Son of Table Mountain

The bassist Steven Erasmus was credited with playing a significant role in the evolution of “Cape Jazz" in South Africa.

By Suren Pillay

Stephen Erasmus (1954–2025), who passed away recently, was a pivotal figure in Cape Town's live music scene, particularly jazz, for over 50 years. Born in Athlone on the Flats, he began his musical journey as a singer in groups run by his family but developed a solid reputation as a bassist.

On Facebook, Gary Hendrickse, who himself played piano n several ballroom bands for periods in the early 1960s and 1970s, described the scene:

Repeatedly an impression is created that our local music started after 1980 after forced removals under the apartheid system had been by and large completed. From 1970 to 1980 a number of new clubs opened in Athlone. These clubs were well attended by many of the people who had been forcibly removed. It was at these clubs that young lions such as Robbie Jansen, Mervyn Africa, Mollie Baron, Steve Erasmus, Georgie Carelse, Basil Coetzee, Kader Khan, the members of Drive, members of the Pacific Express emerged.

In interviews, Erasmus, a very talented musician, often spoke about being influenced by Basil Moses (1941–2011), a legendary figure in South African jazz whom the American historian John Edwin Mason once described as “perhaps the finest jazz bassist that South Africa has ever produced.” (Mason researched the musical cultures of Cape Town.)

Erasmus is credited with playing a significant role in the evolution of “Cape Jazz,” contributing to tracks (some say he composed them) like “Hotnotsteeparty” and put his spin on folk songs like “Die Maan Skyn So Helder Vanaand.” On Facebook, where I posted an earlier version of this, Michael Weeder, retired priest who knows his Cape Town music history, responded that Steven “… was alert to what make for that particular —what I once heard him refer to "kadoema" — sound. To that end at a certain stage of his musical journey, he would participate in langarm [slow dance] bands.”

His most productive years were with Robbie Jansen (1949 - 2010), Hilton Schilder, and the rest of the band that formed the Sons of Table Mountain from the 1980s onward. I had the privilege of seeing later iterations of the group—featuring key members like Schilder, Jansen, Jack Momple, Errol Dyers (1952 - 2017), and Alex van Heerden (1974 - 2009)—perform in and around Cape Town when I was a young adult in the 1990s. With the recent passing of Jansen, Dyers, Van Heerden, and now Erasmus, that generation of Cape Town jazz giants is all but gone.

Suren Pillay took this striking photograph of Erasmus (on the right), alongside fellow legends Basil Coetzee (1944 - 1998) and Robbie Jansen at Mannenberg’s Jazz Café circa 1998. The photograph captures a moment when Cape Town's jazz scene was at its vibrant peak, and Erasmus was at the height of his powers.