Home » Jazz Articles » Sisonke Xonti
Jazz Articles about Sisonke Xonti
Benjamin Jephta: Homecoming Revisited
by Dan Bilawsky
At 22 years of age, the up-and-coming Cape Town-reared bassist Benjamin Jephta introduced himself to the wider world via Homecoming (Self Produced, 2015), an engrossing debut featuring South African standouts like tenor saxophonist Sisonke Xonti, trumpeter Marcus Wyatt, pianist Kyle Shepherd, drummer Sphelelo Mazibuko and vocalist Spha Mdlalose. A decade later, he gives us Homecoming Revisted, re-envisioning that material with a large community of collaborators and some hard-won perspective. Opening on “Prayer for... (revisited)," with Mazibuko and percussionist Tlale Makhene ...
Continue ReadingShane Cooper & Mabuta: Finish The Sun
by Dan Bilawsky
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 ...
Continue ReadingSisonke Xonti: A Leap of Faith
by Seton Hawkins
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 ...
Continue Reading
