Mbuso Khoza: singing across boundaries

There’s probably nothing musical Mbuso Khoza can’t do. In the 24 years since the Eshowe-born vocalist jumped on that fateful bus to Joburg, he’s worked across multiple genres from the avant-garde jazz of Carlo Mombelli (on Stories), through multiple iterations of Afro-jazz, Afro-soul and Afro-pop, to the complex juxtapositions of Black Coffee’s DJ mixes (on Music is King) and much more. He’s still teaching and developing traditional amahubo sounds with the large a capella African Heritage Ensemble. And even if you’re not familiar with his work from those contexts, you’ve undoubtedly marked his thrilling voice on the soundtrack to the epic Shaka Ilembe, or noted his acting presence (albeit interrupted) as Maphalala on isiZulu telenovella Umkhoka:The Curse.

Khoza’s latest release Ifa Lomkhono ( https://ropeadopeselect.bandcamp.com/album/ifa-lomkhono ) isn’t his debut; that was the Themba Mkhize-produced Zilindile in 2012.

The Ifa Lomkhono collaboration with Nduduzo Makhathini isn’t his first with a jazz pianist either; after Mkhize came some impressive work with Mike del Ferro, and close to a year ago Khoza and Makhathini (with reedman Justin Bellairs) released the exploratory, roots-grounded Abasemkathini. Along the way, this descendant of illustrious general Ntshingwayo ka Mahole Khoza has also helmed a theatre show about the historic Zulu Wars battle of Isandlawana and earned a Masters in Arts Heritage from Wits.

All those distinguished landmarks might suggest a seamless, easy entry into the Joburg music scene. But in fact, it took a while: Khoza’s initially bumpy landing saw him sleeping rough around the Mega Music Warehouse for a while, scavenging for food and bartering occasional session work at Mega for the chance to familiarise himself with studio tech and network with other artists.

Thus Ifa Lomkhono marks a mature mid-point in an already well-developed career. Producer and pianist Makhathini has put him in the company of some of the cream of current players: reedman Linda Sikhakhane, trumpeter Ndabo Zulu, drummers Ayanda Sikade and Tino Damba, with Makeba alumnus guitarist Joel Klein, traditional instrumentalist Ndumiso Mtshali and bassist Magne Themodsater.

The 11 tracks range from the evocative lament of Emdayini (the mines), with crashing chords from Makhathini and underground rhythms beautifully conveyed by Sikade’s drums, to a series of brief, intimate and carefully layered Interludes recalling the singer’s earlier traditional music outings and demonstrating the astonishing flexibility and range of his voice.

Khoza has always been a moving interpreter of ballads, and they comprise nearly half of the tracks here: the quiet, trio-format Mehlo Abonayo (seeing eyes); the lyrical last-dance of-the-evening Qubula (kiss) with its updated yet faithful echoes of Princess Magogo; the reflective Ilanga Emini (noonday sun), and the tribute to a fellow-singer, A Memory of Tuku. The incandescent Alinde is Khoza’s tribute to the daughter whom he credits with sustaining him through a period of severe depression some years back.

There’s no grandstanding or domineering soloing from the band. Their job is to provide a supportive context for the voice, and that they do, whether invoking modern jazz idioms or the more intriguing changes of traditional music, as in the powerful dialogue between Khoza and Sikhakhane on Cosu Cosu (little by little). You can judge the class of instrumentalists by their ability to support as well as grandstand, and this ensemble creates a shiningly intelligent frame.

While Ifa Lomkhono is an intelligent, appealing mix of material with appeal for fans of all his previous musics, and an essential for Khoza collectors, the prominence of those ballads could take him to new audiences too. The recent successes of Mandisi Dyantyis (and to some extent the earlier popularity of Ringo Madlingozi) demonstrate that gorgeous ballads, beautifully sung, can appeal to diverse audiences, even those not born to the language of the lyrics.

Khoza has stressed that he’s no rigid cultural purist. Centuries of cultural intervention by colonialism, he has argued, mean “There is no way in this modern day we are going to have a proper presentation [of an ‘original’ language or culture] because we are diluted. We need to look at where we are and never look back (…) how do we evolve as Africans?”

One way to evolve is to transcend barriers. The beauty of the music on Ifa Lomkhono would make the album a great year-end gift for…well, just about anybody.

An Mbuso Khoza playlist:

SAMA29 – the start of a rebirth?

SAMA 29 jazz nominees composite, Music in Africa Foundation. Clockwise from top left : Linda Sikhakhane (Tseliso Monaheng); Shane Cooper & MABUTA (Bambatha Jones); Thandi Ntuli (Ndumiso Sibanda); Mthunzi Mvubu (Tseliso Monaheng); winner Nduduzo Makhathini (Roberto Cifarelli)

After a cliffhanger of a run-up, the SAMAs 29 happened yesterday — and the “non-broadcast awards” were announced on Friday. Time to joyfully congratulate two worthy jazz winners: pianist Nduduzo Makhathini with The SpIrit of Ntu for Best Jazz Album and reedman Moreira Chonguiça with Sounds of Peace as winner in the Rest of Africa category.

