Listen to the jazz pianist and composer’s trio set, recorded live at St. George’s Cathedral on 30 September 2010.

Kyle Shepherd’s music displays a timelessness that challenges musical dichotomies. A skilled jazz composer, bandleader and pianist, he roots his sound in unique rhythms, harmonies and melodic devices of Cape Town and South Africa. But he’s unafraid to chart new territories, teaming up with fellow young jazz guns Shane Cooper (double bass) and Jonno Sweetman (drums) to fearlessly blaze a trail through everything from full-on free jazz improv to experiments with global roots music, slam poetic and more. In Shepherd’s hands, everything from Afrikaans volksliedjies and Muslim calls to prayer, to goema grooves, the hymns of a dozen different community churches and Xhosa melodies are reworked in a sonic space that’s far beyond the original contexts but also outside of jazz as we know it. As the doyen of South African jazz scribes Gwen Ansell points out: this is music that lives in the jazz world but is never imprisoned by it.

Listen to Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, LIVE at The Centre for the Book, Cape Town on 2 October 2009. The nine members of HBE, eight brothers and a cousin, come from an extraordinary musical family. All sisters, brothers and mothers are professional musicians, and Philip Cohran, their father, has roots running back to Mississippi, his time in the musical hothouse of 1940s St Louis, and his role with Sun Ra’s Arkestra in Chicago in the 1950s – but is perhaps best …  ( continue reading

Listen to Madala ‘Bafo’ Kunene, recorded live at Slave Church, Cape Town on 2 October 2008. Known to many simply as ‘Bafo’, Madala Kunene is undeniably one of the best guitarists to have come out of Durban. This eclectic musician has an aura of calmness and wisdom that is meticulously replicated in his music – deep-rooted in spiritual and traditional rhythms. Bafo has performed his trance-inducing sounds at festivals around the world and collaborated with the likes of Busi Mhlongo, …  ( continue reading

Listen to Cindy Blackman and her quartet, recorded live at Slave Church in Cape Town on 1 October 2008. Cindy Blackman is widely regarded as one of the top drummers in the world. She’s upheld the backbeat and created texture for a veritable Who’s Who in jazz: Jackie McLean, Joe Henderson, Don Pullen, Hugh Masekela, Pharaoh Sanders, Sam Rivers, Cassandra Wilson, Angela Bofill, Bill Laswell, Buckethead. However, she’s better known as keeper of ‘polyriddims’ for funk rocker Lenny Kravitz since …  ( continue reading

September 12 is Biko Day. On this day in 1977, black consciousness philosopher, thinker, leader Steve Biko died in police custody in 1977. This day also historically marks the start of the Pan African Space Station intervention. The 24-hr marathon praise party held to launch PASS in 2008, titled “Songs for Biko, and other stomps, screams and prayers”, included DJs, musicians, soundists, poets and generally noise people presenting music and sound inspired by Steve Biko’s work; and read from his words in I …  ( continue reading