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Nduduzo Makhathini at the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society
by Roy Strassman
Nduduzo Makhathini Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society Half Moon Bay, California November 3, 2024 As the waves gently lapped upon the shore beneath the setting sun on a lovely early November Sunday in Half Moon Bay, San Francisco, pianist, composer, bandleader and healer Nduduzo Makhathini and his trio took the stage at the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society seaside venue. Makhathini is a Renaissance man whose ken comprises not only music but ...
Continue ReadingNduduzo Makhathini At The Philharmonie
by Matty Bannond
Nduduzo Makhathini The Philharmonie Cologne, Germany November 23, 2024 In the South African district of uMgungundlovu, November is a late-spring month of flipflops and chilled drinks. But icy wind was howling against gloved hands and mugs of hot Glühwein in Cologne on this November evening. The city in northwest Germany welcomed pianist and composer Nduduzo Makhathini to perform in its Kölner Philharmonie concert hall. It was a night of stark ...
Continue ReadingLinda Sikhakhane: Iladi
by Mike Jurkovic
The music of South African saxophonist Linda Sikhakhane does not so much originate from a particular point in time or space or history as much as it expands and accelerates forth from the sub-Sahara's heady mists. Billowing, charging. Seething, soothing. So ease back and let Iladi (a Zulu wisdom ritual) happen. Let the moves of diaspora move you. Let Iladi trace its heritage and bring all listeners home. Let it engulf the room like a fog. On his first ...
Continue ReadingLinda Sikhakhane: Iladi
by Chris May
It is beyond coincidence that the two most uplifting albums released by male saxophonists so far in 2024 were made by players who use their music, in part, to celebrate female wisdom. The albums are Linda Sikhakhane's Iladi and Oded Tzur's My Prophet (ECM). New York-based Tzur's My Prophet, like its immediate predecessor, Isabela (ECM, 2022), was inspired by Tzur's wife and is a semi-mystical portrait of her as, in Tzur's words, an all-powerful deity and the ...
Continue ReadingNduduzo Makhathini: uNomkhubulwane
by Mike Jurkovic
Abundantly, beatifically, and beautifully ebullient, uNomkhubulwane, Nduduzo Makhathini's eleventh overall effort but third masterwork for Blue Note (his 2020 Blue Note first, Modes of Communication: Letters From the Underworlds and 2022's In the Spirit of Ntu still shimmer and transcend) is, as is the South African pianist's quickly evolving tradition, radiant and revelatory. Emerging from a mother song gifted to Makhathini during his initiation process to become a healer, (the pianist was immersed in water in order to encounter the Zulu ...
Continue ReadingShabaka Hutchings: Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace
by Chris May
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes ... Since signing with with Impulse! in 2018, Shabaka Hutchings has become best known for his incendiary work on tenor saxophone with Sons Of Kemet, The Comet Is Coming and Shabaka & The Ancestors. Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace marks the start of a gentler, more instrospective phase in his music making. The trigger came during the pandemic, when Hutchings fell in love with the Japanese shakuhachi flute. The quietly spoken instrument first edged itself ...
Continue ReadingTrombone Shorty, Chick Corea & Nduduzo Makhathini
by Joe Dimino
We start the 757th Episode of Neon Jazz with South African Blue Note Artist Nduduzo Makhathini with material off his new album In the Spirit of NTU. We continue with another South African jazz force, Dollar Brand, or better known as Abdullah Ibrahim. From there, we get into a New Orleans frame of mind with the Kansas City-based Back Alley Brass Band and new songs from Trombone Shorty. That leads us into a host of new songs from Take2, Jesse ...
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