Jazz and South Africa is not necessarily an unusual combination. It starts with classics like Abdullah Ibrahim and Hugh Masekela and continues with young musicians like pianist Bokani Dyer. The country also has some obscurities to offer, like the band Spirits Rejoice, whose second album of the same name is being re-released for the first time 46 years after it was recorded. Saxophonist Duke Makasi and bassist Sipho Gumede previously played in the short-lived band Roots, which sought to combine jazz-rock with African influences. They then formed a jazz band with like-minded musicians called Spirits Rejoice, which did not last long either. With this band, they wanted to create an explicitly South African sound that would transcend racial boundaries in the era of apartheid.
On their second and final album, the Cape Town band show what jazz can be, especially when it comes to pushing the genre to its limits. The line-up of two saxophones, two trumpets, guitar, electric piano, synthesiser, drums and percussion often sounds like a big band. The tracks are reminiscent of spiritual jazz and the Miles Davis of the electric phase, but also like to dwell in neighbouring areas. “Woza Uzo Kudanisa Nathi” is underpinned by Afro-Cuban rhythms, there are excursions into disco (“Happy And In Love”) and funk-jazz (“Confusions”, “Papa’s Funk”). Only in passing is the album reminiscent of the great Albert Ayler and his 1965 classic “Spirits Rejoice”, after which the band probably took their name.
