A video of a man playing guitar during a six-hour surgery for a brain tumor has recently surfaced. That man is South African jazz artist Musa Manzini, a music professor and multi-instrumentalist, whose lead instrument is the bass guitar. Over the years, Manzini has performed in many continents and countries, recorded albums as leader and collaborated with such artists as Jonathan Butler and Gavin Minter. However, this is one performance that is likely to remain a stand-out one in his career for quite some time.
The video shows Manzini plucking the strings of an acoustic guitar while lying on his back in the operating theater, surrounded by medical staff. This allowed the doctors to observe which areas of his brain he used to play music, allowing them to preserve those areas and also to restore some movement to his fingers, which were affected by a tumor. Dr. Basil Enicker, one of the neurosurgeons who operated on the musician, said that 90% of the tumor had been successfully removed and that his patient was doing well at his home near Durban, South Africa. “Our main aim was to make sure that we do the best that we can do for our patient,” he said. “We are pleasantly surprised.”
Manzini’s official website states that he had survived previous brain operations to remove a tumor. He now intends to take to the stage once again once fully recovered, and told Reuters that the operation “was a success in that the biggest risk was paralysis. I’m not paralyzed and I still have control of my limbs and thus in good spirits and recovering nicely.”
Like this article? Get more when you subscribe.