[citation needed] In his teens he played with some of the best jazz musicians in South Africa; Abdullah Ibrahim (then known as Dollar Brand) and Lami Zokufa introduced him to bebop and hard bop.

[2] In 1961 he left South Africa clandestinely, following many other South African performers to the United Kingdom (severe restrictions on public gatherings following the Sharpeville massacre had made entertainment careers impossible for any but white artists, and the already poor quality of life for non-whites was deteriorating rapidly as apartheid became ever stricter).

In the United States, he played and recorded with Herb Alpert, John Handy, Bobby Hutcherson, Elvin Jones, Hugh Masekela,[2] Jackie McLean, Mario Pavone, Joshua Redman, and Archie Shepp.

In 1985, Jackie McLean invited him to teach at The Hartt School of the University of Hartford, where he taught until his return to South Africa in 1991, following the collapse of apartheid.

He was also Project Manager for the establishment of a school of jazz and a multimedia audio visual production center at the University of Fort Hare's new urban campus in the east coast South African city of East London in the Eastern Cape Province.