Mankunku Quartet – Yakhal' Inkomo (Special editon, Half speed master)

The Mankunku Quartet's 1968 album "Yakhal' Inkomo" is just over 30 minutes of jazz perfection. This compact and to the point album would comfortably join the ranks of the best works in the catalogs of major jazz labels such as Blue Note, Prestige and Impulse. However, "Yakhal' Inkomo" was originally released on the South African record label World Record Co. which resulted in it becoming a hard-to-find and sought-after item for jazz collectors. Copies of the first pressing sometimes fetch prices of up to £1,000 on the collectors' market. It has long been regarded as one of the best South African jazz albums, and DJ and broadcaster Gilles Peterson backed this up when he included it in his radio program "The 20 - South African Jazz", which focuses on the "best of the genre".

Tenor saxophonist Winston "Mankunku" Ngozi recorded the session on July 23, 1968, at Manley van Niekerk Studios in Johannesburg. It was recorded by Dave Challen and produced by Ray Nkwe. The session consists of two original works by Mankunku on the A-side, 'Yakhal' Inkomo' & 'Dedication (To Daddy Trane and Brother Shorter)', and on the B-side the Horace Silver composition 'Doodlin' and a John Coltrane number 'Bessie's Blues'. Strikingly, the compositions penned by Mankunku not only rival Silver and Coltrane, but are arguably the better pieces on the record - a testament to Mankunku's prodigious writing and playing.

'Yakhal' Inkomo' is accompanied by great musicians Agrippa Magwaza on bass, drummer Early Mabuza and pianist Lionel Pillay. Since Pillay was of Indian descent, this was a multiracial group, and the very recording of the album was an act of resistance, breaking the apartheid restrictions of the time. The title "Yakhal' Inkomo" means "the roar of the bull." Black audiences would have understood this as coded community symbolism and an act of protest, but it escaped the attention of the white government.

For this edition, we enlisted the services of Miles Showell, Abbey Road Studios' mastering and lacquer cutting engineer, to cut a special half-speed master from the audio of the original master tapes. Miles has previously worked on our reissues of Arthur Verocai, Marcos Valle and Ian Carr, and once again we are blown away by the richness and clarity of Miles' work. We have also presented the CD as a replica with the cover artwork and labels of the original World Record Co. release.

Ray Nkwe, the producer and president of the Jazz Appreciation Society of South Africa, writes on the cover, "This is the LP every jazz fan has been waiting for," and Ray wasn't wrong, it's a stone-cold, timeless jazz classic.