Spaza: Uprize! review – haunting, cogent reflection on Soweto 1976
A heaviness permeated the summer, one laden with the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the consequences of George Floyd’s killing by Minnesota police in May. While it is clear we are living in an unprecedented moment of history, some things – racial, social and economic inequality – are a reminder of our unimpeded, unfortunate connections to the past. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Such is the spirit channelled by Johannesburg-based improvisational collective Spaza on their second album, Uprize! Recorded over a three-day session in 2016, the quartet’s work functions as a soundtrack to a documentary film of the same name, charting the majority black student uprising in the South African township of Soweto in June 1976. The uprising came as a response to the increased teaching of Afrikaans in schools, a move seen to further subjugate the black population during apartheid. Latched on to by the burgeoning black consciousness movement, the protests were met with police brutality and the deaths of at least 176 people.
The resulting album, created in situ as documentary footage was projected on a wall of the recording studio, is a deeply touching work of both historic testimony and a remarkably prescient suite of mood music that has anticipated our current moment. Interspersed throughout are snatches of interviews from the film, such as on opening number Bantu Education – where we learn of the politicised use of Afrikaans – and on the militarised tenor of The Black Consciousness Movement. In both instances, double bassist Ariel Zamonsky provides guttural, sweeping bow movements to give voice to a sinking feeling of unease, while vocalist Nonku Phiri’s amorphous soaring falsetto brings forth a glimmer of hope.
This interplay between light and dark continues on the album’s remaining seven tracks: the immediacy of Zamonsky’s finger-plucking and percussionist Gontse Makhene’s sparse rhythms on Banna Ba Batsumi create an uncanny sense of agitation when accompanied by the film’s footage of police brutality. Phiri’s voice comes into its own on the yearning balladry of Sizwile and pianist Malcolm Jiyane places himself in the same melodic lineage as South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim with his tender, meandering voicings on Solomon, Tsietsi & Khotso.
Whether experienced alongside the confronting documentary or listened to alone, Uprize! enacts the uncertain birth of change through its free jazz-referencing improvisations. And the closing track, We Got a Lot a Work to Do, is an aptly titled reminder. Here, that heaviness, that initial bow-laden bass resonance, is transmuted into the whispers of a shared vocalisation between Phiri and Jiyane. Perhaps in that work there may be a hopefulness after all.
Also out this month
1970s Brazilian funk trio Azymuth return with JID 004. Following the death of founding member and keyboardist José Roberto Bertrami in 2012, the addition of synth player Kiko Continentino adds a west coast-influenced reverberating melody to their rhythmic jams: the cinematic Sumarè is a highlight. Mexican jazz drummer Tino Contreras releases a long-awaited body of new work, La Noche de los Dioses, following January’s reissue of 1978’s Musica Infinita. Contreras thoroughly swings, making the most of Luis Calatayud’s tenor work on the title track. Portico Quartet’s Jack Wyllie crafts an intriguing blend of minimal electronics and mbalax rhythms on his release as Paradise Cinema, where Senegalese percussionists Khadim Mbaye and Tons Sambe lay an entrancing, undulating foundation for Wyllie’s light-touch production work.
