‘New Black music is this: find the self, then kill it.” The US poet Amiri Baraka wrote these words in the liner notes to the 1965 live album The New Wave in Jazz, and through listening to the ferocious works of featured improvisers like John Coltrane, Archie Shepp and Albert Ayler, Baraka argued that we could radically reestablish ourselves. We could understand and then creatively efface who we were, allowing for something unexpected to take its place.
South African drummer Tumi Mogorosi takes this as the central concept for his latest album, Group Theory: Black Music, seeking to produce that same supplanting power through the voice, as well as instrumentation.
The 11 tracks on Group Theory have a maximal sound, thanks to a featured choir of nine singers who provide a harmonic backdrop. They are a constant, collective presence: an underlying bed of melody on opener Wadada; an ominous counterpoint on The Fall and a rhythmic foil to the keening horns on At the Limit of the Speakable. Backed by an instrumental sextet, the overall sound is bombastic – one that can make for an intensive and dense listening experience, with each voice vying for primacy among the stacked arrangements.
Thankfully, Mogorosi is used to finding musical space within moments of cacophony, since he came to prominence as the rhythmic powerhouse behind British saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings’ freeform 2016 South African project, The Ancestors. His accompanying drumming in Group Theory is light of touch and textural, often opting for mallets to create washes of sound, while saxophonist Mthunzi Mvubu and guitarist Reza Khota provide crisp, cutting melodies.
With each composition teetering on the edge of overwhelm, Group Theory brings to mind the experimental vocal jazz of American drummer Max Roach’s It’s Time. Yet, there are also touchstones in the work of Mogorosi’s South African contemporaries. Within his music we find the yearning melodies of vocal group Spaza, the improvisatory freeness of trombonist Malcolm Jiyane, and the spiritual urgency of guitarist Sibusile Xaba. All of these artists have been released on the same Johannesburg label as Mogorosi, Mushroom Hour Half Hour, collectively producing blistering, challenging material.
On Group Theory, we ultimately find ourselves mirrored in the human, primal power of gathered voices, while Mogorosi’s deft instrumental backing bolsters and then buffets our journey. Completing Baraka’s maxim isn’t easy, Mogorosi seems to say, but if we surrender to this enormous sound, we can find the self, kill it, and perhaps even come together stronger than before, as a group.
Also out this month
Sitar maestro Anoushka Shankar collaborates with Metropole Orkest and Manu Delago on the live record, Between Us… (Leiter). Jules Buckley’s strings add to the typical drone tanpura backing for each raga, while Delago’s pan drum is a fresh texture, supplanting the melody and percussiveness of the tabla: a pleasant, unchallenging fusion.
Electronic producer the Maghreban releases his second album, Connection (Zoot Records), mixing rhythmic techno compressions with Middle Eastern melody. Saxophonist Idris Rahman steals the show with his free-flowing lines.
Ghanaian trio Nyamekye Junction release their debut, Dasein (Kitto Records) – an atmospheric blend of west African percussion and synthpop melodies, perfect for sunshine listening during the festival season.
