"There's a famous Peter Magubane photograph of a child singing and playing the piano with his piano teacher sitting behind him. The piano teacher turns out to be a very important woman – Emily Motsieloa – who was in the Merry Blackbirds and who composed a lot of the early South African jazz music of the 1930s and '40s. She's just sitting in the background, slightly out of focus, and everybody's concentrating on this cute little boy with his mouth open. It's a very appealing image, but there's a bigger story behind it… You learn so much by finding people and objects in the background."
– Matthew Blackman

At the conclusion of the inaugural A4 Library Residency, Matthew Blackman, Khanya Mashabela, and Daniel Malan discuss South African jazz, art, and photojournalism in the 1950s and ‘60s.