Louis Moholo-Moholo RIP

[mjazzg]

Reputable online sources reporting his death.

Simply, one of the greatest. Always blown away by his live playing and the recordings are all stellar too.

 

[JSngry]

This is a real loss 

RIP

[optatio]

R.I.P. ...

[Rabshakeh]

I had not realised that he was still alive. A great loss. RIP. 

Edited Friday at 04:05 PM by Rabshakeh

[colinmce]

Knew his health had been on the decline, but this is still a gut punch. An incredible human being, and one of the greats in this music. I am glad he is at peace and reunited with his brothers. 

[clifford_thornton]

Huge loss. Condolences to ep1str0phy and others who knew him. I am glad that I at least was able to see him live on a couple of occasions.

[Clunky]

Very sad news. Great talent whether with the Blue Notes or our own Alexander Hawkins. Very classy

 

[Jason Bivins]

Damn, what a loss. Spirits Rejoice, baby. RIP.

[ep1str0phy]

I owe an awful lot to Louis. He’s one of a special handful of my childhood heroes whom I met and liked even more. He was doggedly invested in the idea of art as a form of resistance, and he played accordingly. There was an intention and directness behind his drumming that was uncanny, and it forced the burdens of the real world to retreat into chasms of sound. He seemed to master things like pain and injustice with the power of his sound. And he made it seem like so much fun that from the moment I met him, I wanted to be just like him.

Music saved me from a desk job, and Louis saved me from only wanting to be around music. His lived experience as a rebel against Apartheid, manifesting his art as this noble struggle against bullies and tyrants, resonated with me completely. At times such as now, it’s so easy to feel directionless and impotent. Louis’s music taught me that you can never lose the battle so long as you continue to fight, and constantly.

Louis also helped me to resolve some internal contradictions with my own identity. As a Filipino American, I have often struggled with the fact that I am spiritually Filipino and yet American in temperament and mind. Louis had a visceral commitment to abstraction that was paradoxically couched in his love for South African tradition. Everything was The Song. As soon as I understood this, it became easier for me to be myself and yet wholeheartedly the son of my ancestors.

I only met Louis on a handful of occasions. The brilliant and indispensable Alexander Hawkins reconnected us. In 2018, I journeyed to London to record an album called “Apura!” (released in 2020 on Astral Spirits). This record may have been Louis’s last chronological recording, although a wonderful record with Bay Area powerhouse Patrick Wolff - recorded only a few days before “Apura!” - came out in 2024.

You have to understand, Louis was/is my hero. My favorite musician. So when the opportunity for this session came up, I practiced for 3, 4, 5, etc. hours a day for over a month. I practiced solo. I practiced along with recordings. I set up sessions with friends and gigged constantly. I think I could play like 60% of all Blue Notes songs cold. I practiced so much that I credit this session with helping to me to develop a clear sonic identity, which I don’t think I truly obtained at until the lockdown era.

When I arrived at the session, the first thing I heard was Louis’s cymbals. They have a shimmering, eerily distinctive sound. When I sat down at my booth, I realized that Louis wasn’t using sizzle cymbals. He had taken a few pence and just laid them, unsecured, on his rig. They were like this for the full two days that we recorded, and I watched them fall countless times. 

As we played, it slowly dawned on me that the practice I had done had not actually prepared me for the session. True and natural free improvisation requires a degree of flexibility and intuition that you can’t arrive at with woodshedding alone. Louis was all improvisation. He even improvised his cymbals.

Every day, I strive somehow to be the way that Louis was. To play naturally, like a heartbeat. Louis helped to restore me to the person I actually am, whose ancestors farmed and fished, fighting colonialists and fascists in the sugar cane fields. 

I may not have known Louis very well, but I do know that he’d be proud of anyone continuing the struggle that he once led - especially other musicians. Louis, Dudu, Mongezi, Mbizo, Chris, Nik, and their kin are reunited now, and they will continue to teach us so long as there are people willing to learn. 

[colinmce]

Beautiful words Karl. Thanks, and thanks for the music you were able to make with him. 

A special shout-out as well to Alexander; Keep Your Heart Straight is one of my favorite of Louis’ recordings, and that is saying a LOT. 

[clifford_thornton]

Heavy days, Karl (and Alexander). I’ll be listening to Apura! this weekend; a fantastic album, though it’s been a minute since it was on deck.

Truly natural playing is indeed uncanny & catches one off guard. Louis is/was definitely among the most natural. For whatever reason, the record that really caught my ear back then was the Rudd/NYAQ on America, which has a condensed looseness totally apart from the Graves version. 
 

