Jazz Articles about Sisonke Xonti

About Sisonke Xonti

Album Review

Shane Cooper & Mabuta: Finish The Sun

Read "Finish The Sun" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
June 7, 2022

On Mabuta's debut—Welcome To This World (Afrosynth Records, 2018)—South African bassist, electronic musician and composer Shane Cooper introduced ears to a leading-edge ensemble intent on delivering trippy, dance-friendly designs. Now, with this second album, he doubles down on that core concept, delivering a heap of hip groovers which draw strength from Pan-African influences and ride high in the atmosphere, twirling atop a rotating cast of drummers plucked from points across the eastern hemisphere. Kicking things off with ...

Interview

Sisonke Xonti: A Leap of Faith

by Seton Hawkins
January 4, 2020

Known for years as an outstanding saxophonist and first-call collaborator in a variety of top South African Jazz ensembles, in recent years Sisonke Xonti has rightly earned acclaimed for his own talents as a bandleader and a composer. Notably, Xonti's 2017 debut release Iyonde not only provided a stellar showcase for his superlative horn work, it also showed his thoroughly compelling voice as a composer and his creativity as an arranger. Recently announced as the Standard ...