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Gontse Makhene
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 ReadingMalcolm Jiyane Tree-O: True Story
by Chris May
One of the minor but intriguing mysteries of modern culture is why the trombone is commonplace in African American music yet only rarely heard in Africa itself. Since its earliest days, jazz in the US has featured the trombone, as did ska in Jamaica. In analog-age samba and bossa nova in Brazil, the instrument was practically de rigueur. There are other examples. But trombones are only occasionally heard in African music, even with bandleaders who featured large horn sections. Ghana's ...
Continue ReadingNduduzo Makhathini: In The Spirit Of Ntu
by Chris May
There are strong links between London's alternative jazz scene and the parallel and burgeoning one in South Africa. A case in point is the connection between South African pianist Nduduzo Makhathini and British tenor saxophonist and clarinetist Shabaka Hutchings. Makhathini and Hutchings' similar ages and overlapping, cosmologically informed takes on jazz meant they were almost certain to meet on the international stage at some point, and having met, would take things further. Indeed, that happened, and serendipity brought ...
Continue ReadingMalcolm Jiyane Tree-O: Umdali
by Ian Patterson
Umdali may be the debut as leader of South African trombonist and visual artist Malcolm Jiyane (Tree-O is the name of his band), but one listen to the music--somber and uplifting in turn, gossamer soft and rousing at the poles--is sufficient to recognize his singular talent. Recorded in Johannesburg at the tail end of 2018 with some of Soweto's finest young jazz musicians, Jiyane's soulful, richly layered compositions are deeply rooted in African traditions, though with obvious knowledge of, and ...
Continue ReadingLinda Sikhakhane: An Open Dialogue
by Dan Bilawsky
When tenor saxophonist Linda Sikhakhane released Two Sides, One Mirror (Skay Music, 2017), it was a statement of arrival, marking his ascendancy within the jazz ranks in his native South Africa, and departure, signaling a move to the United States that would result in studies with tenor saxophonist Billy Harper, trumpeter Charles Tolliver, bassist Reggie Workman and a host of other greats at The New School. This eagerly awaited follow-up, recorded as part of his senior recital at that venerable ...
Continue ReadingShabaka And The Ancestors: We Are Sent Here by History
by Karl Ackermann
Even as Shabaka Hutchings moves the evolution of jazz forward, We Are Sent Here By History laments the present-day conditions of conflict, suffering, parity, and the struggle to survive. The saxophonist's breakthrough album came with his Sons of Kemet on Your Queen Is A Reptile (Impulse! Records, 2018). He also leads the jazz/electronica hybrid The Comet Is Coming. Shabaka and the Ancestors' debut, Wisdom of Elders (Brownswood Recordings, 2016) essentially featured the same group of South African musicians, but here ...
Continue ReadingShabaka & the Ancestors: We Are Sent Here by History
by Serena Antinucci
Siamo stati spediti qui dalla Storia inconsapevoli di ciò che sarebbe accaduto. Avevamo un compito, l'abbiamo disatteso. Avevamo uno scopo, l'abbiamo dimenticato. Abbiamo disimparato la lingua della natura, sopraffatti dal potere e dall'egemonia capitalista. Oggi siamo stati chiamati ad afferrare la mano degli spiriti antenati, che tentano di soccorrerci, indicandoci una nuova strada della creazione, originata dalla distruzione. Questi spiriti non sono tornati per caso, è stata la musica a invocarli. We Are Sent Here By History è ...
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