Neil Tesser has written an informative post about Zim Nqgawana, the South African jazz musician who died at age 52 of a stroke May 10. Ngqawana, whose name is pronounced with a glottal “click” between the “N” and first “a,” performed at the 2007 Columbia/Harlem Festival of Global Jazz,” curated by George E. Lewis of Columbia University’s Center for Jazz Studies, Nqgawana, with his quartet, in that concert struck me as a powerful and original saxophonist and flutist, improvising with a heightened lyricism no doubt inspired by John Coltrane’s late period sound, but standing on its own. (photo by Dragan Tasic).
photo ©Dragan Tasic
His music that night (and on Zimology, his one album I’ve heard) had little overt reference to the South Africa of, say, Paul Simon’s Graceland; rather, it was stately (at times as deep as that of sombre pianist Abdullah Ibrahim) and dynamic like the best of trumpeter Hugh Masekela — with whom Nqgawana had worked — but with no pop or commercial aspirations. The Mail and Guardian Online headlines Nqgawana as a “genius,” which is a tricky term, but I have admired and can recommend his music, and be sorry that he’ll play no more. (PS and full disclosure: The Columbia/Harlem Fest also hosted the first and so far only convention of international jazz journalists in the U.S.” “Jazz in the Global Imagination,” co-produced by the Jazz Journalists Association, of which I’m pres. . .)
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