Hugh Masekela - "Masekela" (1969)

"There are men who think they built this world and can destroy it...There are cities where people never say hello" (lyrics from "If There's Anybody Out There").

I dreamed I was a world renowned volcanologist last night, and maybe that dream led me to reach for this record this morning: Masekela, released in 1969.

On the back it says, "The music contained herein speaks for itself. Nothing more need be added. All there remains to do is to do."

There are no other credits listed on the record, and the close up portrait on the cover, as well as the eponymous title, speak to the authorial focus of this piece of music.

On Chisa records, an imprint of MCA/Universal, the album contains 6 tracks per side, though the casual listener may be confused by what first appears to be only 5 visible song bands on each side, an anomaly I'll explain below. This playful manufacturing is interesting to consider, as it ultimately invites listener focus.

But, back to my dream last night, this album is a swirling eruption of emotion and sound.

Masekela's trumpet is sometimes angry, sometimes pleasantly smooth, but at all times it reaches out and demands attention. Alongside his horn, Masekela's voice also shares centre stage, as the record opens and closes with impassioned vocal numbers, both written by Masekela, and both songs of social protest.

The opener, "Mace and Grenades," is riveting, from its thrashing, explosive cymbals, to its rumbling tom tom pattern. Masekela sings of being "in jail in here and in jail out there," a clear and open castigation of South African apartheid, as he narrates from the perspective of the the oppressed Black South African, controlled by violent, authoritarian White government forces.

It is perhaps through albums like this that the voice of oppressed Black South Africa first reached the ears of the West, and, on "Gold," Masekela draws attention to the forced labour and ugly inhumanity of gold and diamond mining. "Sobukwe" comes next, containing a beautifully lilting and loopable opening melody.

Closing out Side A is the particularly memorable tune, "Blues for Huey," written by J.K. Moeketsi, who I've learned was Masekela's teacher and co-member in The Jazz Epistles, a group credited with being South Africa's first important bebop band; they recorded and played in the late 50s/early 60s, and members included Masekela, Dollar Brand, and Kippie (JK) Moeketsi, among others. In the final two minutes, without a clear song break on the record, "Blues for Huey" transitions into a piece titled "Gasfou," written by Dollar Brand (D. Brand). It is here where Masekela's trumpet takes on a more plaintive, introspective tone, and his playing sounds like a focused, hopeful requiem, unwavering in intention. Dollar Brand is another South African jazz legend whose piano perhaps accompanies Masekela on this track.

The 5th song on Side B, and what feels like the real closer, "If There's Anybody Out There," seems to voice a generalized Black South African perspective, as Masekela sings of "brothers and sisters who think how you look is all there is," from a "lonely place down here." A place populated with "puppets shooting water pistols." It is important to note that Masekela, along with many other famous Black South African jazz artists, lived in exile from the brutality of the South African government for many years, starting in 1960.

Side B closes with "Extra Added Attraction," written by P. Hou, yet it wasn't until I sat down to write this that I realized the album did not contain an manufacturing error and, instead, this 60 second song is pressed after some of the matrix runout from track 5. Until I lifted my needle to it earlier today, I had never heard it.

The music on Masekela is stirring, confrontational, angry, lonely, beautiful, and, like my dream last night, volcanic.