KHANYA APHO UKHONA: OGUN RECORDS - A REVIEW

  (OG 600)   Track listing: Gentle One Says Hello/Fragment No. 6/A Man Carrying A Drop Of Water On A Leaf Through A Thunderstorm/Communal Travel/Coda   Keith Tippett (piano, harmonium, recorder, voice, maracas), Julie Tippetts (voice, sopranino recorder, er-hu), Harry Miller (bass), Frank Perry (percussion, voice, hs îao, sh éng).   Recorded live at Nettlefold Hall, London SE27, 6 August 1975. Released: Autumn 1976. Produced by Ovary Lodge and Keith Beal. Sleeve design by Liz Walton.   (Author's Note: The album credits explain that an "er-hu" [most commonly spelled without a hyphen as "erhu"] is a "two-stringed Chinese violin," a " hs îao" [modern spelling: "xiao"] is a "Chinese bamboo flute" and a " sh éng" is a "Chinese bamboo mouth organ.") This is the first entry on Ogun to involve Keith Tippett, beyond question the most important non-South African musician to be associated with the label. One coul...

  (Originally published on Facebook, 3 January 2025)   Happy 2025 to one and all, and it's time to press on with my Ogun Records reviews. On this occasion I look at one of the stranger and least typical entries in the label's catalogue.   IRENE SCHWEIZER/RUDIGER CARL/PAUL LOVENS/RADU MALFATTI/HARRY MILLER: Ramifications (OG 500)   Track listing: Elephant Off The Bone/What's Yours Then?/Panacea For -/Rüdiger's Tune Is Called 0202 Which Is The New Code For Wuppertal (Parts A & B)/FMP    Irène Schweizer (piano), Rüdiger Carl (tenor sax), Paul Lovens (drums), Radu Malfatti (trombone), Harry Miller (bass).   Recorded live at the Kunsthaus Zürich, September 1973. Produced by Keith Beal. Cover design: Paul Taylor. Released 1975.   Ramifications is among the least Ogun-looking releases on the label. If anything it resembles an FMP release which perhaps went astray. Three of the participants were FMP regulars and here make their only appearance...

  (Originally published on Facebook, 15 December 2024) It's time for the fourth chapter in my survey of Ogun Records . This is the first album on the label not to involve any of the South African or Caribbean exiles directly, and is only present here by virtue of its label. Nevertheless I do think it essential that we should include all of Ogun's releases, rather than a mere fraction of them, since together they tell an emotionally remarkable tale, and in any case most of these musicians are umbilically linked to the SA diaspora thanks to their involvement with the Brotherhood of Breath and its various satellite bands. That's my excuse, anyway...   S.O.S.: S.O.S. (OG 400)   Alan Skidmore (tenor sax, drums and percussion), Mike Osborne (alto sax and percussion), John Surman (baritone and soprano saxes, bass clarinet and synthesisers)   Track listing: Country Dance/Wherever I Am/Chordary/Where's Junior/Cycle Motion/Ist/Goliath/Calypso   Electronics p...

  (Originally posted on Facebook, 3 December 2024)   Well, while I'm sitting here recovering from my operation - a.k.a. doing nothing - I might as well do some writing, give my poor left arm some purposeful exercise, so here's the third chapter in my Ogun Records survey:   MIKE OSBORNE TRIO: Border Crossing (OG 300)   Track listing: Ken's Tune/Stop And Start/Awakening Spirit/Ist/Animation/Riff/Border Crossing   Mike Osborne (alto sax), Harry Miller (bass), Louis Moholo-Moholo (drums).   Recorded live at the Peanuts Club, "The King's Arms," Bishopsgate, London, 28 September 1974. Produced by Mike Osborne and Keith Beal. Sleeve design: George Hallett.   He might have been absent from the Brotherhood's Willisau gig, but Mike Osborne more than makes up for that in this stupendous record. In 1979's The Illustrated Encylcopaedia Of Jazz , Brian Case makes no bones about referring to Ossie as "Britain's finest alto saxophonist." It...