The Sonic Legacy of Louis Moholo-Moholo
Following the passing of the legendary drummer, those who knew, learned from, and played with him gathered in Johannesburg to remember him not with eulogies, but with sound — in the spirit of the freedom he lived for.
Pianist Andile Yenana took to the stage at a packed Untitled Basement in Johannesburg this past Friday, just hours after news broke that NtateLouis Moholo-Moholo had passed away. It was only a week after his dear friend, the photographer and archivist Rashid Lombard, also departed.
A founding member of Chris McGregor’s TheBlue Notes and a towering figure in South Africa’s avant-garde jazz tradition, Moholo-Moholo leaves behind a storied legacy, one defined by constant innovation and an unyielding pursuit of freedom. He deconstructed nursery rhymes, elevated church hymns to celestial heights, and left behind a trail of unforgettable sayings that continue to echo among lovers of improvised music.
“Yes baby, no baby, yes baby, no baby.”
The familiar incantation rang out from the bandstand, carried by a group of his students and spiritual successors: Tumi Mogorosi and Gontse Makhene. As audience members joined in, Yenana’s nimble fingers stretched the emotional range of the piano, and a wave of collective grief and exaltation swept over the venue. I thought back to the first time I saw Moholo-Moholo perform – at the now-defunct Tagore’s in Cape Town, alongside the brilliant trumpeter Mandla Mlangeni. Back then, those same incantations danced around the room, weaving through the rhythms he summoned from his kit.
“Yes baby, no baby, yes baby, no, no, no.”
That night, like so many others, he didn’t simply keep time — he warped it, reshaped it, made it speak. The room, small and smoke-filled and chock-full of appreciators of high art, throbbed with an ancestral pulse that felt both urgent and eternal. We were in the presence of someone who understood sound as a portal, someone who played the drums not just with sticks and skins, but with spirit and memory.
Mlangeni, a bandleader who has since played with Moholo-Moholo in different formations — like the sprawling Amandla Freedom Ensemble — as well as toured across Southern Africa with, recalls the first time he encountered his mentor through the Rachabane family, South African music royalty that includes the late NtateBarney and Mlangeni’s friend, Oscar.
He had seen Moholo-Moholo play in 2003, and later encountered the music of the Brotherhood of Breath (what The Blue Notes came to be called in Europe) while on an exchange programme in Norway in 2007, through a musician based in Oslo.
“[He] was telling me about the profound influence of The Blue Notes and how they influenced the free jazz scene back then, and how they also changed the course of jazz history,” says Mlangeni. It would take a couple more years before they met in person, at a jam session in KwaLanga where Moholo-Moholo was born, and where he lived before going into exile with his bandmates McGregor, Johnny Dyani, Mongezi Feza, Dudu Pukwana, and Nilkele Moyake. “I told him how highly revered he was, and how I actually enjoyed his music, and hoped for one day to perform with him,” Mlangeni recalls.
It would take a year or two before they played together. That Tagore’s gig was the first in a series of three, with Swiss bassist Sebastian Schuster connecting the rhythm and the harmony, laying down a solid foundation for the two to take flight. Mlangeni says it felt like a “musical tightrope.”“I was so confused about that performance, I didn’t know what to make of it, but I think the people who were in attendance were blown away.”
He refers to their relationship as strange, but meaningful at the same time. “It was a give-and-take relationship, and he was very influential in how I would lead a band, and my learnings of what jazz really meant on and off the bandstand,” he says.
According to Mlangeni, Moholo-Moholo represented the length and breadth of South African music heritage. “[He] represented us in all forms, from [when] he was in exile in the UK. I think he brought a freshness in how we articulate ourselves. He was the embodiment of what it meant to be a South African, and what it meant to be an African, particularly in the pride and fervour with which he expressed his music. I was fortunate to be part of that legacy, and part of that tradition that he encapsulated,” says Mlangeni.
