Kippie Moeketsi and Hal Singer – 'Blue Stompin' ' – News, reviews, features and comment from the London jazz scene and beyond
Any release featuring South African alto saxophonist Kippie Moeketsi (1925-1983) is to be warmly welcomed. This is a reissue of a 1977 collaboration with the Paris-based Oklahoma-born tenor saxophonist Hal Singer (1919-2020) that has been unavailable for 40 years. Often introduced as ‘Bra Joe from Kilimanjaro’ by his close friend Abdullah Ibrahim, Moeketsi was a member of the Jazz Epistles, the trailblazing 1950s band, alongside Ibrahim, Hugh Masekela and Jonas Gwangwa, who all stated many years later that Moeketsi was the foremost South African jazz musician of their generation. For ...