Some celebrations get a bottle of fizz and a takeaway pizza. Hugh Masekela’s birthday got a full symphony orchestra, a community choir, and two new compositions.

For 55 years he’s been the kick-ass force in rebellious South African music: his career was jump-started with a trumpet sent over by the great Satchmo himself.

So when Hugh Masekela’s 70^th birthday was celebrated at the end of last week by the London Symphony Orchestra, it says something about a career, and a musical journey.

This was a fight-to-get-that-ticket event: the Barbican concert hall packed with Masekela fans and expatriate South Africans, plus a smattering of bemused LSO regulars looking slightly buttoned-up for the leap-to-your feet encore: everyone singing and clapping along to the ANC anthem “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika”. (If you’ve never had a chance at that, it was a buzz, I can tell you.)

So what do these “symphony orchestra gets into the groove” sessions give us?

It’s true that some of the arrangements of Masekela’s most memorable numbers teetered on the wrong side of the dividing line between Richly-Orchestrated and Schmaltzy. What can you do when you’ve got a hefty string section just dying to get in on the act?

But personality and raw musicianship can save the day: Masekela on flugelhorn, and Francois-Xavier Roth on the podium.

“Francois’s really getting on down!” Masekela quipped to the audience. “It was all raggedy until he came along on Monday, but then he started dancing around up there, and pointing. When he points at you it’s as though he’s got a little gun!

And it was programming smarts on the LSO’s part to include youth as well as “old geezers” on the card  (that was Masekela coming over all Cockney describing two of his backing-singer buddies from way back). The evening included the world premieres of two short works by talented up-and-comers: Jason Yarde – previously commissioned by the LSO to write a concerto for Masekela back in 2007 – and Andrew McCormack.

Plus we had bucket-loads of amateur enthusiasm with the massed voices of the St Luke’s Community Choir, who were coached in their clap-and-sway by Masekela (and who were saying goodbye to their gorgeous musical director, the tv presenter Gareth Malone).

It was a big night, a fitting tribute to a huge talent. And in a few of the pieces the LSO really discovered the right laid-back, speakeasy sound. Yes – orchestras should do this kind of stuff.

--Piccolo

• Read the Guardian review.  

• Read the Times (London) review. 

• Read the London Jazz review.