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On the count of three: The Kyle Shepherd Trio on stage (left to right), Shepherd, Shane Cooper and Jonno Sweetman. (Supplied)

The Kyle Shepherd Trio: A jazz dance sweetly played

Kyle Shepherd Trio’s new album is packed with originals, covers, homages – and a guilty pleasure

New vision: Asher Gamedze pulled together 10 musicians to create a new iteration of The Black Lung band and to produce his latest album, Constitution. Photo: Lungiswa Gqunta

Jazz fans, lend your ears to Asher Gamedze

Building a musical constitution with a 10-piece band requires the musician to go deep

Heritage: Nduduzo Makhathini, the South African pianist, composer and educator, brings his Zulu culture to bear on his new album uNomkhubulwane. Photo: Arthur Dlamini

A close listen: Jazz pro, healer and scholar stuns with depth of meaning and musicality

South African pianist and composer Nduduzo Makhathini’s latest album, uNomkhubulwane, is a masterpiece of transcendent spiritual jazz that draws on his Zulu cultural heritage and…

Elusive: The documentary Chasing Trane fails to catch the full John Coltrane.

Hearing Coltrane: Like watching a grown man learn how to speak

Watching several of Coltrane’s harmonic and melodic experiments at the cusp of the 1960s, Amiri Baraka emerges frightened, yet energised

Bheki Mseleku: An activist on his own terms

Steve Dyer reflects on jazz musician Bheki Mseleku’s contribution to the canon

A music teacher and one-time bandmate of Bheki Mseleku’s, Neil Gonsalves remembers the experience as akin to being a student in a professional band. ( Doug Mostert)

Bheki Mseleku: ‘He could play anything in any key’

Neil Gonsalves was formally taught, unlike his colleague Bheki Mseleku, but he was in awe of the genius the of multi-instrumentalist

May 06 2020 – Musician and drummer Asher Gamedze at his home in Observatory, Cape Town.  (David Harrison)
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Dialectic Soul: Rhythms of reason for revolutionary music

Drummer Asher Gamedze’s approach to making music is through a collective process bringing together not only each band member’s response to ideas but also their skills

David Olusoga’s “Black and British”.

On our Lists this week: Saint John Coltrane, Gary Zukav and being ‘Black and British’

The Lists this week were compiled by Friday editor Milisuthando Bongela and senior arts writer Kwanele Sosibo

John Coltrane: Remembering the saint

Des’ree throwbacks, Coltrane and the conscience of hip-hop in this week’s Lists

The Lists this week were compiled by Friday editor Milisuthando Bongela and senior arts writer Kwanele Sosibo

Hotstix: Still playing with fire

Whether you call his music township jive, jazz or bubblegum, Sipho ‘Hotstix’ Mabuse has provided the soundtrack for generations, writes Kwanele Sosibo.