The Jazz Epistles

Evolving from the Jazz In Africa session, a landmark 1959 recording organized by visiting American pianist John Mehagan, the short-lived South African jazz ensemble featured local players Hugh Masekela, Jonas Gwangwa and Kippie Moeketsi. After Mehagan’s return to the United States, the remaining musicians enlisted pianist Dollar Brand, adopted the name Jazz Epistles, cut a single well-received album and delivered a widely praised set at the Gold Castle National Jazz Festival before disbanding, with Brand relocating to Switzerland and Masekela and Gwangwa heading to the USA. The album itself vanished from circulation following its restricted initial pressing and quickly turned into a collector’s item among enthusiasts of South African jazz.

Issued in 1992 by Kaz Records, a UK-based label specializing in South African music, the compilation Jazz In Africa Volume One—later reissued by Camden/BMG in 1998—gathered selections from the Jazz Epistles album along with additional related recordings. The material revealed musicians steeped in the American modern-jazz language of Thelonious Monk, Charlie “Bird” Parker and John Coltrane, yet already shaping a distinctly South African approach that each member would refine individually in the decades ahead.