Kippie Moketsi & Hal Singer - Blue Stompin' LP

Label: We Are Busy Bodies

Blue Stompin' is a collaborative album between Kippie Moketsi and Hal Singer that was organized and produced by Rashid Vally, owner of The Sun record label. The album prominently features both influential saxophonists as well as other iconic South African players Barney Rachabane and Pat Matshikiza. It was originally released by The Sun in 1977 and is being reissued by We Are Busy Bodies in partnership with the original label. The album has been remastered by Noah Mintz at Lacquer Channel.

"Kippie Morolong Moketsi will appear very prominently in any history of jazz in South Africa. He will span the period from the frantic years when the sounds of the Charlie Parker’s and the Dizzy Gillespie’s first hit our shores to the now. And into this story some will read a curve: from Kippie teaching himself music by imitation, to a climax of artistic achievement and renown in this country, and then the decline... Others will read a lifetime of involvement, in spite of personal problems.

"Count me among the latter.

"A life-time of involvement: Kippie was among the few who understood bebop while the rest of us were still doing the jitterbug to the sounds of swing. In his way he made us see what it was all about. He has seen a generation of colleagues go to join the Orchestra Up Yonder, or merely leave their horns to spiders and their webs while they got on the straight and narrow path of grandfather-hood and six to six jobs at factories. Kippie continues on the wide, wide – often unappreciated - road, creating music." – Joe Thloloe