Hugh Masekela – Jazz Trumpeter
South African jazz trumpeter – actually flugelhorn and cornet player, Hugh Masekela, has been a jazz pioneer since the 1950s.
His exposure to music when he was young helped mold his style. Influenced by the 78 RPM gramophone records that he listened to as a kid, starting with American jazz greats such as Louis Armstrong (who donated a trumpet to the church in South Africa where he learned to first play trumpet), Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Count Basie, led him on a road to intertwine local African rhythms into his personal jazz style.
Escaping apartheid, he moved to the U.S. in …read more
1 Comment