The Blue Notes

The Blue Notes were a South African jazz sextet, whose definitive line-up featured Chris McGregor on piano, Mongezi Feza on trumpet, Dudu Pukwana on alto saxophone, Nikele Moyake on tenor saxophone, Johnny Dyani on bass, and Louis Moholo-Moholo on drums.

Remaining in Johannesburg, they established a residency at the city's Downbeat club, but returned to Cape Town to make their first studio recordings for the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

It showed the band to be playing in a relatively straight ahead bebop style compared with their later work, also tracing the coming together of the definitive sextet.

By the time of the last sessions, documented on Legacy: Live in South Afrika 1964, Feza, Dyani and Moholo were on board.

Like fellow South African jazz musicians Dollar Brand and Hugh Masekela, they understood that the only way they could play freely was by escaping the oppressive social and political climate of their home country.

Feza returned to Copenhagen, while Dyani and Moholo-Moholo went on a South American tour with the soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy – subsequently recording the album The Forest and the Zoo for the ESP-Disk label.

This band, which essentially grew from the addition of British musicians to the core Blue Notes line up, would come to full fruition in the early 1970s.

His place in The Blue Notes was eventually taken by another South African, Ronnie Beer, who played on the Very Urgent session.

Johnny Dyani moved to Denmark in the early 1970s, where he continued to play and record extensively with a number of great musicians, including Don Cherry and Mal Waldron.

[2] On 21 September 2007, President Thabo Mbeki gave official recognition to the contribution of the Blue Notes to South African music by awarding the group the national Order of Ikhamanga in Silver.

The citation for the award stated, in part: "Blue Notes goes back to a golden age in South Africa's musical history.

"[3] Author and photographer Val Wilmer recalled that the Blue Notes "literally upturned the London jazz scene, helping to create an exciting climate in which other young players could develop their own ideas about musical freedom.