Privately pressed in San Francisco on the Trilyte label in 1969, Ndikho Xaba and the Natives have joined the pantheon of holy grails for Spiritual Jazz collectors. now repressed on the excellent Matsuli Music imprint! Ndikho Xaba was born in 1934 in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. For thirty-four years 1964 - 1998 he lived in exile in the US, Canada, and Tanzania. Originally issued by Trilyte Records out of Oakland, California, this 1970 recording is bracing, freewheeling Now Thing, suffused with SA idioms, and focussed by a political urgency wiring together US Black Power, Black Aesthetics and the anti-apartheid front-line like nothing else. You can hear Trane from the off a spiritual offering to my ancestors and plenty of Sun Ra, with whom The Natives several times shared double-bills. (Xaba was to become close with Phil Cohran and the AACM.) Freedom is a gutbucket-soul rendition of the people�s anthem; Nomusa is dedicated to Xaba's new wife, a poet and CORE activist from Chicago. The thunderous finale Makhosi features drummer Keita from the West Indies, and Baba Duru, who studied percussion in India, before winding up with Xaba blowing eerily through a horn made from a giant piece of tubular seaweed. The original sleeve notes were written by Thulani Davis; Ntozake Shange is thanked (by her brand-new name). The reissue recovers the handbill for a FREE ANGELA DAVIS rally, where Brother Ndiko & his friends will play some soulful African music! That's Plunky from the Oneness Of Juju playing saxophones and flute. Besides sterling notes by Francis Gooding, there is a lovely reminiscence from him. After worrying about having cocked up the start of his solo in Nomusa, he ends by attributing to Xaba his own lives work as a political activist, educator, and musician: Ndikho is a revolutionary musician and unsung hero.
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