# South Africa’s Shane Cooper and his band Mabuta make borders irrelevant: Video, Photos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2022/06/12/south-africas-shane-cooper-and-his-band-mabuta-make-borders-irrelevant-video-photos/
- Published: 2022-06-12T16:15:42+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**South African jazz seems to be having another international moment. Recently, 
for example, the Blue Note jazz label launched a new imprint, [Blue Note Africa](https://www.bluenote.com/announcing-blue-note-africa/)
dedicated to the continent’s music. Its first release – and his second for the label–
will be South African pianist [Nduduzo Makhathini](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/nduduzo-makhathini-mn0003068518/biography)’
s [In the Spirit of Ntu](https://www.bluenote.com/nduduzo-makhathini-returns-with-in-the-spirit-of-ntu/).
In the same month, [Jazz at Lincoln Centre](https://2022.jazz.org/) hosted a South
African season.**

Even the UK’s annual BBC Proms this year will dedicate a night to [The South African Songbook](https://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/proms/bbc-proms-2022/prom-56-the-south-african-jazz-songbook/),
with trumpeter [Marcus Wyatt](http://www.theorbit.co.za/marcus-wyatt/) conducting
the international [Metropole Orkest](https://www.mo.nl/en/the-orchestra) and the
voices of South African vocalist [Siyabonga Mthembu](https://www.musicinafrica.net/node/6283)
and Zimbabwe-born UK singer/songwriter [ESKA](https://nataal.com/eska).

Of course, such exposure is not unprecedented. South African painter [Gerard Sekoto](https://www.gerardsekotofoundation.com/artist-overview.htm)
was playing jazz in Paris bars in the late 1940s. The international careers of [Miriam Makeba](https://theconversation.com/the-legacy-of-iconic-singer-miriam-makeba-and-her-art-of-activism-178230),
[Abdullah Ibrahim](https://abdullahibrahim.co.za/biography/) and [Hugh Masekela](https://theconversation.com/remembering-hugh-masekela-the-horn-player-with-a-shrewd-ear-for-music-of-the-day-86414)
are only the best known of a raft of musicians who sought exile from [apartheid](https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa).
The South African band [Blue Notes](https://theconversation.com/remembering-the-blue-notes-south-africas-first-generation-of-free-jazz-83824)
were massively influential on European jazz scenes from the 1960s onwards.

There are risks in being “fashionable” – not least that straitjackets of international
audience perception may be created about what “South African jazz” is. Many of today’s
international showcases have a nostalgic focus on the greats of the past such as
Makeba and Masekela. However, multiple legacies inform the sound of South African
jazz and contribute to the rich lexicon from which it can draw. But none of them
defines it.

Today, South African jazz speaks in multiple, diverse voices. Its internationalism,
thankfully, is no longer driven by hideous repression at home and, in the digital
age, doesn’t always even require physical journeys. One example (and there are many)
is the new album [Finish the Sun](https://mabuta.bandcamp.com/album/finish-the-sun)
from the group [Mabuta](http://www.shanecoopermusic.com/mabuta/), led by bassist
[Shane Cooper](http://www.shanecoopermusic.com/).

Finish the Sun is only the latest demonstration of how South African jazz simultaneously
looks inwards and outwards and communicates with listeners and fellow-players everywhere.

**Finish the Sun**

Mabuta takes its name for the Japanese word for “eyelid”, opening a door between
the conscious and the unconscious. Liminality – crossing borders and the interrogation
of boundaries – was on Mabuta’s agenda from its first release [Welcome to this World](https://mabuta.bandcamp.com/album/welcome-to-this-world)(
2018). Cooper himself is a bassist who also skips the border into electronic club
music; the 2018 personnel was all-South African, with the addition of UK saxophonist
[Shabaka Hutchings](http://www.shabakahutchings.com/biography/).

![An album cover showing an illustration of a person floating on their back in a
pool surrounded by rocks under a round sun.](https://i0.wp.com/images.theconversation.
com/files/462253/original/file-20220510-16-e7gxme.png?resize=640%2C639&ssl=1)

Artwork courtesy Shane Cooper.

