Music
Landmark
Jonas Gwangwa
1937 – 2021
Jazz Epistles founder, Amandla bandleader, and an Oscar nomination for Cry Freedom
Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the South Africa Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
He helped invent modern South African jazz with Masekela and Abdullah Ibrahim, then spent a decade leading the ANC's cultural ensemble in exile, and was nominated for two Academy Awards along the way.
Jonas Mosa Gwangwa was born in Orlando East, Johannesburg, in 1937, and was a trombonist, composer, arranger and anti-apartheid activist across six decades.
He was a founding member of the Jazz Epistles with Hugh Masekela and Abdullah Ibrahim, the group that modernised South African jazz. From 1980 to 1990 he led Amandla, the cultural ensemble of the African National Congress, which he assembled from exiled South Africans in Angola and took to more than forty countries as a musical telling the story of the struggle. With George Fenton he composed the score for Cry Freedom in 1987, earning Academy Award nominations for Best Original Score and Best Original Song. He died on 23 January 2021.
He was a founding member of the Jazz Epistles with Hugh Masekela and Abdullah Ibrahim, the group that modernised South African jazz. From 1980 to 1990 he led Amandla, the cultural ensemble of the African National Congress, which he assembled from exiled South Africans in Angola and took to more than forty countries as a musical telling the story of the struggle. With George Fenton he composed the score for Cry Freedom in 1987, earning Academy Award nominations for Best Original Score and Best Original Song. He died on 23 January 2021.
- Wikipedia — Jonas Gwangwa
- South African History Online — Jonas Mosa Gwangwa
- The Conversation — Jonas Gwangwa embodied South Africa's struggle for a national culture
Spotted something wrong? Tell us and we will check it.