntshoko shared how he got into drumming. 

“Drums, that’s what I liked. There were so many drummers around in Cape Town and some of them coming from other places and I met so many people. It was my kind of thing, you know.”

The percussionist grew up in a musical family where his eldest brother played piano.

“My father played organ in church, at the Methodist church. He was always every Sunday, whenever there was a meeting somewhere or rehearsal with the choir, he was around.”

Like a handful of young men at the time Ntshoko had a keen interest in boxing. “I was training a lot at that time. I was training nearly every day.”

He said he found time to focus on both the boxing and his music.

“You always find time when you’re young, you know. You got so many things in your head and so much is there so you have to just pick and choose,” he said

“I had to find some time because my friends also, that I was playing with, were also training in the gym. I loved sport; it keeps you focused all the time….it keeps you healthy and you move.”

Following the split of the Jazz Epistles, Ntshoko founded the Jazz Giants.

“Jazz Giants, I formed them in Cape Town, I was still in Langa then and this is how I met Dudu Pukwana, Johnny Dyani and turner player Nikele Moyake.”

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A global citizen

Ntshoko was the leader of Makaya & the Tsotsis. He appeared alongside Masekela on Home Is Where The Music Is and on projects by other musicians such as Dyani, Dexter Gordon and Joe McPhee in a slew of other projects.

In 1962 he played at the Castle Lager Jazz Festival in Moroka-Jabavu Stadium, Soweto as a member of the Jazz Giants alongside Tete Mbambisa, Dudu Pukwana and Martin Mgijima.

Makaya also featured on Gideon Nxumalo’s avant-garde Jazz Fantasia (1962) with Moeketsi, Martin Mgijima and Pukwana. In the same year, he joined Gertze, Ibrahim and his wife Sathima Bea Benjamin in Switzerland.

They performed as the Dollar Brand Trio at the Atlantis, Basel and Club Africana in Zurich where John Coltrane and Duke Ellington came to see them perform.

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In 1963 Ellington invited them to Paris for a recording of Duke Ellington Presents the Dollar Brand Trio (Reprise, 1964), an album that paved their way to international recognition.

“Before we got together with Dollar, I was with King Kong, I went to England then I went back to South Africa.

 “England was so beautiful, there was such a lot happening. It was a different scene you know, and I loved it so much,” he said.

The Ntshoko family statement concluded by saying details of his burial and memorial service will announced in due course.

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