At the showing of "Mama Goema: the Cape Town Beat in Five Movements", I was alerted by Calum MacNaughton to a concert concert by South African pianist Tete Mbambisa, celebrating the release of his new solo piano CD "Black Heroes", on April 22nd. We missed the first few numbers, as we were driving up from Cape Point after a day spent watching surfers at Muizenberg, watching penguins at the Boulder Beach unit of Table Mountain National Park, and walking to Diaz Beach and the Cape of Good Hope. And finding the school of music at UCT took a little while. What a finish to a fantastic day, though. Tete wrapped up a number with a crack rhythm section consisting of Ivan Bell on drums and Wesley Rustin on bass, and then his wife Vuyiswa Ngcwangu/uMambisa joined the band, in great voice, singing a standard whose name I've let slip, then Key Largo, then an excellent blues with refrain "I need a mellow man", really rocking the place.

It was great to talk to Calum, Gregory, and Vuyiswa at intermission, and Gregory gave me the info about the local jam Monday night jam session at Swingers' in Wetton. After intermission Tete came back on solo piano, playing a beautiful piece made up on the spot and titled "Gregory" for Gregory Franz, who has been photographing and blogging about the Cape jazz scene recently. Tete lamented the fact that since he had just made it up, he might not remember it---so he played it again. (Someone had been doing a video, so the tune is probably recorded.) More excellent solo piano including selections from the new CD, and then the rhythm section, along with saxophonist Sisonke, joined for Emavundleni, from the new CD, dedicated to his ancestors ("not mine", Tete's wife had earlier joked). Then a sanctified-sounding tune, with excellent sax work, segueing toward the end into a fantastic free-bop kind of interlude.

Mbambisa's piano style seems to me to mix mostly straight-ahead bop/hard bop with a bit of a more African sound, maybe influenced a bit by the repetition-with-slowly-evolving changes and additions of Mbira music. He has a very solid, round, ringing touch that can also be delicate when needed---and the sound he got from the Steinway (I think it was a D, the 9 foot concert grand) on stage was superb. He also has a good melodic sense, and tends to avoid cliche, often putting together short bits of melodic line in surprising but logical ways, leaving space, varying and developing rather than always running on.

A very informal concert, with very high-calibre music-making. At one point Tete was calling out the changes, teaching the bass-player one of his tunes on the spot---it sounded great as this went on, and after a chorus everything was locked in.

The last two were a slow, very pretty song, with lovely sax work, and (on the insistent request of, I think, relatives in the audience) Paul Desmond's "Take Five", the sax player sitting out. This was absolutely the most cooking version of that tune I've ever heard---with its ostinato in 5 (or a measure of 3 followed by a measure of 2) laid down in hard-rocking, hard-swinging style with changing harmonic colors, and piano lines and chordal interludes reminiscent of McCoy Tyner or mid-1960s Herbie Hancock (but all Mbambisa's) spun out over it, building a long, rollicking solo. Lines ringing out, then repeated up a half step, then punctuated by some block chords. I had never realized that Take Five was basically a hard-charging 1960s modal rave-up avant la lettre (well, barely), but Tete, playing with power but still relaxed, left no doubt about it. A fantastic closer. I bought the CD, which I will review in more detail soon; it's highly recommended and you can buy it at the link at the top of the post, and listen to excerpts here.

To wrap things up, from Youtube here's Inhlupeko from the out of print 1969 record of the same name by the Soul Jazzmen, Mbambisa on piano with Duku Makasi, saxophone, "Big T" Ntsele, bass, and Mafufu Jama, drums.