Nduduzo Makhathini Trio

Jazz from South Africa – irrespective of the comparatively few names associated with it, this almost seems to be a genre in its own right. The first mention should go to Abdullah Ibrahim. He created the blueprint for a synthesis of South African roots music and jazz improvisation in the spirit of Duke Ellington under the name »Dollar Brand« in the 1960s. Nduduzo Makhathini also refers to him, but is even more heavily characterised by Bheki Mseleku, the great integrator of township music into the global jazz idiom who died too soon; he was a leading figure from the early 1990s during the last phase of Apartheid in South Africa.

Nduduzo Makhathini’s mission is to reconcile the spiritual and physical with each other. He translates the sound character of the Zulu language of his homeland – rhythms and melodies of healing words – to the piano and relates this material using the vocabulary and attitude of John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner. In doing so, he achieves mesmerizingly open, life-affirming and approachable music, weightlessly shrouded in a transcendental ministry. Nduduzo Makhathini’s music is a gift to the world.