Events Calendar

1218 Cartwright St, Vancouver, BC V6H 3R8

Pianist, composer, and improviser Nduduzo Makhathini is a central figure in South Africa’s vibrant jazz scene. His tenth album In the Spirit of Ntu is the inaugural release on the newly formed Blue Note Africa imprint, and though it’s guided by cosmological and spiritual concepts, “what you’ll feel most acutely isn’t incorporeal but deeply human, a potent brew of fury, joy, and solidarity” (JazzTimes). A long-time collaborator with Shabaka Hutchings, Makhathini has also worked with Wynton Marsalis, Jaleel Shaw, and scores of other greats, carrying influences from John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner alongside the spirit of interconnectedness at the core of the ancient philosophy of Ntu.

Drawing on the powerful echoes of pre-colonial Africa, Nduduzo Makhathini’s ambitious music is an act of cultural reclamation and spiritual communion, using remarkable technique in search of what he calls “that moment of revelation, or in the African context, a moment of divination.” With Francisco Mela drums and Swelakhe Duma Bell Le Pere bass.