I saw Moholo-Moholo twice, once with Circulasione Totale Orchestra and once with Kidd Jordan, William Parker, and Dave Burrell. The small group was the most distinct and easiest to pick out what he was up to, and I hope it was recorded.

[Hoppy T. Frog]

I was lucky to ee hom once in Baltimore. RIP to the last of the Blue Notes--while I never knew them personally, an I'm just a fan, their collective and solo music always awakes positive feelings in me.   

[Steve Reynolds]

Bush Fire

Foxes Fox

etc

RIP to the greatest drummer of the past 40-50 years that I never saw live

sounded nothing like any other drummer. Some people here might know I have a thing for drummers of the very wide idiom called free music. 
 

 

peace and blessings 

[ep1str0phy]

On 6/13/2025 at 9:16 PM, clifford_thornton said:

Heavy days, Karl (and Alexander). I’ll be listening to Apura! this weekend; a fantastic album, though it’s been a minute since it was on deck.

On 6/13/2025 at 8:02 PM, colinmce said:

Beautiful words Karl. Thanks, and thanks for the music you were able to make with him. 

Thanks for the kind sentiments, all. These circumstances are sad, but I hope that they provide an opportunity for people to revisit (or discover) Louis's music.

I mean this with all sincerity - IMO, Louis was always at his best in Alex's company. Keep Your Heart Straight as an all-timer, and it stands out even among the many brilliant piano-drum duets that Louis essayed. Uplift the People is similarly masterful, and the seemingly indefatigable power of Louis's drumming on that record must surely rank among the best of his later career. 

Clifford, I'm assuming you're familiar with the Old Stuff record on Cuneiform? It's the same band that appears on the America record. There's a version of "Rosmosis" on Old Stuff that is just unbelievable - a testament to how Louis could make a meal out of these repetitive, trancelike grooves. Having been lucky enough to know both Louis and Milford, I'm not an objective observer of this music - but their wildly different approaches service the music in profound ways. 

Edited yesterday at 05:13 AM by ep1str0phy

[Holy Ghost]

Another great! Thank you for all the great music, RIP!

Enjoy this date very much:

[Д.Д.]

A great original. I love his playing. Among many excellent records he is a part of, I really like duo with Roger Smith on EMANEM and trio with Irene Schweizer and Rüdiger Carl on FMP.

  

 

   

[Rabshakeh]

I've been trying to process for a few days.

As I have mentioned in the past, my wider family were South Africans who left or were forced to leave in the 1960s as part of the same wave as the Blue Notes, in the wake of Sharpesville and Rivonia.  For my parents' and grandparents' generations, the members of the Blue Notes were standard names. People whom they knew by sight and (in an either more or less limited way) socially. Even my father, never a jazz fan or a member of jazz-adjacent politically engaged circles (at least once he had come to England), could name them all. 

I think Moholo was the last of the Blue Notes. In truth, I maybe never fell deeply in love with their music, and, as I say upthread, I was not aware that he was still alive. Nonetheless, it is very sad news, part of the passing of those generations that had so much heart and integrity.

Of the surviving members of my family my aunt and a cousin-once-removed, both on my father's side, are perhaps the last who knew him (the more hardcore SACP / jazz fan family members who were closely involved in those circles pre-emigration are long since dead). I have long since stopped notifying them of deaths, as it is getting too personally painful for them. 

Apologies for the egotistical post, but it is going to be a sad few years, as all the remaining legends pass. 

Edited 12 hours ago by Rabshakeh

[mhatta]

In 2007, I saw Louis Moholo perform in Japan with Japanese pianist Yoriyuki Harada and Henry Grimes, and it was an incredible performance. I also saw him perform with Tristan Honsinger. Grimes, Honsinger and now Moholo all have passed away now. RIP.

[king ubu]

I've been playing music by and with Louis Moholo non stop since Friday evening ... glad I got to hear him in person a few times (w/Irene, w/Four Blokes, w/Tippettses & MinAfric Orchestra ...).

Thanks so much for sharing your story and thoughts and insights @ep1str0phy 🖤

[romualdo]

RIP Louis

a prolific & inspiring musician/human being - just checked my database & he appears on 70 recordings in my library

[mikeweil]

5 hours ago, king ubu said:

Thanks so much for sharing your story and thoughts and insights @ep1str0phy 🖤

Just my thoughts!

I think I saw him playing once but cannor recall details. R.I.P.

