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Thursday, October 2, 2014

MADALA KUNENE, PHUZEKHEMISI DOUBLE BILL



One of the country’s foremost musical visionaries, guitar player Madala Kunene, will be performing a one-off double bill concert when he shares the stage with maskandi great Phuzekhemisi in the Playhouse Grand Foyer on October 4.

Kunene will be performing with Bernard Mndaweni on bass guitar; Mduduzi Magwaza on penny whistle and saxophone; Vincent Mthethwa on piano, and Paki Gosisile on drums. Kunene – or “Bafo” as he is known to friends - performs a repertoire of his own original music, playing a distinctive variation of Zulu blues guitar.

Kunene is respected and admired internationally – probably more so than in his hometown. Directly after the Playhouse concert, he leaves for New York to play at the revered Carnegie Hall with fellow South African musicians including fellow KZN maskandi guitarist, Phuzekhemisi, who joins Kunene in the Playhouse double-bill.

Kunene and Phuzekhemisi’s original music talks with lyrical honesty, to the challenges and hardships of contemporary life. Both musicians have been playing guitar since they were young boys, and both have contributed to creating a distinctive Durban indigenous sound. Last month, Phuzekhemisi was honoured as an eThekwini Living Legend. Kunene was honoured as a Living Legend in 2009.

Kunene has lived and worked in Durban for more than 40 years. He began his musical career at the age of seven. He made his first guitar out of a cooking oil tin and fish gut for strings. He soon became a popular performer in the township venues, choosing to follow a professional career in the ‘70s. He was seven and living in Cato Manor, a couple of years before the apartheid removals from Umkhumbane to Kwa Mashu in 1959. His style helps define the Umkhumbane’s legendary guitar tradition – a musical genre which was informed by the politics and history of Cato Manor. His latest album – his eighth – entitled 1959, references the Cato Manor forced removals.

Very much a musician’s musician, Kunene has collaborated, recorded and shared the stage with some of the best in the business, including Sipho Gumede; Busi Mhlongo; Mabi Tobejane; Moses Molelekwa; Doc Mthalane; Tony Cox; Steve Newman; Lu Dlamini; Guy Buttery; Swiss guitarist Max Lasser and Hugh Masekela. For many years he worked closely in a creative partnership with fellow son of Durban, Syd Kitchen.

Kunene composed the score for Darrell Roodt’s Oscar and Emmy-nominated locally-made Zulu-medium drama, Yesterday.

The respect which fellow musicians have for Kunene’s work is demonstrated in his most recent album, 1959, with a slew of musical greats lending their musical talents to the project: Steve Newman; Hugh Masekela; Guy Buttery; Sazi Dlamini; Eric Duma; Max Laser; Lu Dlamini; Bernard Ndaweni; Sithembiso Ntuli; King Goodwill Zwelithini’s son, Hlangu and producer Neil Snyman. Kunene says the 12 songs on 1959 tell the story of his life and of the removals that destroyed the community synonymous with the distinct Durban guitar sound.

Madala Kunene and friends, together with Phuzekhemisi, are in concert in the Playhouse Grand Foyer for one night only on October 4 at 19h30. Tickets R100 available through Computicket or at the door.