A musician friend of mine tells of an incident he observed while attending an open-air jazz festival here in South Africa. Hugh Masekela and his band were blowing their hearts out on the stage and, some distance away, but still within the festival venue, a group of people were gathered around a ghetto blaster, listening and jiving to a CD of – you guessed it! - Hugh Masekela.

This is an effect of what I call the commodification of culture, and it is a very sad commentary on the state of the music industry in South Africa, but it is most likely not only here that this sickness exists.

It is particularly sad in South Africa, though, because here the spiritual aspect of music is perhaps more alive than elsewhere.

True, the musicians are playing for a living. But somehow if that is all they are playing for, then something is missing, something vital, in the true meaning of that word – of life, life-giving.

Music is something to be experienced, not just listened to.

I have heard of a classical violinist who refuses to make recordings because, he says, a recording cannot capture the real meaning and experience of the music. And I can see his point.

However, jazz, far more than classical music, should be experienced live. Because the jazz musician, while his or her playing might start from a written chart or score, very soon moves into the improvisational area of instant composition. A jazz musician does the composing “standing up” as it were. And that composition is a fleeting, ephemeral thing, of which only the outer “form” can be captured in a recording. The real experience is what happens in the moment. And it is a spiritual thing, because it comes from the depths of the musician's being, in an incredible union with the other musicians, who are also putting their hearts and souls into the experience.

The metaphor of the stream used by Keith Jarrett comes to mind – the written score is like a photograph of a beautiful, clear mountain stream. The performance is the beautiful, clear mountain stream, which no photograph can ever capture in its fullness.

So to listen to Hugh Masekela on a CD rather than live, is to listen, but not experience the totality of the music. And to prefer to listen to Hugh Masekela on a CD when the man is actually there, performing, is a sad preference for the unreal, the fantasy, while the real experience is there to be had, to be lived.

Having gotten that out of the way, let's go on to the rich and wonderful legacy of jazz recordings in South Africa. At the outset I must state that I know most about the post-war period, not the pre-war period and so that is where this Hub will concentrate.

A further qualification is that South African jazz, like so much else in South Africa, was torn apart by the 40-odd years of apartheid. Many great musicians felt it necessary to leave South Africa and do their music in other parts of the world, particularly in Europe. This Hub will concentrate on the albums produced in South Africa during and after apartheid. Another Hub will examine the albums produced in the great South African jazz diaspora, between about 1964 and 1990, when some great South African music was produced a long ways from home.

This list is in order of recording date.

Recorded in January 1960, this is one of the great classics of South African jazz. Find details in my Hub Jazz Epistles Verse One - a Classic South African Jazz Album

As the title would hint at this is Abdullah Ibrahim (then still known as Dollar Brand) at his most Monk-like. It is a trio recording with bassist Johnny Gertze and drummer Makaya Ntshoko backing him. It is a really wonderful album of Ibrahim at his most poetic and rhythmic. It was recorded in Johannesburg in February 1960 and has two Ibrahim originals (“Boulevard East” and “Eclipse at Dawn”), one Monk number (“Misterioso”), a number by great South African jazz composer Makaya Davashe (“Khumbula Jane”), a number from the jazz opera King Kong (“King Kong”) and a standard (Just You Just Me”). Great recording, no longer available on its own, but the tracks, except “Boulevard East”, are all available on an Ibrahim compilation Blues for a Hip King (KAZ CD 104 in Europe and CD Century 25ED-6039 in Japan).

This is unique in South African jazz – a suite composed, in composer Gideon Nxumalo's words, to “try to portray the sounds around us – township sounds, traffic noises, machines hammering in factories.” This album, composed especially for an arts festival at the University of the Witwatersrand in September 1962, contains the suite Jazz Fantasia for Quintet and four linked but independent songs. The Fantasia suite is in three movements depicting in sound the “everyday life of a typical urbanised African” - the day at work, relaxing at home with loved ones, and going out to “have a ball”. The quintet comprised Nxumalo himself on piano and Chopi timbula xylophone, the legendary Kippie Moeketsi and Dudu Pukwana on altos, Martin Mgijima on bass and Makaya Ntshoko on drums. A gem.

This 1963 album is also a gem which I have written about in my Hub “Jazz the African Sound - a classic album”.

The subject of my Hub Yakhal' inKomo - a jazz classic from South Africa, this album by the great tenorman who died this week, Winston Mankunku Ngozi, fully deserves the “classic” accolade. A stunning, powerful album. It was recorded in July 1968.

This great gem of an album has been sadly out of print for many years. I don't know if I believe in fate or other powers, but the story of this album and its meaning in my life is perhaps worth recording here. In 1970, newly-married and living in Durban, in kwaZulu-Natal with my new wife Joan, I was full of expectations and maybe my senses were on high alert. Anyway, what happened was Joan got a job in the Durban offices of the South African Institute of Race Relations, which had as part of its set-up an African art centre which sold mostly beadwork and other African arts and crafts, but also sold a limited number of African records. One of the people working there was called Sipho, I don't remember his surname, and he one day, knowing my love of jazz, handed an LP to me saying I should listen to it. I did, loved it, and immediately bought it. It was an album made by a quintet calling themselves Heshoo Beshoo. All but one of them are now, as we say in South Africa, “late”, meaning dead. The quintet consisted of the brothers Henry and Stanley Sithole on saxes, genius guitarist Cyril Magubane, drummer Nelson Magwaza, and bassist Ernest Mothle. I did not know any of them, had not even heard their names before, but the music was great.

