AfricaIs aCountry

Ezra Ngcukana, R.I.P.

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Ezra Ngcukana, R.I.P.

By
Sean Jacobs

Woke up this morning with the sad news in my email inbox–from music journalist Gwen Ansell–that Ezra Ngcukana (b. 1954), the great Cape Flats jazz musician and a member of the Ngcukana jazz dynasty, had passed away. Ngcukana had been diabetic with high blood pressure. Ngcukana’s death is “… no doubt exacerbated by the sadness everybody in Cape Town is still feeling about Robbie Jansen. Ezra must have been devastated by that.”

The best tribute to Ngcukana’s genius I have seen (h/t: Suren Pillay) is this, posted earlier today, by the historian and photographer, John Edwin Mason, here .

Image: John Edwin Mason

 

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