London, Johannesburg and Chicago are now firmly on the map as jazz capitals, but the paths that linked them were shaped by migration, exile and shared struggles as much as by music itself. The flow of South African musicians fleeing apartheid into London and then into American scenes helped build creative networks that still define how these cities sound today.
An in‑depth feature traces this story through key figures, including Hugh Masekela, who left South Africa after the Sharpeville Massacre and first enrolled at London’s Guildhall School of Music before Miriam Makeba steered him toward New York’s Manhattan School of Music. The piece explains how his time in London’s underground, along with that of other exiles, infused the city’s jazz scene with South African rhythms and politics while London’s openness fed back into their own work; you can read that account here.
Johannesburg, meanwhile, was developing its own jazz identity in the townships, blending American influences with marabi, kwela and local dance styles under the constant pressure of apartheid laws. Musicians moved between Joburg and London, and later Chicago, carrying new ideas with them and returning with different harmonic approaches, band formats and improvisational concepts that gradually reshaped the home scene.
Chicago’s long history as a jazz hub made it a natural meeting point for South African exiles and American players interested in pushing the music forward, creating collaborations that tied political consciousness to sonic experimentation. Over time, these exchanges helped cement Chicago’s reputation as a home for avant‑garde and socially engaged jazz, while also giving South African musicians new platforms to tell their stories.
Today, you can hear the threads connecting these three cities in everything from London’s current jazz renaissance to Joburg’s live‑improv circles and Chicago’s boundary‑pushing ensembles. The feature argues that understanding how London, Johannesburg and Chicago became jazz cities means understanding the lives and journeys of the musicians who moved between them under often difficult circumstances, a case it lays out in detail here.