Six days ago, Pops Mohamed was named among this year’s Lifetime Honorees: long-deserved recognition for a music original influential across South African genres, including jazz. So was the late Gloria Bosman, a singer/songwriter who left a towering legacy as a pioneer of the New South African jazz of the Sheer Sound era and later as a teacher and mentor.

This column regularly notes that such awards never prove some jazz is “better” than any other jazz. Rather, they reflect the preferences of the judging panel in any given year. Look at the shortlist for this year’s Best Jazz Album awards: alongside Makhathini, Linda Sikhakhane; Shane Cooper and Mabuta; Thandi Ntuli, and Mthunzi Mvubu. All have created superb albums with very different identities. Judging one against another is essentially absurd (though it sure helps with subsequent sales and promotion).

Makathini was a safe choice. He’s a well-established performer here and overseas who has worked extremely hard over many years to shape his musical skill and distinctive vision, which he shares with a new generation as a university teacher. He is signed to an international label, and has enough trophies already crowding his mantelpiece (including three previous SAMAs) to confirm that everybody knows he’s a mightily accomplished musician. And it’s a heart-stirring, beautiful album.

So, with jazz musicians of such quality and worldwide distinction as both short-listees and winner, why is the jazz category treated like an afterthought?

Chonguiça’s Sounds of Peace is equally beautiful and equally deserving of its accolade. But that “Rest of Africa” category still feels like a patronising token gesture towards the breadth and diversity of original music of all genres being generated across the continent. “Rest of Africa” as a category title is so SA-centric and insulting that it belongs in the dustbin to which “world music” has finally been relegated. There are 53 countries in the “rest of…” (only three were represented here), with vibrant, refreshingly innovative and diverse music scenes.

Anyway, in what universe is it possible even to compare CKay’s lush Nigerian Rn’b, Davido’s Nigerian amapiano, Tim Lyre’s Nigerian alté fusion, Ferre Gola’s symphonic Congolese rhumba and Chonguiça’s jazz-inflected exploration of diverse Mozambican traditions?

But there’s also much more than that going on, including (as just one example), over our border, a restless, powerful update of famo music in current SeSotho hip-hop. What’s more, an all-male “Rest of Africa” shortlist reads as singularly unimpressive when the continent can boast (again, a tiny sample from a huge performing population) Sudan’s Alsarah, Cameroun’s Queen Mimba, Zambia’s Sampa the Great and Mali’s Nahawa Doumbia.  Do “Rest of…” properly (and drop that awful title), or don’t do it at all.

Alsarah

There’s no need to detail here the dire history of SAMA29 up to this point. The links below have it all, if you’ve been on a desert island and somehow missed it:

https://sundayworld.co.za/shwashwi/celebrity-news/entertainment/2023-sama-awards-delayed-due-to-financial-challenges/

https://www.citizen.co.za/entertainment/celebrity-news/sama-is-not-a-superfluous-party-event-in-doubt-after-kzn-govts-11th-hour-decision/ ; https://www.news24.com/news24/politics/kzn-govt-scrambles-to-poach-funds-from-several-programmes-to-host-r20m-samas-extravaganza-20231012

https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2023-10-25-breaking-kzn-mec-cancels-costly-samas-after-ramaphosa-reads-him-riot-act/

https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2023-10-25-organisers-of-samas-fume-at-claims-awards-ceremony-is-a-looting-frenzy/

But the awards were an embarrassment long before 2023: pretentious, overdressed, booze n’schmooze consumption parades with so little to do with actual music that the “personalities” engaged to MC were often clearly unfamiliar with (and unrehearsed for) even the performers’ names they had to read. In one cringeworthy year, they tried to call a deceased winner up on stage. This year’s revelations of plans to spend, for example, R3M on a “goodie bag experience” were just the rancid icing on a cake so far past its sell-by date that even a spaza shop the food inspector missed might hesitate to sell it.

But now there may be a fresh start. The sorry tale above led to the SAMAs being revisioned as an event anchored to a real music festival yesterday: the AfricaFest at the Sunbet Arena in Pretoria’s Menlyn. Perhaps such an extensive sonic reminder of what the awards should be about, and where they started, will lead to more revisioning in 2024? Next year, bring our world-beating jazz nominees into the broadcast segment; don’t just whisper their names on the sidelines. Acknowledge that the “rest of ” Africa is bigger and has more music than South Africa does; research it, and showcase its breathtaking diversity in that category shortlist. Re-create the SAMAs as a more modestly conceived event, but one that’s actually about music.

Apologies: no blog this week

Sorry readers, my year-end reporting deadlines are burying me. Blog next week. Meanwhile, this is still worth listening to:

Lakecia Benjamin’s Phoenix: peace is a human right

Saxophonist and composer Lakecia Benjamin has shaped her album Phoenix https://lakeciabenjamin-whirlwind.bandcamp.com/album/phoenix around the idea of recovery and rebirth: the phoenix is a bird that rises refreshed and golden from the ashes of its own self-immolation.

