BBC World Service broadcast: 27th January 2018
The BBC’s Audrey Brown pays tribute to one of the best known trumpeters in the world - Hugh Masekela. Known affectionately as Bra Hugh, Masekela was a man whose personality was as big as the sound he blew through his trumpet.
Masekela’s love affair with music started very early in life. He picked up his first trumpet at the age of 14, a gift by the British anti-apartheid activist Trevor Huddleston. In 1956, Huddleston arranged for another trumpet to be given to the young Masekela. It was from another musical giant Louis Armstrong – and, as Masekela said, that small gesture changed his life and helped launch a career that spanned over 50 years and took him all over the world. But life was struggle. He spent three decades in exile – unable even to return to apartheid South Africa to bury his mother. And his music became one of the sounds of the struggle to overthrow apartheid. We look back at his life – the struggles, the sorrows, the passions and the joys – through his own words and music.
Producer: Penny Dale
(Photo: Hugh Masekela (centre) Marcus Miller and Guillaume Perret perform at the International Jazz Day 2015, Paris. Credit: Kristy Sparow/Getty Images)
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