Nikele Moyake

Nikele (Nik) Moyake (c. 1933 – c. 1966) was born on a farm in Addo in the Eastern Cape. Moyake was a musician who played Mbaqanga and Jazz ^[1]

Music Career

In the early 1950s Moyake moved to Port Elizabeth where he was a key figure in the jazz scene ^[1]. He met Dudu Pukwana in Walmer Estate, Port Elizabeth and he taught both Pukwana and Duke Makatsi how to pay the saxophone. Pukwana and Moyake would later become band mates in The Blue Notes. Moyake played tenor saxophone in the sextet The Blue Notes alongside Chris McGregor, Dudu Pukwana, Mongezi Feza, Johnny Dyani and Louis Moholo. Before The Blue Notes, Moyake was a sessional musician who also played in Tete Mbambisa’s the Four Yanks, where he was a vocalist.

Chris McGregor and Nikele Moyake met at the Castle Lager Jazz Festival hosted at Moroka Jabavu Stadium in 1962. Moyake was playing with Mbambisa’s band and McGregor was playing at the festival with a septet. Although they both played in different formations, Moyake, McGregor and other members of The Blue Notes met at the festival.

After The Blue Notes went on a successful national tour, the band left South Africa in 1963 heading to Antibes to start a their lives in exile. The Blue Notes left South Africa because they were in contravention of several apartheid laws; particularly that no more than three black musicians were allowed to play together (on the pretext of preventing anti-apartheid conspiracies) and that multiracial bands could not play together (Chris McGregor was white) ^[2] .

The band left Antibes and moved to Zurich at the urging of Dollar Brand the artist currently known as Abdullah Ibrahim . When the band played the Antibes Jazz Festival in 1964, Moyake was 31 ^[3] Being born in the early 1930s, Moyake was by far the oldest member of the band, but he was also the band's most accomplished soloist in its early days. His playing can be heard extensively on the Blue Notes CDs Township Bop and Legacy: Live In South Africa.

When the group emigrated to Europe en masse in 1964, he quickly became isolated from the rest of the band through a combination of illness and homesickness. Also, as the oldest member, he struggled to adapt to the changes in the music brought about by the rapid maturing of his younger bandmates. He returned to South Africa in 1965, when the band moved to London, due to ill health. He played for a few more years before his dying of a brain tumour. Ronnie Beer took Moyake’s place in The Blue Notes.

Tributes

In 1968, the Soul Giants recorded a tribute album dedicated to Nick Moyane called “I remember Nick”. Two of the Soul Giants Band members Barney Rachabane and Dennis Mpale had met saxophonists Nikele Moyake while he was alive and decided to create the album in his honour. In 2012, The Blue Notes Tribute Okestra, a tribute band formed to pay homage to the original members, recorded live at The Bird's Eye Jazz Club, Basel, Switzerland in June 2012

References