BLUE NOTES Vinyl & CDs

Review: South Africa's first widely known multiracial band, Blue Notes, was formed in Cape Town, 1962. 'Blue Notes For Mongezi' is their opus; it's a sprawling, courageous and rough n' ready jazz album by a quintet unafraid to add discordant notes and odds-and-ends instruments to their repertoire. Formed under apartheid, they eventually settled in London in 1965, culminating in a diasporic sound informed by survival, division and tenacity. Four long movements coalesce to produce an freewheeling free jazz ode to their former bandmate, Mongezi Feza.