Linda Sikhakhane: Iladi

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 goddess of music. South African-based tenor saxophonist Linda Sikhakhane's fourth album, and Blue Note debut, Iladi, is not concerned exclusively with giving thanks for female wisdom, but two of its most affecting tracks do so. "Inkheli" (check the YouTube below) is, says Sikhakhane in the press materials, an ode to matriarchy, while "Mama" identifies female energy as an important force that drives humanity.

Elsewhere on the album, Sikhakhane addresses other aspects of traditional Zulu cosmology, moving close to the captivatingly stentorian lyricism of John Coltrane on Crescent (Impulse!, 1964) and A Love Supreme (Impulse!, 1965). Indeed, Sikhakhane's quartet—completed by pianist Nduduzo Makhathini, bassist Zwelakhe-Duma Bell le Pere and drummer Kweku Sumbry—quite frequently evokes the sound of Coltrane's mid-1960s quartet. There are times when Makhathini is clearly channelling McCoy Tyner. Sumbry's cross-rhythms, however, while making a general connection with Elvin Jones, are more cerebral and less elemental than those of Jones.

Sikhakhane also shares with Tzur a belief in the unique efficacy, among the arts, of music as a healing force and form of collective meditation. The title of track three, "Ukukhushulwa" (the Zulu word for transcendence), is, says Sikhakhane, a reference to sound as a means of reaching beyond the temporal world and towards greater knowledge. Tzur talks about this in an interview which can be read here.

It is tempting to give Iladi five stars, like My Prophet. But Sikhakhane is not quite there yet. So his album gets four stars, like Isabela did, in the expectation of even better things to come.

P.S. While on the subject of evolved tenor saxophonists, mention must be made of London's Shabaka Hutchings, whose late lamented Sons of Kemet released Your Queen Is A Reptile (Impulse!) in 2018. The album's title is a reference to the surprisingly widespread belief that the British royal family is actually composed of shapeshifting giant lizards. Each of the album's nine tracks is dedicated to one of Hutchings' heroes: Ada Eastman, Mamie Phipps Clark, Harriet Tubman, Anna Julia Cooper, Angela Davis, Nanny of the Maroons, Yaa Asantewaa, Albertina Sisulu and Doreen Lawrence.