The concept is multi-layered. There’s the recovery from the devastation and isolation of Covid:  “When we came out (…) we weren’t allowed to be broken”, she recalled, in an interview for Downbeat magazine https://downbeat.com/news/detail/finding-phoenix-lakecia-benjamin-enters-her-next-phase . There’s the reassertion of the power and creativity of women composers and performers despite “the systemic sexism that has permeated music for so long.” Phoenix was produced by Terri Lyne Carrington, and features formidable contributions from Dianne Reeves, Patrice Rushen, Georgia Anne Muldrew, Dr Angela Davis and Sonia Sanchez.

And there’s Benjamin’s own recovery from a near-fatal 2021 car accident that smashed her collarbone, scapula, and jaw. (Think about that, for a reed player…)

Eleven other tracks are bookended by two cuts of Amerikkan Skin, a track featuring extracts from Davis’s October 2017 address, Revolution Today https://www.cccb.org/en/multimedia/videos/angela-davis/227656. It opens with sirens, and the forthright declaration that “This is not the way things are supposed to be. This might be the way things are – but they are not supposed to be this way.”

Benjamin’s core ensemble – Josh Evans on trumpet,Victor Gould on keys, Ivan Taylor on basses and EJ Strickland on drums , augmented by multiple guests – picks up the foreboding mood; there’s sensitive intricacy from Strickland’s drums under a powerful shout from Benjamin’s sax.

Rebirth from that darkness emerges in the four tracks that follow: the gently contemplative New Morning; a title track that’s significantly more fire than ashes; Reeves’ call for Mercy, with sweet like summer fruit conversations between her voice and Benjamin’s reed and a soft underpinning of strings; and then Rushen’s upbeat announcement of Jubilation with joyous piano from the composer and a trilling, triumphant burst of song from Benjamin.

Patrice Rushen

The leader has underlined how important her work with these other powerful female musicians is to the character of this album: a celebration and an inspiration to aspiring others, as well as a challenge to patriarchy. But acknowledging that shouldn’t distract us from just how damn awesome a saxophonist Benjamin herself is. 

We heard that on her previous outing, the Alice and John Coltrane tribute, Pursuance https://lakeciabenjamin.bandcamp.com/album/pursuance-the-coltranes. Here, she presents something that is less explicitly a homage, but still honours the tradition, both in her own approach to her instrument and in the album’s visionary thematic reach

On the one eponymous Trane tribute (there’s another to visual artist Basquiat) she swings, shouts, choruses and spirals away to the stars in a way and on a set of harmonies that would likely have made the melody’s subject smile approvingly. But you know you’re not listening to him: this is Benjamin’s own voice. There are echoes of the Trane era too, in the crisp, boppish Moods, with lovely work from Evans on horn.

But perhaps most moving right now is the track from poet Sonia Sanchez, Peace Is a Haiku Song, with its verbal allusions to Toni Morrison and Carlos Fuentes and its declaration that “Peace is a human right.” The track segues into the rousing, martial Blast – layering Sanchez’s words (Benjamin created the sound design) “calling all peace warriors!”

It’s both difficult and inspiring to listen to that call in a month when more than 9 000 Palestinians have died: often in the very “safe” places they were instructed to move to, as Israel invades and bombards Gaza after 1 400 Israelis were murdered.

Dr Angela Davis

“Revolutionary hope,” says Davis in Amerikkan Skin, “resides precisely among those women who have been abandoned by history and are now standing up and making their demands heard.” We see that today in the women of all nationalities, faiths and political allegiances participating in massive protests worldwide.

Atrocities against civilians in Palestine and Israel did not start on 7 October 2023 but at least 75 years ago. In fact, the seeds were sown much earlier, when late Nineteenth and early Twentieth-Century colonial powers were engaged in drawing boundaries in favour of their allies and their oil needs irrespective of the region’s heritage.

Equally, the rotting-away of decency in how we treat other human beings isn’t manifesting only there.

The West’s oil-supplying ally, Saudi Arabia, had a journalist killed and carved up with a chainsaw in its Istanbul Embassy and yet is feted wherever it visits. Russia has bombed civilian villages and hospitals; Ukraine has likely committed war crimes in Donbass. The illegitimate Myanmar regime has been bombing displaced people’s camps to “root out terrorists” since it seized power more than two years ago. China incarcerates its Uighur population in camps under the guise of “rooting out radical Islam”. Holier-than-thou European countries encourage their coastguards to drive boatloads of desperate refugees out to sea to drown rather than let them land, often justifying this callous murder with Islamophobic slurs. Rarely is it pointed out in these contexts that states can be terrorists too.

Irrespective of who “started it” – because we know systems of predatory global capitalism and colonialism actually started it – somebody has to stand up and say: “We should be better than this.”

Because if nobody does – no matter who ostensibly “wins” – nothing will change. Benjamin says she is asking, with this album “What is it like for me…a whole country…a whole world, to pick themselves up from the ashes and try to recreate something?” It might be a hell of a long time before many places in the world get the chance to find out.