(M)Other Tongue

Mother Tongue is a prayer of gratitude to the Invisible Hand. I am borrowing from the title of Greg Osby’s 2000 record because the connections between the intentions behind the music and its spirit are palpably clear. As Osby chose to memorialize his cognizance of guides who have been (in)visibly there “Through the Years,” Makhathini has taken his family, moments and memories that shaped his early life and reflected them in a musical landscape that is full of spirited love and connectedness to past, present and future life. Nduduzo himself has borrowed some of the title of his record from pianist Jason Moran’s Same Mother (2004), another personal tribute to the spirit of the Mother. As he explains, “This project is dedicated to my Mother [Nomajerusalema] in thanking her for introducing me to music as my first language. But also my childhood in general.” The need to “Face East” and bow to the constant and nurturing presence of the Mother is a guiding force in this music, but Nduduzo has also has also turned his childhood memories into stories about what was before the spirit of life, love and music were incarnated in his being through the music that is jazz.

Mother Tongue is like a portraiture by the young artist of his childhood and adolescence. It begins with EMaqongqo, named after a town (?) that the Makhathinis were forced to move to in 1987 as political violence engulfed the country. The memory is poignant. Nduduzo remembers having “to stop school for a year. So many friends and relatives died in this year.” In the midst of the memory of loss and uprootedness, what we hear in the music is new life. The voices of children lilt the melody and add a chorus of love, peace and laughter to Nduduzo’s passionately cascading piano runs. Umsunduzi is another song about separation. This time the ways are parted by the river Umsunduzi and the journeys that Makhathini and his brother made; weaving across it the path of severed ties. In Nomajerusalema, the Mother who holds this tongue in place is honored. The sound may be dark, foreboding and solitary, yet it burns with a quiet resilience.

The spirits behind the compositions on this record morph from the concrete to the cosmic. They reflect how sound enters and lives in the life world of Makhathini. Though a life in jazz music only began after graduating from high school, Makhathini’s upbringing seems to have been centered around music as the elixir of things joyful and spiritual. He remembers how on Sundays his father would play his guitar and his mother would sing from the kitchen while preparing the family meal. It was love “through music.” There is Another Church Up the Road brings to life the rich culture of worship that Makhathini was brought up under. “When I grew up,” he recalls, “there were a lot of churches and I feel I really absorbed a lot of music from them.” Echoes of You is in the memory of the great Bheki Mseleku, an important early mentor to Makhathini in his years as a student in Durban. It is, as he explains, “for his teachings and the music he left behind for us future generations.” “My Angel is my love song for uMaCebekhulu” and “Hope Love Light is to the future of my kids.” Our Father, full of sound sired silence, is for the God of Sound and Silence. To end Mother Tongue, Makhathini returns to “all natural musics:” the “childhood music of the birds, trees and streams.” As in “Cycle,” things in the key of life repeat themselves elsewhere and here it seems jazz has become the home, the piano the guitar. And love remains.

We live in a time where numerous innovators in the Black Arts have been leaving us. Where are we now? And what’s the word about young creative musicians now? I had the pleasure to have dinner with the great pianist Jason Moran after a performance with his Bandwagon Trio in April of 2012. Nduduzo had asked me to find out from him about his spirituality. I don’t remember asking him that question. But the answer, as it so often happens in life, exists before the question. I had asked Moran the previous evening what he felt the vision of the current generation(s) of jazz musicians could be. He paused in acknowledgement and gave some reflection. He replied: “With the younger musicians, technique is not a problem. But I don't hear their parents and grandparents in their music.” Moran was gesturing to the need to compose music for the moments before the notes became notes, where what may become music is refracted otherwise in life. To the greater significance and things hidden whenever there is a vibration. To the people who have always hovered around and nourished sound. For they are within it. With Nduduzo it’s all there.

Wherever something stands, something else will stand beside it. (Igbo Proverb)

Mother Tongue. Other Tongue.
Ingoma.
Ole Mother Tongue!

Dr Khwezi Mkhize