Musician and Photographer
Ngxeko Mphumzi Woodrow Syfred Dlova was a trumpeter, photographer and prominent jazz musician in the 1950s. He was one of the great Langa jazz musicians that was renowned for his brassy trumpeting skills. Dlova was also a gifted photographer and documented his fellow musicians performing.
Dlova was born in in 1937 and grew up in the township of Langa in the Western Cape, South Africa. He and his brother, Danayi, showed an interest in music from an early age. Danayi started playing the piano, while Ngxeko learned to play the trumpet. Whilst they were in their late teens, Dlova and his friends started a band called the ‘The Young Rhythm Chordettes’.
Ngxeko would play trumpet, his brother alto sax, and their friends would play sax, trombone and tenor sax. Although the band did not last long, they toured the Eastern Cape, performing at the University of Fort Hare, East London, King William's Town and Port Elizabeth.
They also played at venues around Cape Town such as Sea Point Town Hall, Mowbray Town Hall, the Zambezi, the Naaz, Ambassador and the Mermaid. They were seen as the ‘young lions’ of the Langa jazz scene. Eventually, the band broke up due to the continuous restraints of apartheid.
Dlova was quoted as saying: "I gave up playing, we had problems with getting the guys together. We were starting to lose discipline in the band and we had a lot of harassment from the police, as we were also very active in politics." All the band members were Pan-Africanists and had political views.
We sometimes sat in the detention without trial, and there came some weaknesses within the band's structure. We could not continue because some of us were in jail.” Dlova often performed with his fellow Langa jazz musicians, including Ezra and Duke Nkanuka, Christopher 'Mbra' Ngcukana, Adullah Ibrahim and Victor Ntoni.