His lovely Folkways LP from 1965, when he was just 22, with classics-in-the-making like Blue Mountain and The Werewolf Song.

Beautiful, insurgent, fabulously danceable jazz music from South Africa, flowing out of the penny-whistle kwela bands of the 1950s. (Kwela means ‘get moving’, in Xhosa.)
Bra Gwigwi played alto and clarinet alongside Hugh Masekela and Kippie Moeketsi in The Jazz Dazzlers; also in The Jazz Maniacs and The Harlem Swingsters. He came to the UK from Johannesburg as an actor and clarinettist in King Kong — a musical about a Zulu boxer — which opened in London in February 1961.
Recording in January 1967, at Dennis Duerden’s Transcription Centre, he is joined here by Dudu Pukwana, Chris McGregor, Laurie Allan, and Ronnie Beer, all from The Blue Notes. Ladbroke Grove legend, and mainstay of our London Is The Place For Me series, Coleridge Goode plays double bass.

No less than sixteen shots of jubilant, jump-up mbaqanga. Check the Ethiopian vibe of Mra (which became core repertoire of The Brotherhood of Breath). Listen to Nyusamkhaya, and try to get it out of your head. Impossible.
Lovely notes by Steve Beresford, too.

‘The South African folk music that makes people glad to be alive!’

The house drummer of the Flamingo jazz club throughout the fifties, presenting a 1961 date featuring Tubbs and Jimmy Deuchar. Vibes-player Bill Le Sage leads the gorgeous ballad World Of Blue.

Stunning piano improvisations — mostly solo, though peppered with tombak, violin, and scraps of poetry — using his own tuning system, recorded for Iranian national radio between 1956-1965.

Sparkling, limber post-bop from 1964 — with touches of modal, bossa, and Eastern Sounds — impeccably reissued in Japan.

Classy digi dub from 1987 — the living, but chilled and de-populated Pablo sound-world — with killer dillers like Raggamuffin Year and Seven Seals on the desk.

Prime, early-eighties Barrington, expertly fronting chunky Radics on rhythms like The Russians Are Coming and Get In The Groove, in Scientist mixes. No losing with those cards.

‘Them leave sorrow, tears and blood, Them regular trademark… My people self dey fear too much, We fear for the thing we no see… We fear to fight for freedom.’
Magnificent defiance from 1977.

‘Another underground spiritual’, as the opening puts it, about Botha and apartheid,and supporters like Thatcher, Reagan and the Dis-United Nations. (‘One veto vote is equal to 92 or more, or more’).

Coming between What’s Going On and Let’s Get It On, this 1972 soundtrack is a bonafide masterpiece.

Feeling, folkey soul from 1977, with Skull Snaps and Jimmy Castor crew.

Stokes, Memphis Minnie, Furry Lewis, Gus Cannon and co. 180g, well-pressed.

The classic 1970 debut with Beverley Martyn. Rehearsed in Woodstock, with Levon Helm guesting on a couple, Joe Boyd producing. Lovely.

This is terrific. The Duke totally fronts up; Mingus is dazzling. Les Fleurs Africaines is one for the desert island.

Featuring Ronnie Scott and Tubby Hayes, from 1958.