Mankunku -Yakhal' Inkomo

There are recordings considered  as landmarks in Jazz  and jazz fans have their own milestones,

records and common names like A Love Supreme - John Coltrane

Out to Lunch - Eric Dolphy,Go - Dexter Gordon,Maiden Voyage - Herbie Hancock

The Blues and the Abstract Truth - Oliver Nelson ,Saxophone Colossus - Sonny Rollins

The Sidewinder - Lee Morgan,Monk's Dream - Thelonious Monk,The Shape of

Jazz to Come - Ornette Coleman,Kind of Blue - Miles Davis and the list goes..on and on ..

But me would certainly add among these heights a brave young man from South Africa,

that was just 23 when he recorded Yakhal' Inkomo:Winston "Mankunku" Ngozi.
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Ah... at last it's done. I mean the recording of South Africa's number one tenor sax player, Winston "Mankunku" Ngozi. This is the LP that every jazz fan has been waiting for. Listen to it from side one to the last note on side two then you'll agree with me that this is jazz, dished out by the son of the soil in a soul/jazz bowl.>liners 

In an 2003 interview to Gwen Ansell, Mankunku said:

“Yakhal’ inKomo was an odd tune. Things were tough then – but don’t ask me about all of that,

I don’t want to discuss it. You had to have a pass; you got thrown out;

the police would stop you, you know? I was about 22.

I threw my pass away; wouldn’t carry it. We had it tough. I was always being arrested

and a lot of my friends and I thought it was so tough for black people and put that into the song.

So it was The Bellowing Bull: for the black man’s pain.

And a lot of people would come up to me and say quietly: “Don’t worry bra’.

We understand what you are playing about.”

“I once saw Mankunku Ngozi blowing his saxophone. Yakhal’inkomo.

His face was inflated like a balloon, it was wet with sweat, his eyes huge and red.

He grew tall, shrank, coiled into himself, uncoiled and the cry came out of his horn.

“That is the meaning of Yakhal’ inkomo.”

Mongane Wally Serote

(from the introduction to his collection of poetry entitled Yakhal’ inKomo,

published by Renoster Books in 1972)

more readings  in flatinternational and  wfmu


“He just went deep, right down to the floor of despair, and reached the rim of fear and hatred.
He just spread and spread out and out in meditation, with his horn, Mankunku, Ngozi,
that guy from the shores of South Africa, and he said: “That was it.”
For that is what he was doing with his horn, Yakhal’ inKomo…”

this reissue from 1996 combines two records Mankunku recorded within four months in 1968:

one with his own quartet (Yakhal Inkomo) and Spring with pianist Chris Schilder's quintet.

Mankunku Quartet(Yakhal' Inkomo) :

Winston "Mankunku" Ngozi: tenor saxophone

Lionel Pillay:piano

Agrippa Magwaza:bass

Early Mabuza:drums

Chris Schilder Quintet(Spring) :

Chris Schilder:piano

Winston "Maknunku" Ngozi:tenor saxophone

Garry Kriel: guitar

Phillip Schilder: bass

Gilbert Matthews:drums

record review

it was a spear for freedom then )  still is, now  :

Yakhal' Inkomo