| Intro | South African musician |
| Was |
Guitarist Jazz musician Musician Jazz guitarist |
| From | South Africa |
| Type | Music |
| Gender | male |
| Birth | 1 January 1937 |
| Death |
1 January 2007 (aged 70 years) |
Jan Carel Fourie (1937–2007) was a South African Jazz guitarist born in Postmas in the Northern Cape province.
Biography
His first passion for music came while watching cowboy movies and Fourie wanted to imitate the sound of the musicians. After hearing the George Shearing quintet in 1949, he focused on Jazz music.
At the age of 15, he left his parents’ house in order to pursue his career in jazz guitar playing. His first gigs were with Boeremusiek (traditional South African Afrikaans music) bands and he quickly gained recognition as a great guitarist in the Johannesburg music scene of the 1950s.
In 1961, Fourie took a boat to London. In the first two weeks, his money ran out and his wife was becoming desperate. Fourie then got his first gig playing with an Eastern European violinist at the Blue Boar Inn. He described the situation: “What I saw in Soho forced me to leave in November on a boat destined for London with my wife a baby and about two hundred Rand”.
A short while after this, Fourie auditioned for the Ray Ellington Quartet of The Goon Show fame. He told his students at the Technikon University in Pretoria in 2002 about this experience, saying “This was the biggest test of my life. It was a make or break period. I could not read the notes and initially I was turned down, but when they heard me play they told me that they would like me to perform. I was very exhilarated, but had no ability to read music. I had two weeks to memorize four years of work. It was the moment of truth and I passed!”
After this, Fourie become the resident guitarist for the esteemed jazz club, Ronnie Scott’s. Here, he was exposed to Bill Evans, Jim Hall, René Thomas, Freddie Hubbard, Stan Getz, Roland Kirk and Sonny Rollins, among others.
After London, he returned to South Africa to go and practice the new style of jazz fusion, which began its growth during the 1970s.
After this, he briefly settled in New York, but was forced to go back to South Africa as he was unable to obtain a work visa.
He then taught students the guitar in South Africa for the remainder of his career.
John McLaughlin, the famous British Jazz/Fusion Guitarist said of him: “Johnny Fourie is one of the greatest guitar players of our époque”