Ernest is the one survivor of this group, and shortly after this recording was made he left for the United Kingdom, feeling stifled, as so many musicians did in those days, by the conditions in South Africa. He settled in London where he played with many of the top musicians in the London jazz scene and eventually met up with my late brother Chris, whom he had met in South Africa before Chris left, and joined his big band, the Brotherhood of Breath. Ernest became a stalwart of that band, becoming a kind of Hodges to Chris's Ellington, as it were. They played together in various outfits in addition to the big band. When Chris died Ernest was the tower of strength who held the shattered musicians together and kept them going. This was when I met him, on the Brotherhood's final tour of Europe after Chris's death in 1990.

Ernest is now back in South Africa and is perhaps my closest friend here. So what do you think of that story?

One of the most famous of South African jazz albums, this one by Abdullah Ibrahim when he was still Dollar Brand. It was recorded in a studio in Cape Town in June 1974 with Abdullah on piano, Basil Coetzee, Robbie Jansen and Morris Goldberg on saxes, Paul Michaels on bass and Monty Weber on drums. What an incredible line up and what an incredible album they produced. As with any art work that achieves great fame, this one is not without controversies and unanswered questions. The story is that Abdullah was sitting at an old piano that was standing in a corner and doodling a little riff, and the other musicians gradually joined in the impromptu song, eventually building it into the great one that we are familiar with now. Some of the questions are, is the melody a rip-off of another composer's song (many people believe so) and why was Morris Goldberg not credited on the album sleeve (was it because he's white, as many believe?)?

Well, whatever the answers might be, this is a giant of an album in South African music, one that is impossible to ignore, because it is not only great music but quickly became something of an anthem for the anti-apartheid struggle, played at many protest meetings and the like. It became almost the soundtrack to the anti-apartheid organisation the United Democratic Front of the 1980s. Great stuff.

The next three albums are post-liberation albums, representative of a younger generation of jazz musicians in South Africa who carrying the great music forward in new and exciting ways. These albums are great proof that this music is not only alive and well, but is flourishing, finding new directions both musically and technically. They are proof that though apartheid tried it failed to kill the artistic spirit. The albums also represent the new, non-racial country, this brave, if sometimes rather flawed, experiment in living together that is the post-1994 South Africa.

This record features Cape Town born pianist Paul Hanmer with some brilliant musicians in support. The album was and almost instant hit, out-performing in sales, in its first few months, many of the older greats like Mannenberg and Yakhl' inKomo. Not only is the music of an exceptionally high quality, but the production is also superb. This album is truly great, something to be savoured. As Paul wrote in the liner notes, it is an “instrumental journey from the very roots of an ancient music, that resonate in the deepest memories of the soul, to the pulse of Urban Africa today. It is through these ancestral echoes that we are set free to explore the music of Future Days.” Exceptional stuff.

This “music of future days” is the essence of this album by multi-instrumentalist Zim Ngqawana. It features, besides Zim, Andile Yenana on piano, Herbie Tsoaeli on bass and Kevin Gibson on drums. Zim is a musician and a philosopher, and his music expresses this. The album is a great walk through South African music, from the traditional to the composed, all done in Zim's highly original style. Adil Nchabeleng wrote of the album, “Indeed Zimphonic Suites presents a revolutionary approach with a holistic touch to integrated music. Once again redefining jazz music, with an art entrenchied in cutting edge creativity. Simply positioned and deeply rooted with a powerful tone of renaissance. What an amazing reflection of mature creativity.” Couldn't have said it better myself!

For me this album is special in a very personal way also – my older daughter Sarah was the assistant sound engineer in the studio when this recording was made. Just had to get that in! A father's pride in his daughter cannot be suppressed!

The final album in this list is pianist Wessel van Rensburg's 2005 exploration of different aspects of South African music through the medium of jazz. With his collaborators McCoy Mrubata on saxes and flute, Jennifer Ferguson doing some singing, Mlungisi Gegana on bass, and Godfrey Mgcina on percussion. The album has a number of originals by Van Resnburg, Mrubata and Ferguson, along with some Afrikaans pop standards from diverse composers like Johannes Kerkorrel (“Halala Afrika”) and Koos Kombuis (“Lisa se Klavier”), rubbing shoulders with African standards like the Manhattan Brothers' “Jikele Emaweni”. A rich an heady mix played with stylish sensitivity. A wonderful album of the new, democratic, non-racial South Africa that needs such inspiration to keep it on its wonderful trajectory towards greatness. I think Wessel is under-recognised as an artist and musician – this album deserves to be widely known and to get some heavy rotation on any music lover's CD player. A very special track, in my view, is the group's interpretation of the wonderful song made into a major local hit by Afrikaans singer Laurika Rauch and written by Koos du Plessis, “Kinders van die Wind”.(The video here is of Laurika Rauch singing this songas I could not find any videos of Wessel. Great pity, but enjoy the song which is great anyway.)

Wow! This has been a journey of re-discovery and re-affirmation for me. A journey of love. My only regret is that I had to leave so many great albums out – there are so many choosing only 10 was hard work. I hope my readers can get a feel from this list of just how great the variety and inventiveness of this living music is. And the CDs cannot capture the whole feel – this music is meant to be felt, experienced at the deepest level, the level of the roots of the soul of humanity, because it was in this wonderful country that humanity started to live as humans, it is here that the great philosophy of uBuntu took root, this is the home of music. When people first started to sing, they sang the songs of the African skies, the African plains, the African mountains. And it is these “ancestral echoes” that sound through all of South African jazz, and make it the thing of rare beauty that it is. Can you dig that?