Names and faces

South African trumpeter and vocalist Hugh Masekela celebrated his 75th birthday with a little help from an old friend - Paul Simon - in New York, the city where he began what turned out to be a 30-year exile from his homeland. Introducing Simon near the end of Friday night’s concert at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater, Masekela noted that millions of people “who had never heard of South Africa before were just charmed and turned around by the album he [Simon] made” in 1986 - Graceland, which won Grammys for Album and Record of the Year. Masekela did not perform on the singer-songwriter’s groundbreaking world music album, much of which was recorded in South Africa when Masekela was still exiled because of his attacks on the apartheid regime. But he and his former wife, singer Miriam Makeba, joined Simon on his Graceland world tour, which gave South African musicians global exposure. Masekela and Simon on Friday night sang two of the album’s biggest hits - “The Boy In the Bubble” and “You Can Call Me Al” - backed by his quintet of young musicians, all but one of them from South Africa. Masekela’s son, Sal, opened the concert by noting that his father has been “sharing the gift and the joy of music to people all around the world for the last five decades. For some reason, he does not get old.”

The Kentucky Wildcats had Drake cheering for them, and Dwight Howard was doing the “Gator chomp” in the Florida student section. As usual, the NCAA Final Four drew plenty of stars and celebrities. When Drake was shown on the huge screen during the first half of the Kentucky-Wisconsin game Saturday night, the next shot was of a female Wisconsin fan who looked as if she might be ready to faint at the thought of being in the same building with the Canadian rapper-singer-actor. A few famous quarterbacks were also in the building - Hall of Famer and three-time Super Bowl winner Troy Aikman; Seattle’s championship-winning quarterback Russell Wilson; and former Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel, who is skipping his final two seasons at Texas A&M to enter next month’s NFL draft. NASCAR driver Danica Patrick tweeted a picture from the Final Four, along with the note, “Whoa! This is a lot of seats. Don’t always claim my birth state since I grew up in Illinois, but I’m cheering for WI.”