Ndikho Xaba & The Natives

The South African pianist Ndikho Xaba was 30 years old when he sought exile in the US in 1964. He had arrived with Alan Paton's theatrical production Sponono – much like Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela, who had sought refuge from apartheid five years earlier as cast members of King Kong. In New York, Xaba played on albums by both Masekela and Makeba but by 1970 he was living in San Francisco, where he became deeply involved with the post-civil rights black consciousness movement and recorded this album.

Released in 1971 as a limited edition of 500 and unavailable since, it finds Xaba and his saxophonist James ‘Plunky’ Branch in thrall to the visionary jazz of Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra and Pharaoh Sanders. Recorded live in a single take, the music seethes with the Black Power-influenced Afrocentricity of its time, albeit without sounding particularly African. The exception is the bonus non-album track, ‘Zulu Lunchbag’, which sways to an irresistible township lilt but was only ever released as a single. As far as I am aware, Xaba made no more recordings; he eventually returned to South Africa in 1998, where he continues to live in Durban.