Hugh Masekela Grazing In The Grass Views

• Digital Music

At the end of 1959, Dollar Brand (later known as Abdullah Ibrahim), Kippie Moeketsi, Makhaya Ntshoko, Johnny Gertze and Hugh formed the Jazz Epistles, the first African jazz group to record an LP and perform to record-breaking audiences in Johannesburg and Cape Town through late 1959 to early 1960. Following the March 21, 1960, Sharpeville Massacre - where 69 peacefully protesting Africans were shot dead in Sharpeville, and the South African government banned gatherings of ten or more people - and the increased brutality of the Apartheid state, Masekela left the country. He was helped by Trevor Huddleston and international friends like Yehudi Menuhin and John Dankworth, who got him admitted into London's Guildhall School of Music. During that period, he visited the United States, where he was befriended by Harry Belafonte. He attended Manhattan School of Music in New York where he studied classical trumpet from 1960-64.

In 2010, Hugh Masekela was featured, with his son Salema, in a series of videos on ESPN. The series, called Umlando - Through my Father's Eyes , was aired in 10 parts during ESPN's coverage of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa. The series focused on Hugh and Sal's travels through South Africa. Hugh brought his son to the places he grew up. It was Sal's first trip to his father's homeland.[8]

In 1961, Hugh Masekela fled his native South Africa's apartheid to graze in America's greener grass. By the summer of 1968, he was leading the hit parade. Is this a great country or what? Replete with 4-alarm cowbell, Grazing in the Grass pastured 13 weeks among the Top 100, chewing its way to #1. Contentedly masticating an endlessly regurgitated 2-chord vamp, Grazing made the perfect party music for urban cliff-dwellers who wouldn't know a cow pie from a Big Mac. As approving teenagers liked to tell Dick Clark on American Bandstand, It's got a good beat and you can dance to it.

Hugh Masekela made a remarkable journey from apartheid South Africa to the music scene in New York City, where he struck gold with Grazin' in the Grass. After his musical success, the trumpeter faced personal turbulence and an eventual return to his transformed homeland. NPR's Neal Conan talks with Masekela.

grazing in the grass hugh masekela, hugh masekela still grazing, cattle grazing pictures, red hugh, gen hugh shelton, gen. hugh shelton, hugh b price, hugh benson, hugh bicheno, hugh coolican, hugh corbett, hugh d young, hugh goddard, hugh kenner, hugh lunn, hugh mcmanners, hugh mills, hugh milne, hugh newell, hugh patrick,