Jazz /
Did You Tell Your Mother
Heavyweight Vinyl / U.S.A. Original Glued Prints on Thick Cardboard / handily gluing / Original Black and White Private Press artwork. If ever there was a post-war country that needed the freedom sounds of jazz, it was South Africa. A state that was so explicitly racist, it could make 1920s Mississippi look like a rainbow nation of multicultural joy. The policy of apartheid was a political and social system established in South Africa in 1948 during the era of white minority rule. The word itsel…
Spring
South Africa’s lost jazz history contains many an overlooked classic. But even within that hidden tradition, there are few albums that suffered such an unlucky fate as Spring, the monumental 1968 debut album by pianist Ibrahim Khalil Shihab, formerly Chris Schilder.
Though Shihab was only twenty-two when Spring was recorded, he was already a lynchpin of the Cape Town scene, and the album was to be his first major statement as leader and composer. It is a magnum opus gilded by the presence of the…
Dudu Phukwana and the "Spears"
Dudu Phukwana and the Spears recorded in London, but were only ever released in South Africa. The story behind this extraordinary music and the famous names involved are documented in this extended edition of Dudu Phukwana’s debut album.
In 1964 the Blue Notes left South Africa to play at the Antibes Jazz Festival in France, and more or less stayed away forever after. In January 1969 alto saxophonist Dudu Phukwana went home briefly along with producer Joe Boyd who persuaded Johannesburg record c…
Armitage Road
**Seminal Spiritual Jazz from South Africa, 1970. Officially licensed and remastered re-issue**. With a unique sound founded on a persuasive mix of American and African jazz, Armitage Road, originally released in 1970, was the only studio recording released by South Africa’s Heshoo Beshoo Group. As a highly prized collector’s item, a re-issue and re-appraisal of this lost gem from the apartheid era has been long overdue. Heshoo Beshoo loosely translates from the inter-tribal lingo of the townshi…
Jazz Fantasia
Along with Chris McGregor, Gideon Nxumalo helped pioneer the pre-exile South African Jazz sound. His 1962 album ‘Jazz Fantasia’ is widely regarded as a seminal South African jazz record. The record featured legendary jazz altoists Kippie Moeketsi and a very young Dudu Pukwana, who plays sax in similar Albert Ayler's vein! Moeketsi was a colossal South African jazz figure during this time, and ‘Jazz Fantasia’ signaled Moeketsi’s last commercial success before his struggles with alcohol and depres…
Live in Lesotho
* Brand new extended and remastered version of the original LP from 1981. Gatefold with new photography and liner notes * Slickest Afro-jazz-funk swerve from legendary South African cornet player and anti-apartheid figure Hugh Masakela, recorded at the Maseru Holiday Inn before a small audience during days surrounding his defiant 1981 performance in Lesotho while banned from performing just over the border in SA proper. Newly remastered and recut from the original single LP over a 2LP pressing."…
African Piano
South African pianist-composer Abdullah Ibrahim (born Adolph Johannes "Dollar" Brand), still performing at the time of this 1969 live album under the moniker “Dollar” Brand, unleashed a mastery so enticing on African Piano, it’s a wonder that any of the folks at the club where it was recorded had the resolve to treat it as background to their dining. By the same token, reinforcement of that fact by constant ambient noises renders Ibrahim’s performance all the more sacred by contrast.Amid a sea o…
Spirits Rejoice!
**1000 copies** Otoroku is extremely proud to present the first vinyl reissue of one of the most legendary free jazz records ever produced. Originally released in 1978 on Ogun recordings, Louis Moholo Octet’s Spirits Rejoice! is a high achievement in the movement of the era as it soars beyond oppression with a raucous and spiritually uplifting surge of movement and melody. Featuring Harry Miller, Johnny Dyani, Keith Tippett, Evan Parker, Nick Evans, Radu Malfatti and Kenny Wheeler, this is forme…
Day Two
Recorded at Staccato Studios, Stavanger, Norway on 12th October, 1982 by Kjell Arne Jensen - with Frode Gjerstad - tenor and soprano saxophones, Johnny Mbizo Dyani - double bass and John Stevens - drums. Re-mastered by Arūnas Zujus at MAMAstudios. Cover drawing by Tora Fredrikke Helle, photos by Judith Sørvik, liner notes by Frode Gjerstad.
Celebration
"From the inheritor of John Coltrane's mouthpiece a re-integration of deep South African jazz roots with the Black Atlantic spiritual jazz continuum. Celebration's release trumpeted the emerging dawn of South Africa's epochal changes. Sainted and blessed, Bheki Mseleku appeared as the herald of a new era, a prophet of rebirth and reconnection. This is a work signalling change, a sign of a South African music that was properly reconnected with global currents. Recognizing Bheki as a kindred spiri…
Genes and Spirits
When pianist and composer Moses Taiwa Molelekwa died in February 2001, fans and fellow musicians alike were swept away by grief. He was so young – not yet 30 – and had shown such musical promise.Genes and Spirits was his second album, released a year before his death. While the composer’s voice and pianist’s touch are instantly recognisable from his debut, Finding One’s Self, the ideas underlying the music mark a conscious step into the unknown: what he called “finding a range of rhythmic altern…
African Songbird
Matsuli Music is proud is announce the re-issue of African Songbird, the masterpiece from South Africa's greatest jazz singer, Sathima Bea Benjamin. Originally released in 1976, African Songbird was a debut long overdue. The splendid vinyl reissue of African Songbird opens with a cavernous, spacious, enormous sound, Bea Benjamin’s voice is introduced by Dollar Brand’s plangent, lingering electric keyboards before the ensemble joins in like rolling thunder. The vibrant plucked bass (provided by L…