Louis Moholo's legacy will benefit generations of musicians

THE biography of Louis Tebogo Moholo is in many respects the narrative of the modern jazz movement in South Africa.

- PALLO JORDAN

It is also the tale of a specific group of extremely talented South African musicians who, after their departure from these shores, left an indelible imprint specifically on the Avant Garde school in modern jazz, associated with the musicians who emerged during the mid-sixties.

But central to that story is an individual musician, Louis Tebogo Moholo.

Louis Tebogo Moholo was born at St Monica’s Hospital in Cape Town to Christian Moholo and his wife Dorah Moholo, on 10th March 1940. He passed away at home in Langa, on the morning of 13th June 2025.

Growing up as a young musician in Cape Town during the 1950s must have been an exciting time. As South Africa's oldest port city, Cape Town and the people who live and have lived here for centuries had been impacted on by virtually every cultural and intellectual current in the evolving modern world.

Louis Moholo was raised in an urban African working-class community that had developed over decades here in the Western Cape.

Many of the Africans who arrived in Cape Town during the 1800s and early 1900s, first settled in District Six before they were forcibly removed to Ndabeni during the 1920s. All over the Cape Peninsula there were other pockets of African communities: in Kensington; in Blouvlei near Retreat; in Elsies River; in Athlone; Crawford. Simon's Town was effectively part of Cape Town though it is another municipality. In most of these communities, regionally based homeboy networks formed the basis of rugby, soccer, cricket, tennis and other sports clubs. It was in music that such affiliations appeared less significant. In the bands, what counted was musical skill and talent, not one’ region of origin.