A good principle to live by as a musician – though one realistically honoured more in the breach than the observance – is to keep quiet unless you can find something more beautiful to play than the silence. And so I struggled in sitting down to plan a ‘10 tracks by Louis Moholo-Moholo…’: I couldn’t find a meaningful way in. I was either ignoring too much (after all – it’d be easy to do ten tracks simply by the Blue Notes, ten by the Brotherhood of Breath, or ten in duo, etc. etc.), or I was looking to take an easy way out (reassuring myself that the choice of 10 tracks didn’t matter too much – after all, this didn’t imply that there weren’t other tracks I couldn’t do without). There were very few rules to playing in Louis’ bands: but never taking the easy way out was assuredly one (no accident that he named a track ‘Improvise, Don’t Compromise’ on the masterful duo album with Marilyn Crispell).
It then occurred to me that a latter-day Louis Moholo-Moholo set probably ran to about 10 tracks. And so, taking the liberty of ignoring a first set encore for mathematical neatness, here are some thoughts prompted by a ten-tune set we played on the last tour of his last band, before injury forced him to step back from live performance.
The band is the Five Blokes – Jason Yarde and Shabaka Hutchings on saxophones, John Edwards on bass, Louis on drums, myself on piano, and the occasion is the opening night of the 2019 season at the Bimhuis, Amsterdam – video here.
0. Prelude
Cheating right away, with an ‘item zero’ on the list. But Louis was often driven to absolute distraction by stage announcements. This one wouldn’t have bothered him too much – short and to the point – but I have to smile when I think of all those times we’d stand in the wings listening to a more protracted speech, and he’d be rolling his eyes, getting more and more agitated (there were many times when he just walked on and started playing). The point is nothing more than that the music was everything to him.
1. Dikeledi Tsa Phelo (1’06”)
I have Evan Parker to thank for my first opportunity to play with Louis: he invited me to sub for Steve Beresford in the wonderful ‘Foxes Fox’ quartet one night at the Vortex. Louis and I didn’t even exchange a word before the gig – I’m not sure he was even aware that there was due to be a replacement pianist on the gig. However, we hit it off musically in that first set, and come the interval, he made me feel like a friend right away. Fast forward a couple of months, and I was in the audience watching Louis’ own band, also at the Vortex. He spotted me, and at the break, asked if I’d like to sit in for the second set. As a fan, I knew some of the tunes, but was perhaps slightly crazy to say yes given how big the book was. I’d have been far crazier to say no, of course, and from that time on, I was in the band. This was around the time of the release of ‘An Open Letter To My Wife Mpumi’, on which this track appears
From the off, you can hear Louis’ famous snare drum tattoos. Very Urgent, always. He could stalk a downbeat from miles off: we’re fully 4’45” and a chorus-and-a-half of tension and swirl into this performance before he finally lands an accent with the melody.
2. Ezontakana (Those Little Birds) – Infant Happiness/Awake Nu (7’16”)
Louis loved the chaos. Part of the beauty of hymn-like tunes such as the opener is that they can go on seemingly forever – he’d always tell me to play the chorales around and around like we were in church – and so one of the lovely musical puzzles they pose is how to find an exit ramp. Here, we go for unlikely juxtaposition, the ‘sound of surprise’ route. A couple of tunes are being juggled: on some nights, there would be as many tunes going on as there were musicians on stage.
Whatever else was going on, it was always a joyful noise.
3. Do It (8’30”)
There was chaos, but also an astonishing clarity of purpose. When he would latch on to a groove such as this one, all bets were off. Of course, by this stage, the almost frightening power with which in earlier years he corralled the Brotherhood of Breath, or played in the trios with Harry Miller and either Mike Osborne or Peter Brötzmann, was not present in the same way as it once had been. But if the sheer physical power was diminished, the intensity never waned. He shows his craft at the instrument here: listen, in fact, to how quietly he often plays, such that when the big accent does come, it still devastates. There were times where the band would be flying, and he would simply lay out, waiting and waiting for the moment to re-enter and start stoking again.
Like Monk, he could affect a band by playing silence.
There was a memorable gig we played once in Geneva. We opened tutti, with one of the big, anthemic hymns. After about ten minutes, Shabaka stopped playing, to give Jason some solo space. Louis yelled ‘NO! PLAY!!!’. No problem; back to the tutti. Jason then stopped to try to give Shabaka some space. ‘NOOO!!! PLAAAAAY!!!’. This pattern repeated several times. We all soon realised what was going on. The whole band played for the entire 90 minutes. Anybody who showed any sign of relenting got the look. That probably wouldn’t work on a recording: but the electricity in the room that night was incredible. I should say to be very clear: this was quite a different energy from the utterly tiresome alpha-male louder/faster/higher model, for which he had no time whatsoever: he was also a true master of the quiet world, capable of astonishing delicacy…but what it was instead was a way of making us actually improvise. What unexplored musical spaces could we find by doing this?
