Results for "Shabaka & the Ancestors"

Shabaka & the Ancestors

Shabaka Hutchings: Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace

by Chris May
April 24, 2024

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 ...

The Comet Is Coming: Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam

by Chris May
September 16, 2022

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, tenor saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings (King Shabaka), synths maven Dan Leavers (Danalogue) and drummer Max Hallett (Betamax) were students at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama. As alumni, they formed The Comet Is Coming. To jumble allusions with as much abandon as the band approach cosmic ...

Tumi Mogorosi: Group Theory: Black Music

by Chris May
June 24, 2022

In summer 2022, the portents suggest that South Africa, while not exactly the new London, is shaping up nicely to become another geo-cultural crucible for the reforging of jazz. Prominent among the signs is the formation of Blue Note's imprint Blue Note Africa, which launched in mid June with pianist Nduduzo Makhathini's highly recommended In The ...

The Blue Notes: Refugees From Race Hate

by Chris May
May 26, 2022

In late May 2022, three months into the war in Ukraine, the plight of refugees is at the front of our minds. Around five million Ukrainians have become refugees and another seven million are displaced persons inside their own country. The apartheid-era South African refugee crisis was not on this scale. The number of internally displaced ...

Nduduzo Makhathini: In The Spirit Of Ntu

by Chris May
May 13, 2022

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 ...

Malcolm Jiyane Tree-O: Umdali

by Ian Patterson
December 19, 2021

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 ...

Various Artists: Impulse Records: Music, Message & The Moment

by Chris May
May 24, 2021

Those of us for whom Impulse has been as important a part of our cultural lives as Blue Note, perhaps even a more important one, will not be satisfied until the label reissues its entire catalogue on remastered CDs and audiophile vinyl. In the meantime, it would be churlish to do anything other than applaud such ...

Tomorrow’s Warriors: the Sound of London, Part 2

by Russell Perry
May 11, 2021

In the last hour, we explored the new London scene anchored by a broadly diverse set of players who share encouragement by the innovative educational group Tomorrow's Warriors. We featured music by Nubya Garcia, one of three tenor stars who are breaking out of the scene and in this hour we'll turn our attention to the ...

Chris May’s Best Releases Of 2020

by Chris May
December 7, 2020

Not the best year for live gigs in London, but Dele Sosimi's Afrobeat Orchestra just made it under the wire, lighting up the Jazz Cafe in late January. Rather like Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Sosimi's band has form as an incubator of young talent. A recent star in the making was trumpeter Ife Ogunjobi, who has ...