It’s fitting that Johannesburg is among 12 cities featured in the 2023 Unesco International Jazz Day, themed “jazz journey around the world”. The day, established in 2011 to celebrate the role of jazz in “uniting peoples across the globe”, is now marked annually on 30 April in close to 200 nations. It would have been hosted by Cape Town in 2020 had COVID-19 not intervened.
Even so, many jazz lovers elsewhere may be aware of the long history and uniqueness of South Africa’s jazz legacy through only a few names – Miriam Makeba, Abdullah Ibrahim, Hugh Masekela – who were driven out by apartheid to find world stages. Uncovering, documenting and showcasing more of the creativity that fought to flower inside the country remains a work in progress.
