Bheki Mseleku

Bhekumuzi Hyacinth Mseleku, generally known as Bheki Mseleku (3 March 1955 – 9 September 2008), was a jazz musician from South Africa. He was a pianist, saxophonist, guitarist, composer and arranger who was entirely self-taught.

Biography

Mseleku's father was a musician and teacher, and a Cambridge University music graduate, who had religious beliefs that prevented his children from ready access to the family's upright piano in case any of them should pursue something as "devilish" as music. His mother gave him the keys while his father was away, but the piano ended up as firewood one winter's evening. During his childhood, Mseleku suffered the loss of the upper joints of two fingers in his right hand from a go-karting accident. He explained in a 1994 South Bank Show dedicated to him that this was wholly due to the restricted health care available to Black South Africans under Apartheid.

Mseleku started his musical career in Johannesburg in 1975 as an electric organ player for an R&B band, Spirits Rejoice. After performing at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1977, Mseleku settled in Botswana for a time, moved to London, England, in the late 1970s, and made an attempt to settle into the jazz scene in Stockholm from 1980 to 1983, but then returned to London. It was not until 1987 that Mseleku made his debut at the prominent Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, playing piano unaccompanied by other musicians, with a saxophone in his lap.