South African pianist and composer Nduduzo Makhathini brings his trio, with bassist Zwelakhe-Duma Bell le Pere and drummer Kabelo Boy Mokhatla, and his new album, uNomkhubulwane, which records a spiritual journey from grief to hope, to the Outpost this Sunday.
Nduduzo Makhathini
uNomkhubulwane (Blue Note Records)
A review
The provenance of uNomkhubulwane, South African Nduduzo Makhathini’s new album and his third for the esteemed Blue Note label, has got to be unique in the jazz canon. Undergoing initiation as a Zulu healer, the pianist, composer, educator, and philosopher Makhathini was immersed in water in order to encounter uNomkhubulwane—in the Zulu tradition, she is identified as “God’s only daughter and a manifestation of God’s very creation purpose,” says Makhathini—who gifted him with what he calls the “mother song” of this 11-song, three-part suite. Emerging from his communion with “supernatural voices,” as he puts it, uNomkhubulwane marries African folk and American jazz in a sui generis amalgam whose optimistic message is an “invitation to humanity to cultivate ways of being that yearn for freedom and balance.”
Riding waves of African rhythm from bassist Zwelakhe-Duma Bell le Pere and drummer Francisco Mela, Makhathini’s suite follows a three-part spiritual path, from mourning and protest (“Libations”) through restoration (“Water Spirits”) to freedom, strength, and grace (“Inner Attainment”). Along the way, the vivid compositions, which follow often unpredictable but coherent pathways, touch on gentle swing (“Uxolo”), gospel and blues (“Izinkojana”), R&B (“Izibingelelo”), and a contemporary jazz ballad on solo piano (“Ithemba”). Of particular note are “Omnyama” (video here), the mesmeric invocation that opens the album; “Amanxusa Asenkhathini,” a march toward the light through a dense thicket of chords; and the gentle dancing gratitude of “Iyana.”
A sensitive and assertive pianist and a confident vocalist whose voice emerges from a deep well, Makhathini manifests a connection to a profound optimism earned through long struggle. (See his essay, reprinted below by permission, for a deep look into the album’s cultural and philosophical underpinnings.)
Nduduzo Makhathini
Sunday, November 10, 7:30 p.m.
Weil Hall at the Outpost Performance Space
210 Yale SE, Albuquerque
Tickets: $15–$35
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© 2024 Mel Minter
uNomkhubulwane: A Meditation
by Nduduzo Makhathini
Unlike my previous records which often expressed intention through composition or some form conceptual paradigm, this offering was born via a kind of prophetic text. In other words, the sonic in this album came as a result of listening-hearing-sensing (ukuzwa) and establishing a relationship with an ‘elsewhere’ (a metaphysical dimension) through some guided-ness. Sound, in this regard, is realised as a manifestation of the word (izwi) via a relationship with supernatural voices. The word, in this sense, can be understood as a form of citation from primordial text, and in this case, Nguni vocabularies/vibrations through ‘prophetic consciousness’.
Throughout this work, there are several invocations of indigenous Nguni words both by way of language and by way of prophecy. For instance, the sound qa, among other click-sounds found in various Bantu languages, has a profound presence in this work. In Zulu folklore, the qa sound indexes ‘the beginning’ or ekuqaleni. In the dimensions of essence (imvelaphi) it is thus understood by the elders that qa is a derivation of an onomatopoeia gesture that became ‘the initial sound’. This sound was heard from ‘the first water droplet’ which, according to some African creation myth story, is believed to have been the initial occurrence at the very beginning of times. In light of this beginning-sonic-affinities, in Nguni knowledge systems the sound qa is coded in various words that were used by indigenous peoples when referring to God as a way of pointing towards essence. For instance, the Zulu people refer to God as uMnvelin(qa)ngi (or uMvelikuqala) which means ‘the one who appeared first’ –– similarly, the Xhosa people, another Bantu and Nguni speaking families, refer to God as u(Qa)mata.
Closely related to notions of God, essence, sound and creation myths, Zulu people believe that in the beginning, God was with uNomkhubulwane, a central symbol in this work. uNomkhubulwane is regarded as God’s only daughter and a manifestation of God’s very creation purpose. She is also believed to be a mythical rain goddess, a regulator of nature, light and fertility. As her name suggests, she is understood to manifest and animate herself through various ‘animal’ (isi-lwane) states such as ‘double-headed snake’ among others. For instance, iNkanyamba (or what I call ‘uNoNkanyamba’ to suggest a feminine vitality), a hurricane, is believed to be one of her energy vortexes. Thus, in a case of floods (or draughts), the elders would gather in ritual to appease her through songs and gifts of many kinds to seek tranquillity. uNomkhubulwane’s other common manifestation is through the rainbow which symbolises her kindness and regulation of balance.
While the two manifestations of uNomkhubulwane mentioned above may seem contradictory, it is believed that uNomkhubulwane is incapable of causing destruction but in her absence, there is lack of protection and abundance. Thus, in moments of war or famine, the elders would say “uNomkhubulwane has turned her back on us…” This is the reason that during harvest periods, the Zulu people carry out several ritual ceremonies to pay gratitude for their crops and also to honour uNomkhubulwane for providing them with rain –– in this way the spirit of uNomkhubulwane is immortalised and it is constantly present with the people.
