Musician Edmund Ntemi Piliso Dies
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) -- Edmund Ntemi Piliso, a saxophonist who
helped shape South African jazz, died Monday. He was 75.
He died after a long illness related to diabetes, South African Broadcasting
Corp. television news reported.
Piliso, along with his trumpeter brother, Shadrack, helped create the
distinct sound of South African jazz by blending American urban big band
music with traditional African influences.
His Alexandra All-Star Band was an essential part of the jazz scene in the
early 1950s in Sophiatown, a black community whose very existence irked
apartheid authorities. In 1955, the government forcibly removed the area's
black residents and Sophiatown was razed to make way for a whites-only
suburb.
Piliso later thrived with African Jazz Pioneers as apartheid began to
crumble. After the international cultural boycott of South Africa ended in
1990, the group began traveling abroad to jazz clubs and festivals in
Europe, Australia, Japan and Africa.
One of the group's most famous compositions, ''Sip n' Fly,'' is a humorous
ode to sneaking alcohol past the apartheid police.
''He contributed so much,'' said fellow musician Pops Mohamed, ''he was a
school of our heritage in himself.''
 AP-NY-12-18-00 1605EST<

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