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Adam Glasser – ‘SA & Beyond’

Dear readers: are my credentials for reviewing this Adam Glasser album sufficiently respectable? Well, I was born in South Africa and, back in the dark apartheid 50s, marvelled at ‘King Kong’, the all-African cast musical that launched Miriam Makeba, with its stellar pit band that included Hugh Masakela and Kippie Moeketsi (incidentally, Spike Glasser, Adam’s dad, arranged the score). Later, aged 19 and breaching apartheid rules in a multi-racial jam, I sat in with pianist Dollar Brand (a.k.a. Abdullah Ibrahim) only to receive his multi-layered scolding: “You play the blues like a white man”. I also spent my university vacations serving behind the counter at the long-forgotten retail branch of Gallo’s, the company that recorded this album. Does that cover the field?

While the essence of jazz has always been liberation, in apartheid South Africa, emotions ran ever deeper. Musicians and fans of every skin colour, religion, gender and race frequently flouted draconian government laws to perform and absorb the music across rigidly policed divides. And, on this album, SA and Beyond, Glasser, pianist and harmonica ace, pays tribute to a distinguished tradition of exceptional achievements despite bigotry, brutal oppression and exile.

Harmonicas in jazz? With notable exceptions like the late Toots Thielemans and Max Geldray of BBC Goon Show fame (and not forgetting a clutch of blues masters), the instrument has been about as popular as Hawaiian steel guitars. But under Glasser’s agile fingers and articulate attack, it’s endowed with a commanding presence, expressive tone and a core of steel.

SA and Beyond consists of four separate sessions, recorded in Johannesburg (more commonly known as ‘Josie’ or Jo’burg’), South Africa and London, England.

On 27 July 2017, the first London session, Glasser is accompanied by a trio of South Africans: pianist Bokani Dyer, bassist Romy Brauteseth, drummer Sphelelo Mazibuko plus Brit guitarist, Rob Luft. Track one is the melodic “Jelly Roll”, an ear-wormy composition by U.S. soul and hip-hopper musical director R. C. Williams, chosen by Glasser (“because it was the kind of track that would go down well on S.A. radio stations”). On Jimmy Dludlu’s riffy “Motherland”, he vaults wide intervals and hits spectacular highs over the band’s toe-tapping township beat and growling bass. Dyer provides tasty piano and Rob Luft, the Brit, proves he’s at home with the local idiom. Then, the band minus Luft recorded three compositions by the late Bheki Mseleku, the influential, yet modest Durban-born pianist who left the stage early at 53. We hear the atmospheric melody of “Joy”; a plangent ballad: “Monwabisi”; and the skittering “Yanini”, all three performed with deep affection and sensitivity. Included in this session is Themba Mkhize’s dynamic “Ngaliwe”, that caught Glasser’s ear in a Durban restaurant and is performed here with massive verve. “The Sandcastle Headhunter” is a rhythmically labyrinthine composition by U.S. saxophonist Donald Harrison who visited a Jo’burg music fest in 2013. Glasser comments: “This composition stood out to me especially after trumpeter Lwanda Gogwana played it faultlessly with the band having learnt it by ear from a cassette recording. I resolved to learn it on harmonica”. Clearly, judging by his confident, bluesy performance, he nailed it.

On the second recording session, held in London on 9 August 2019, the band included tenor saxophonist George Crowley, bassist Steve Watts and drummer Corrie Dick to record four tracks. On three of them, Glasser forsook his harmonica for piano. “Caution”, a song by Caiphus Semenya, begins with an assertive staccato theme before Crowley and Luft stretch out on solos. “Cherry” has the unmistakable lilt of an Abdullah Ibrahim piece synthesising all the Cape musical influences and was taught to Glasser by the maestro himself. Glasser’s own composition, the spiky and sparky “Mzansi”, opens with guitar and keyboard sounding much like a mbira, the thumb piano traditional to the Zimbabwean Shona people (in passing, it’s claimed that the mbira was an influence on Kind of Blue). Glasser returns to harmonica for “Scullery Department”, composed by legendary alto saxophonist Kippie Moeketsi and featured on the 1950’s Jazz Epistles, Verse 1, the finest bebop album to emerge from Africa. Verse 1 was recorded by Gallo’s (the S.A. label on this album) who, having pressed 1,000 copies considered it too avant-garde and scrapped 500 copies. Crowley sounds unstoppable, roaring through the changes.

The third Session took place in Jo’burg on 29 October 2019, an informal event where Glasser interviewed a respected elder, Fitzroy Ngcukana, vocalist and producer. Jamming together on an ancient piano, we hear excerpts of Dudu Pukwana’s “Mraby” (complete with Ngcukana’s anecdotal commentary and vocal) and a moving version of Victor Ndlazilwana’s “Ndize” crammed with emotion.

The fourth and final session was held at Jo’burg’s Sumo Studios on 20 April 2023 where Glasser assembled guitarist Bheki Khoza, bassist Fana Zulu, drummer Peter Auret and percussionist Bhasi Mahlasela to record Winston Ngozi’s “Yakhal’inkomo”, a gently swaying piece in rich South African idiom that permits Glasser, with a minimum amount of flash, to demonstrate his peerless virtuosity.

Accepting the lack of studio quality on the third session, the sound, mixed and mastered by Chris Lewis, is excellent. But altogether, the atmosphere is awesome.

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