This album invokes the spirit of uNomkhubulwane as a way of signalling abundance, especially in African, and by extension, broader black biographies wherein the colonial/post-colonial period has emphasised ‘lack’ as a normative state in African lives. This imposition of lack can be traced even within earlier documentations by Westerners which recorded that Africans lacked rationality, philosophy and a concept of God among other things. This has sustained all the way to ‘modernity’ whereby coloniality has produced new forms of lack such as insufficient access to land, electricity, water, education and healthcare, to mention just a few. Townships in South Africa are a classic example of how these formations of lack were ‘manufactured’ by coloniality and articulated through apartheid policies. Ironically, Africa (or the Mother Land) has continued to be one of the main providers for humanity when it comes to ‘energy’ of many forms. As a matter of fact, when ‘the world’ speaks of civilisation or technology, Africa is often not part of that equation. Meanwhile, Africa has contributed immensely towards producing most civilisations through her minerals (gold, diamond, uranium, oil and coal), mathematics, art, philosophy and let alone the endless years of labour (from slave trade to current modalities of black labour).
The question then is why do African peoples suffer so many forms of lack? Could it be that we have forgotten uNomkhubulwane (and by extension, our essence, our rituals and our songs) resulting in her turning her back on us? But of course, we do know that it is more about what has been done to us [than] what we have done ourselves. “Senzeni Na?”
This work is then a symbolical reading of this lack against the abundance of uNomkhubulwane. It feeds back through what I have termed ‘an ongoing rehearsal’ –– ‘ongoing’ in a sense of becoming (ukuthwasa) and ‘rehearsal’ as the evolution of ontology. This process deals with rituals of being as a state of surrender, meditation and prayer. In this sense, this register of rehearsal is not oriented towards a grand moment such as a ‘performance’ (at least, as understood within conventional lenses) but a rehearsal becomes the very way in which we accept the failure to ‘perform’ –– it is a ‘doing-anyway’, a protest. Thus, a rehearsal in this context implicates on our ontology, it is a space of self-making. This ontology sees being as wholeness ––– that is to say, being is inextricable to cosmic totality. It is an articulation of the potency of uNomkhubulwane, a bringing about of balance through regulation and a complete suspension of lack.
Through a three-movement suite, uNomkhubulwane (the album) rehearses some interventions towards revealing what could be a way of harnessing social balance and abundance via the spirit of uNomkhubulwane. The choice of three movements is informed by the sacred geometry of the number 3 in African cosmology. In Yoruba cosmology, number 3 represents balance and harmony (characteristics of uNomkhubulwane). Much broader African worldviews associate number 3 with endlessness, immortality and ongoing-ness through a triple state of being; before (ancestors), here (the living) and the future (the not-yet-born). Number 3 also finds expression in other spheres of this offering such the group make up (trio ensemble), in time signatures in some of the compositions (‘Iyana’, ‘Amanxusa Asemkhathini’ and ‘Amanzi Ngobhoko’) and through a strong triplet feel presence throughout this recording. The latter is responsible for what I have termed ‘extended bars’ which indexes the ability for ‘time’ to be open and elastic, but also eternal. In the context of society, this could be read as a metaphor towards how freedoms can be imagined, but also accessed.
These three movements emerged out of a ‘mother song’, the primordial waters inside the womb of uNomkhubulwane, that I received through my initiation and a unique process of becoming (ukuthwasa). In a traditional sense, every initiate (ithwasa) is required to go under the waters (emanzini) to encounter uNomkhubulwane. Upon return, it is a norm that the initiate will emerge with a song from uNomkhubulwane that will confirm that they are ready to graduate and fully become a healer (sangoma). This suite represents the three ways of knowing that inform my musicality in which initiation takes priority. In other words, I come to sound via an expression of balance in ntu-philo-praxis which is a way of knowing through three modalities: linage, socialisation and initiation. The latter is of interest in this work, it opens the womb of uNomkhubulwane as a place of abundance and of also of rebirth. At broader level, I also suggest that to heal black biographies, we must consider the Atlantic as uNomkhubulwane’s womb that had been violated. Thus, in order for us to receive our mother song, we all have to return uNomkhubulwane from both sides of the Atlantic, who will remind us of our song, abundance and freedom.
In pursuit of an open rehearsal of uNomkhubulwane’s song, the first movement ‘Libations’ deals with collective black memory inside a state of protest against ongoing oppression(s). This movement invokes an eternal state of black mourning that has made us lose our ‘voices’ and even though we still cry, we do not have tears anymore. There is this ongoing drought in our eyes that we seek uNomkhubulwane to heal. The mourning invokes ‘isililo sikaNandi’ (unrestrained grief) as an ongoing feeling of loss.
The second movement ‘Water Spirits’ proposes cleansing and summoning of essence through the energy of uMvelinqangi and uNomkhubulwane. This movement deals with vital force (ntu) and restoration a possibility. In various African belief systems, water is understood as being sacred. Here we can think about the many instances, in the ships over the Atlantic, where our ancestors were refusing to be taken into slavery or when they refused to dance to entertain the slave masters. They regarded dance as an exclusive and sacred practice to harness the spirits. As an expression of protests against dehumanisation, they sunk the ships and surrendered to the waters of uNomkhubulwane. In this time period there is an urgency to re-imagine the waters of the Atlantic as a cite for our collective rituals.
In the third and last movement, I am thinking about freedom, hope and grace –– I am thinking about an ‘elsewhere’. This elsewhere is a paradigm of transcendence that makes it possible to experience abundance against/beyond the confines of what is presented in the current state as the ‘ultimate condition’. Here I meditate on hope as an action and grace as a mode of transcendence. I am thinking about what it means to have the ability to co-create the world(s) we want to see. In a space-time-period that has failed humanity (and human-ness) there is a necessity to consider something much higher than human constructs. Here I am contemplating spirit interventions as ways to impact change. If essence is spirit that gave birth to the word, then it should be possible to move from spirit to physical manifestations of abundance.
Essentially, this offering is an invitation to humanity to cultivate ways of being that yearn for freedom and balance. Here I invite you to a new mode of humanism that is oriented towards singing the songs of uNomkhubulwane.
Siyathokoza kuNomkhubulwane, makube yinala.
Nduduzo Makhathini