Hidden Winston Mankunku Ngozi gem found

Something unusually special today. This 1965 recording is of a live performance at the Stables in Loop Street, Cape Town. It is previously unpublished and gives a unique and surprising peep into the live Cape Town jazz scene at the time.

Recordings of saxophone legend Winston Mankunku Ngozi are few and far between.  In today's posting, lasting a little over half an hour, the twenty-two-year-old Mankunku makes magic with Dave Galloway on organ,  Midge Pike on bass and Selwyn Lissack on drums. Think Jimmy Smith in a bop fusion spiced up with Mankunku’s own special flavouring.

Selwyn Lissack went on to become a renowned, but somewhat mysterious international free jazz drummer, who made two recordings and then stopped recording and branched off into a collaborative artistic relationship with Salvador Dali. In 2006 Lissack re-mastered and re-issued his two recordings, and was listed by Thurston Moore as amongst his "Top Ten from the Free Jazz underground".  Read more about Lissack here.

Midge Pike (1967)
Picture by Ian Bruce Huntley

Mankunku would often acknowledge bass player Midge Pike in the same breath as mentioning John Coltrane as being key in shaping his music. In writing the liner notes for Mankunku's Yakhal' Inkomo, Ray Nkwe describes Midge Pike as "South Africa's greatest bassist". Nkwe goes on to quote Mankunku as saying: "Midge was really the man behind my success. He really helped me a lot, I take my hat off to him." Midge left South Africa for the United States in 1973 where he continued to compose and play. He died in September 2008.

Dave Galloway was (is?) a professional musician who played trombone for the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra at the time. He was last heard of as working in Vryheid as a music educator for the provincial education department.

There are five tracks in today's share - any help in identifying them would be greatly appreciated. So far, we have:
1. "Taps Miller" (Buck Clayton)
2.?
3. "A Taste of Honey" (Bobby Scott / Ric Marlow)
4. "Well You Needn't" (Thelonius Monk).
5. "How High The Moon" (Hamilton/Lewis)

(Thanks Bob and Howard for your input)

We hope in the coming months to be able to bring you a few more Cape Town jazz gems like this one. We are working on that possibility, so please understand if we cannot say more right now. Tony McGregor does a great job in painting a picture of Mankunku and the sixties Cape Town jazz scene here.

If you have not yet heard Mankunku's recording with the Cliffs, do have a look at this 2009 electric jive posting. And futher posts available here and here.

Rapidshare here

Mediafire here