Chris McGregor
Album: Sea Breezes
Label: Fledg'ling
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.thebeesknees.com

Over the past four years, the Fledg’ling label has been collaborating with the estate of this acclaimed South African pianist to reissue his most important albums and, through a series of unreleased recordings, help to reveal the full extent of his musical activities.

Sea Breezes falls into the latter category, and presents us with an opportunity to hear solo performances of repertoire familiar from McGregor’s final Brotherhood Of Breath album (1988’s Country Cooking), from which no fewer than five of the compositions in this 1987 live set (recorded at an emotional homecoming gig in Durban in October 1987) are drawn. This brings over an hour and a quarter of sheer bliss, with McGregor on absolutely scintillating form.

His unique combination of energy and restraint is demonstrated powerfully yet subtly on numbers like Maxine especially, while his special affinity with the music of Duke Ellington, though subliminally present in his playing throughout, comes to the fore most on the final selection Prelude To A Kiss, which magically interpolates the Blue Notes favourite Kudala (Long Ago). In that Ellingtonian context, it comes as a perennial source of amazement how this master musician manages to convey a kind of big-band sensibility in just one instrument, the humble piano. And the man’s undoubted affection for his homeland is reflected in the infectious township bounce he conjures from the keyboard on tracks like the concert opener You And Me. Quite simply, this breezy and utterly life-affirming performance is to be judged as a must-listen for those with open ears and minds (even those who “don’t do jazz”).

David Kidman