In Bruce's words:

In 1986 I decided to relocate to the US and pursue the study of Zen which had intrigued me for a long time. I went to Rochester and spent a couple of months at the Rochester Zen Center studying under Roshi Philp Kapleau who I found to be a marvelous humane being. I found the Zen system a bit too stiff for my liking and prefer the softer approach of the Indians and the Tibetans - it's unfair to generalize in that way I suppose but that's my experience.

I moved to Los Angeles after that and continued to attend meditation retreats under Philip's successors in New Mexico and back in Rochester. PK was teaching less and less at that point.

LA was like a second home to me. I loved the prowess of the players, the accessibility of expertise in every sphere and the spiritual atmosphere that LA has that endears it to those who live there - in spite of the myriad problems including crime, transportation and air quality.

While I was shopping my showreel around LA I got a call from a friend in SA to do some work. I got on a plane and returned to SA and settled in Johannesburg. Joy Parker and I had a daughter, Cassidy Parker, and that was also tugging at me.

I got into the commercial and film business in earnest and during each year wrote probably double the amount of music I had written the year before. On the purely musical front I formed a band with my friend Barney Rachabane, a marvelous alto saxophonist. This band 'Conversations' enjoyed much popular appeal but as we were about to record our first album Barney was hired by Paul Simon to play the Graceland tour. That essentially put an end to our band as Barney was co-leader and he was away with Paul for more than 2 years.

I continued with writing program music for a few years. In 1990 I married Allison Vink, an Afrikaans treasure, and prepared to settle down and go the distance in SA. I bought a house and became a permanent resident. Our daughter Kailas was born about 5 years after we were married. Allison encouraged me to return to Canada as the music that I was producing there for my own pleasure had what I would call a Eurocentric sensibility and SA is firmly zoned in on African Township music. Which, by the way is particularly charming and unique and the jazz the springs from that is certain to start to have international appeal.

Here is a video of a gig at the Bassline Jazz Club in Johannesburg of my Hotfoot Orchestra playing a reduction of Gil Evans' arrangement of My Ship. Marvin Moses is singing.

I had been running my Hotfoot Orchestra for a few years and had a marvelous time with it and did many gigs, mostly at the major club at the time The Bassline in Melville as well as a few corporate gigs that came my way as a result of my commercial work. Here is a picture of the band just before I left in 2003.

These are all stellar players who I had played with for years and who I would be proud to take anywhere on the planet. On this gig I think that Marvin Moses was singing - he's not in this picture. The pic was taken by Johan's wife Bronwyn Hogg. Here is a partial track of a tune that we played on the night this picture was taken, This was our last gig before I left for Toronto.

In the early 90's I formed my healing band The Body Electric which was free-form in style. I just went into meditation and used Sanskrit mantras as source material. I have anecdotal evidence of healing from these performances but I know nothing of what healing actually is. I just meditate and spin out the music - my job is not to heal but to watch... I did quite a few gigs with this band and I'll post a clip of our first gig once I dig it out. Here in Toronto I played one gig at the Distillery Jazz Festival in 2004 with guitarist Rob Piltch, a player I love, as do many others from my BS&T days. Trumpeter Michael White assisted us by processing our playing on computer using Ableton Live, a rather unique software program.

Back to South Africa. In 1996 I met Pops Mohamed, a genius musician with special interests in ancient African instruments. He plays mbira (thumb piano), kora (a West African harp) and digeridoo very well. The digeridoo is played in Africa as well as Australia by the way. Pops produces music too and very soon became a close friend.

We formed a duo called 'Timeless' and did many gigs in SA, Europe and Scandanavia. We recorded an album simply entitled 'Timeless' and won a SAMA award for best instrumental performance in 1998. I continue to be in touch with Pops and hope to get him to Toronto. The World Music scene is gradually warming up in Canada and that is good for our Timeless project. This is a pic of Pops on Kora and me on EVI.

I just came across a video of a song that Pops and the late great Supho Gumede wrote. Pops produced it and I'm on trumpet here. It was shot in Kalamazoo where Pops grew up.

I can't convey the feeling of what it was like to live in South Africa. There is no doubt that Africa gets in your blood, the people are a delight and the weather is absolutely wonderful. The crime is a constant concern though. I had 3 friends murdered and I was held up at gunpoint in a government visa office.I had 3 cars stolen and my house was broken into while I was at home. It's not as if everyone knows someone who has been in a crime incident - everyone has experienced a crime incident themselves.

The 'pull' to return to Canada was to be with my friends and in a musical community and musical family that I knew and the 'push' was to escape the constant threat of violence and provide a safer atmosphere for my young daughter.

More as I get to it.

BC

• Bruce's African Sojourn>>