In June 2024, Chicago-based drummer Makaya McCraven visited Moholo-Moholo in KwaLanga. Though ailing, the elder was in high spirits, out and about with friends, swapping road stories and breaking into jazz standards between conversations. The visit captured what so many of his peers, protégés, and fans already knew: Moholo-Moholo’s light burned bright until the very end. Joining McCraven was South African drummer Makaya Ntshoko’s grandson, Kanu.
Kanu is, by every standard, the torchbearer to that avant-garde tradition that makes South African jazz such a unique focal point in the global improvised music space. In a lengthy conversation with OkayAfrica, the drummer, who used to visit Moholo-Moholo on an almost daily basis, touched on a broad range of topics, yet they all centred, in one way or another, around freedom and Moholo-Moholo’s free spirit.
Shortly before the June 2024 visit, Kanu had received his cymbals as a gift. Looking back, he says it was on the thirteenth. Moholo-Moholo passed away exactly a year later on June 13, 2025. “We’d just had supper together, it was around 10 p.m. As I was about to leave and go home, he was like, ‘Hey, don’t forget your bag.’ Then he pointed at the corner. I was like, ‘no, these are your cymbals,’” he says. Moholo-Moholo persisted until he got through to a hesitant Kanu. “He was like, ‘it’s your time now. Now is your time, you deserve them.’”
“Freedom was the main thing with bra Louis. His people also, he loved his people, he loved his community. Even now, in his old age, kids would knock by the door and I’d go open for them. Then they would go upstairs and they would chill with him. He was a people’s person,” says Kanu.
Moholo-Moholo’s sense of freedom extended to a refusal to rehearse before a gig, says Kanu. “I’ll meet you at the gig,” he says, impersonating Moholo-Moholo. “Those are moments that you’ll never get again. Because once you play it, you can’t write it down. That’s what I’ve learnt, as well. It’s something that I’m also implementing to the new cats.”
“I have these things that he would say, these phrases. I wrote them down. I’ll compose some tunes and [name them after these].”
Back at the Untitled Basement, Mogorosi’s playing was thunderous, yet reverent, echoing the spirit of his mentor without imitation. His every gesture – each roll, crash, and pause – seemed to summon Moholo-Moholo’s presence into the room. Alongside Makhene, he built layers of rhythm that both grounded and expanded the improvisations led by Yenana, whose piano motifs danced between melancholy and exaltation.
It wasn’t a tribute in the conventional sense. There were no speeches, no dedications, only sound – raw, communal, transcendental, the kind Moholo-Moholo lived for. The kind he believed in. As the music swelled and shifted, it became clear: this wasn’t a memorial. It was a continuation. For Mogorosi, Moholo-Moholo represented different things at different times – The Blue Notes’ freedom dreams, to a master-student relationship, to a familial relation, where Moholo-Moholo became a grandfatherly figure to him. “Being in his presence was like being in the presence of a true master, an elder, someone who’s always willing to share, who’s always willing to tell you stories, ” says Mogorosi to OkayAfrica.The pursuit of freedom is also one feature that stands out for him. “Until the last time I spoke to him, we were speaking about notions around the incomplete promise of freedom, and how to still be advocates for such,” he says.
Moholo-Moholo was a conduit, a griot, a time traveler. From exile with The Blue Notes, to pursuits on the edge of wrong with his ensemble Viva La Black, to teaching a new generation of South African improvisers, he never compromised on the fire of his convictions. His drumming told stories of forced removals and jazz gigs in London basements, of laughter and resistance, of razor-sharp memory and forward motion.
A statement from the family read: “Louis was more than a pioneering musician — he was a mentor and a friend. As a drummer, composer, and fearless voice for artistic freedom, Louis inspired generations through his groundbreaking contributions to South African and global jazz. From the townships of Cape Town to the stages of London and beyond, his rhythms spoke of resistance, liberation, and the boundless power of creativity.”