On this 2022 outing, South Africans Cooper (on guitars and synths as well as bass),
keyboard player [Bokani Dyer](https://blackmajor.co.za/artist/bokani-dyer/), trumpeter
[Robin Fassie](https://weekendspecial.co.za/robin-fassie-kock-quintet-rfk5/) and
reedmen [Buddy Wells](http://www.theorbit.co.za/buddy-wells/) and [Sisonke Xonti](https://www.newframe.com/home-is-where-the-music-is-for-sisonke-xonti/)
work with guest drummers from Switzerland ([Julian Sartorius](https://www.juliansartorius.com/),
[Arthur Hnatek](https://www.arthurhnatek.com/) and Mario Hänni); Sweden (Christopher
Castillo); the Netherlands ([Jamie Peet](https://www.instagram.com/jamespete/?hl=en));
[Lungile Maduna](https://www.instagram.com/lmaduna/?hl=en) (South Africa); and [Andre Toungamani](https://splice.com/sounds/splice-sessions/ss_congolese_drums_andre_toungamani)(
Senegal), some recorded at a distance.

Like its predecessor, Finish the Sun is “[a bassist’s album but not a bass album](https://sisgwenjazz.wordpress.com/2018/02/06/shane-coopers-mabuta-and-the-obscenity-of-walls/)”.
Cooper created all the compositions but the instrumental solos come from everybody–
although the track Spirit Animal is quintessential Cooper. It is never clear whether
he is the bass’s spirit animal or it is his. His concept sounds as much through 
his guitar and through his use of effects and washes. These shape the mood of the
eight tracks, sometimes creating a feel that irresistibly invokes a time or place.

The album employs markers of national identity in surprising and often subtle ways
so it speaks fluently across all musical borders. Nevertheless, it does draw deep
from our lexicon.

The first two numbers, the title track and Where the Heart Is, are where South Africa
speaks most explicitly. The title words can’t help recalling the classic song [Lakutshon’ Ilanga](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-YSx21p9S4)(
When the sun sets, I’ll remember you). Here, the album notes say, it alludes to “
the energy (that) was felt by all the musicians in a way that sounds as though we
were in the same room after finishing some sun together”. It’s a fast, cyclical,
galloping Eastern Cape sound, but layering modernity and tradition in its juxtapositions
of electronic and instrumental voices. Where the Heart Is maintains the pace, with
a classic South African bass line, call and response and chorusing behind the solos;
it can’t wait to get home.

By contrast, Umshana carries a vibe of South Africa’s Afro-Soul era, with Xonti’s
solo chanelling the spirit of saxophonist [Basil Manenberg Coetzee](https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/basil-coetzee),
while Kucheza has Dyer’s organ reminding us of Black Moses and the [Soul Brothers](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-soul-brothers-mn0000044338/biography),
and Cooper’s bass recalling bassist [Bakithi Khumalo](https://www.bakithikumalobass.com/).
None of these are obvious copycat quotes. Rather, the musicians are using a pinch
of this and a dash of that to magick up some time-travel to where South Africans
will recognise the scenery.

But if you’re in a club in Basel, you can just relish Umshana’s gorgeous rhythmic
complexity or Kucheza’s chiming, joyful guitar and keys: you don’t have to have 
been where we’ve been. Nor do you need to know Johannesburg to recognise the moody
urban vibe of Joburg Poem; Cantillo’s Swedish drums perfectly catch its feel.

Rather than retreating behind idiomatic musical borders, or spending energy explicitly
fighting them, Mabuta simply make them irrelevant.

In many ways, that is the essential legacy of South African jazz on its international
journeys from the 1940s onwards. And that, rather than any externally-curated definition,
from however prestigious a platform, is what continues to keep the music vibrantly
breathing and growing.

![Shane Cooper & Mabuta, expanding Joburg jazz](https://i0.wp.com/pan-african-music.
com/cdn-cgi/image/width%3D2490%2Cheight%3D1400%2Cfit%3Dcrop%2Cquality%3D80%2Cformat%
3Dauto%2Conerror%3Dredirect%2Cmetadata%3Dnone/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/MABUTA-
square-e1652190922167.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

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