Close window

Close window

Year END Appeal advertisement
Get our weekly e-Newsletter!
Recent Reviews
Ephat Mujuru Journey of the Spirit Alula Records, 2002

As the ancient Shona story begins, "I threw my knobkerry across the river and when it landed I heard beautiful music," a story that Ephat Mujuru, Zimbabwe's legendary master mbira player (that's the ancient African plucked keyboard instrument sometimes referred to as a "thumb piano") recited countless times, and that was in a real way an allegory for his life. Like the knobkerry, Ephat's life was flung by the winds or desires of the ancestral spirits, and where it landed there was beautiful music. Ephat touched everything he encountered with humor and joyous music. His life was the journey of the spirit, which appropriately is the title of his final CD, a posthumous release due to his sudden and tragic death from heart failure on October 5, 2001, while en route from Africa to America, crossing the water again to where he would have brought beautiful music.

Ephat Mujuru was born in 1950 in Manicaland, near the Mozambiquan border, to a distinguished clan of spirit mediums and musicians. Because he was my mbira mentor, I found it initially difficult to listen to a CD that carried so many memories, especially after having assisted in its recording, spending hours with him at City Sound studio in New York during the sessions in 1994. When I finally sat to listen, I began to dance with such joy that a new problem emerged--how to keep still enough to listen. The music that pours out of this CD is "lion spirit" music. It would motivate even the dead and lame to dance.

This CD is a milestone in world music recording for several reasons. First, there is the acoustic "live" sound and feel of the mbira, which is captured extremely well here. The listener's ear is placed very close to the instruments allowing one to hear their natural sounds, textures, warmth, buzzing, thumping of bass keys, and sweet whimsical laughter of the high notes. In its rendering of acoustic mbira sound, this CD is in a class by itself. You feel the music. It sets catch a fire inside you impelling you to go beyond listening, and dance.

Danceability! From the first track, "Nyamaropa," to the last, "Taireva," you will find your body moving, whether bouncing to the percussive polyphony of the mbiras or just tapping your foot to the hypnotic beat of the hosho shaker. You might choose to rest on the song "Peace," a meditation on peace in the world, a message that Ephat and his grandfather, Muchatera, prayed, practiced and preached throughout their lives. They knew the power of the mbira's melodic, transcendental message of tranquility and harmony. If you are a fan of Zimbabwean music, and you love Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited, with their rich melodic contrapuntal layering, you will find the inspiration of Mapfumo's sound in Ephat's mbira, the musical voice of the spirit ancestors.

Singing! This CD offers some beautiful choral work, at times chant-like and earthy as the voices at a ceremony, elsewhere sweetly harmonized as on "Africa Meet Africa." This song expresses perhaps the most far-reaching image on the CD, that of a tree with branches all over the world leading back to our shared ancestral home--Africa. Journey of the Spirit is truly a masterful work, successful on so many levels that it stands to be hailed a classic among world music recordings.
Contributed by Kevin Hylton for www.afropop.org