[Alexander Hawkins]

On 6/14/2025 at 3:38 AM, ep1str0phy said:

I owe an awful lot to Louis. He’s one of a special handful of my childhood heroes whom I met and liked even more. He was doggedly invested in the idea of art as a form of resistance, and he played accordingly. There was an intention and directness behind his drumming that was uncanny, and it forced the burdens of the real world to retreat into chasms of sound. He seemed to master things like pain and injustice with the power of his sound. And he made it seem like so much fun that from the moment I met him, I wanted to be just like him.

Music saved me from a desk job, and Louis saved me from only wanting to be around music. His lived experience as a rebel against Apartheid, manifesting his art as this noble struggle against bullies and tyrants, resonated with me completely. At times such as now, it’s so easy to feel directionless and impotent. Louis’s music taught me that you can never lose the battle so long as you continue to fight, and constantly.

Louis also helped me to resolve some internal contradictions with my own identity. As a Filipino American, I have often struggled with the fact that I am spiritually Filipino and yet American in temperament and mind. Louis had a visceral commitment to abstraction that was paradoxically couched in his love for South African tradition. Everything was The Song. As soon as I understood this, it became easier for me to be myself and yet wholeheartedly the son of my ancestors.

I only met Louis on a handful of occasions. The brilliant and indispensable Alexander Hawkins reconnected us. In 2018, I journeyed to London to record an album called “Apura!” (released in 2020 on Astral Spirits). This record may have been Louis’s last chronological recording, although a wonderful record with Bay Area powerhouse Patrick Wolff - recorded only a few days before “Apura!” - came out in 2024.

You have to understand, Louis was/is my hero. My favorite musician. So when the opportunity for this session came up, I practiced for 3, 4, 5, etc. hours a day for over a month. I practiced solo. I practiced along with recordings. I set up sessions with friends and gigged constantly. I think I could play like 60% of all Blue Notes songs cold. I practiced so much that I credit this session with helping to me to develop a clear sonic identity, which I don’t think I truly obtained at until the lockdown era.

When I arrived at the session, the first thing I heard was Louis’s cymbals. They have a shimmering, eerily distinctive sound. When I sat down at my booth, I realized that Louis wasn’t using sizzle cymbals. He had taken a few pence and just laid them, unsecured, on his rig. They were like this for the full two days that we recorded, and I watched them fall countless times. 

As we played, it slowly dawned on me that the practice I had done had not actually prepared me for the session. True and natural free improvisation requires a degree of flexibility and intuition that you can’t arrive at with woodshedding alone. Louis was all improvisation. He even improvised his cymbals.

Every day, I strive somehow to be the way that Louis was. To play naturally, like a heartbeat. Louis helped to restore me to the person I actually am, whose ancestors farmed and fished, fighting colonialists and fascists in the sugar cane fields. 

I may not have known Louis very well, but I do know that he’d be proud of anyone continuing the struggle that he once led - especially other musicians. Louis, Dudu, Mongezi, Mbizo, Chris, Nik, and their kin are reunited now, and they will continue to teach us so long as there are people willing to learn. 

Oh yes, the coins!!! There were some quite surreal conversations with drum techs around the world when he explained that he would be aiming for the queen! A 2 pence piece secured by gaffer tape was his weapon of choice to get that patented sizzle...

This is obviously a tough one to find the words for...I wouldn't want to say too little and sound vacuous, but then - if I were to get started: well, there are stories and memories for days. All I can really say is that it was one of the most unbelievable privileges to listen to him for more than a decade from one of the best seats in the house.

If anyone is curious to hear the latter-day Louis, this is from the last tour we did. You can see at this point that he's even struggling to walk, but the fire and commitment is as relentless as it ever was. Hymns, music from the Blue Notes, the Brotherhood, the joyful noise writ large: 

 

Edited 5 hours ago by Alexander Hawkins

[mjazzg]

9 minutes ago, Alexander Hawkins said:

Oh yes, the coins!!! There were some quite surreal conversations with drum techs around the world when he explained that he would be aiming for the queen! A 2 pence piece secured by gaffer tape was his weapon of choice to get that patented sizzle...

This is obviously a tough one to find the words for...I wouldn't want to say too little and sound vacuous, but then - if I were to get started: well, there are stories and memories for days. All I can really say is that it was one of the most unbelievable privileges to listen to him for more than a decade from one of the best seats in the house.

If anyone is curious to hear the latter-day Louis, this is from the last tour we did. You can see at this point that he's even struggling to walk, but the fire and commitment is as relentless as it ever was. Hymns, music from the Blue Notes, the Brotherhood, the joyful noise writ large: 

 

Condolences Alex, you made great music together as I'm sure you know but for us in the audience it was very, very special