{"id":40683,"date":"2020-04-17T13:52:50","date_gmt":"2020-04-17T12:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/nduduzo-makhathini-back-to-the-underworld-2\/"},"modified":"2020-05-16T14:05:16","modified_gmt":"2020-05-16T13:05:16","slug":"nduduzo-makhathini-back-to-the-underworld-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/nduduzo-makhathini-back-to-the-underworld-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Nduduzo Makhathini: back to the underworld"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Musician, improviser, healer, and academic Nduduzo Makhathini’s freshly-inked deal with the America-based Blue Note Records label heralds a new phase in the quest for the current wave of South African jazz musicians’ global conquest. We spoke to him on the back of the release of his tenth studio album,\u00a0Modes of Communication: Letters from the Underworlds<\/em>.<\/span><\/h4>\n

Photo credit: Ezra Makgope<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“I believe in magic, man<\/em>” said Nduduzo Makhathini once. The pianist, composer and healer uttered these words in 2014 while on a break during the recording sessions for the singer\/songwriter Msaki’s debut album,\u00a0<\/span>Zaneliza: How The Water Moves<\/span><\/i>, an album he co-produced. That was also the year he pounced upon the world with two records – the debut,\u00a0<\/span>Sketches of Tomorrow<\/span><\/i>, and its follow-up,\u00a0<\/span>Mother Tongue<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By then, nearly two years had elapsed since he graced the keys on bra Herbie T\u0161oaeli’s\u00a0<\/span>African Time<\/span><\/i>, still one of the most important contributions to the South African jazz songbook. That album let him flex his brain muscles, and allowed him to tap into the church rhythms and the blues tradition of his childhood. The results were stellar, a tour de force by any standard. The two solo exploits marked a clean break from his work as a sideman, though he still keeps certain gigs, such as being a part of Herbie T\u0161oaeli’s African Time unit, and bra Feya Faku’s quartet.<\/span><\/p>\n

Little did anyone on the peripheries know that by 2020, Makhathini would be a widely revered jazzman, and the first South African artist to ink a recording deal with the esteemed Blue Note Records label, once home to his spiritual teacher and mentor, McCoy Tyner, who sadly departed from the world of the living in early March.<\/span>
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