4. Wish You Sunshine (12’10”)
More and more pieces from the Blue Notes songbook – like this Johnny Dyani classic – crept back into the repertoire in his later years. He had no place for looking back on the bandstand (why should anyone? Isn’t one of the beauties of our music’s recorded legacy that if we want the notes which have been played before, they’re likely already there, in some form or other?). Off the stand, however, he used to reminisce a lot about his friends with whom he’d left South Africa. There’s an interview from the Torino Jazz Festival around 10 years ago which is heartbreaking:
First of all, this band [sc. the Blue Notes] was made in heaven, I think; and all the members of the band now are in heaven. And I feel so much…down, sometimes, because I think maybe I was fired from the band, and the band went on to heaven without me…and I hope that they have a good drummer there…
5. The Tag (17’14”)
At a certain point, we dispensed with set lists with this band. Just before this one begins, he gives me his ‘new tune’ glance. More on this later – it very, very rarely mattered what musical territory you moved into at this point – it was usually just a change he was after. By the way, to my absolute shame, especially given him being one of the greatest timekeepers in the music, I played this tune for around a decade completely misunderstanding where the first beat was. This is what a generous musician Louis was: his starting point in any situation wasn’t ‘let me put this guy right’; it was ‘how can I make this sound good?’ I was playing it wrong all that time, but being made to sound like I knew exactly what I was doing, because no-one was left behind.
6. Ngcwele, Ngcwele (21’08”)
The title means ‘Holy, Holy’. This is one of the hymns Louis loved so much. Did you ever come across one of those people who told you off for calling everything a ‘song’? They were all songs to Louis (sometimes, he’d actually grab a microphone and venture ‘Give Peace a Chance’, or some other line from a standard).
7. Zanele (26’20”)
…and so at some point, we found ourselves singing this during the gigs (if ‘singing’ isn’t too strong).
Louis loved songs, and he loved singers. We were in Chicago once when he decided, seemingly out of the blue, that he wanted to go out to buy some Abbey Lincoln records. Off we went to the other side of town. He was a huge Betty Carter fan – he loved the band with Geri Allen, Dave Holland, and Jack DeJohnette. Sometimes he’d call me from South Africa. A full transcript of the 30-second-tops exchange might run as follows:
L: Hey BRA!
A: Louis!
L: I’m listening to John Coltrane with Johnny Hartman……..[that record was another favourite of
his]
A: It’s SO good. My One And Only Love, right?
L: Yeah! WOW! Ok……..BYE!’
Whenever we played in the UK, I’d always drive him back to where he was staying after the gig. The first thing he’d say would invariably be ‘classical please!!!’ (as an aside: the first request in cars in Italy, by contrast, was usually ‘tranquillo per favore’). On one occasion, I switched over to Radio 3, and there was a hour-or-so-long programme about Billie Holiday on. He was happy to stay with this (who wouldn’t be?), and believe me when I say – he knew every single lyric, verses and all.
8. For The Blue Notes (31’04”)
There was never any sheet music on stage with this band – though there were some very rough sketches we could share for some of the tunes if ever we had a guest. The working repertoire must have been fairly huge, in the end. This particular tune finishes with a phrase which, for all the hundreds of times we must have played it, I’m not sure anyone actually knew for certain. The end of this tune says a lot about Louis though. He didn’t care for any of the trappings or adulation of being a legend. He loved the audience, it’s absolutely true: ‘YOU don’t have to love US; WE love YOU!’, he would often sing. But within 2 seconds of the piece ending and the applause starting, you can see him gesture across to me: all he wants is more music.
9. Lakutshon’Ilanga (34’04”)
As I said, when he wanted a new tune, it almost never mattered where the set went. But only ‘almost’ never. Once, he and I were playing a duo concert on a hillside in Sardinia. The stunning backdrop, just out to sea behind us, was the Island of Tavolara (the poetry of this being the ‘Table Mountain’ being lost on no-one). At some point during the set, he gave me the familiar look to make some kind of transition. I moved into some tune or other: he shook his head. I ventured another: a more agitated shake of the head. Several more failed attempts. By this point, extremely animated, he was waving at me with one stick whilst playing with the other three limbs. Or at least, I thought he was, until I realised he was gesturing over my shoulder. I turned around, to see a stunning sunset: only at that point did I get it – he wanted Lakutshon’Ilanga. The title of the Mackay Davashe masterpiece, known to many through the Miriam Makeba version, roughly translates as ‘When The Sun Sets’.
10. Angel-Nomali (37’34”)
It’s been written more than once that hearing Louis play these grooves in three recalls nothing quite so much as hearing Elvin Jones do the same. Yes, they sound very different, but in the inevitability and beauty of the feel, the observation absolutely makes sense. There were certain tunes we used to play which had a certain ecstatic joy to them, every single time. This was one; the Mongezi Feza anthem ‘You Ain’t Gonna Know Me ‘Cos You Think You Know Me’ – maybe the single best known tune in the entire book – was another. His full genius is on display here, as he walks that elusive line of being at once the most supportive musician imaginable, and the most demanding – driving, stoking, confronting.
For one of the most down to earth people you could ever wish to meet, he had an uncanny ability to levitate, and take everyone with him.
Louis Moholo-Moholo. Born 10 March 1940. Died 13 June 2025. In Sadness.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: It has been a privilege to receive this piece. Thank you Alex for doing such a brilliantly creative workaround within our 10 Tracks straitjacket!)
