NDUDUZO MAKHATHINI

Photo of Bheki Mseleku courtesy of John Watson.

Music should be just experienced every time, all the day[s] of your life. It should also [be] a spiritual thing, a ritual.

Bheki Mseleku (The South Bank Show, 1994)

Introduction

In this article I explore various notions of spirituality at work in Bheki Mseleku’s life and music. Drawing on interviews, personal correspondence, published articles, documentaries and Mseleku’s musical output, I am especially interested in Mseleku’s own remarks concerning music and spirituality, ultimately to arrive at a more nuanced understanding of his music and performance process. My approach in this chapter stems in the first instance from the way in which Mseleku embeds both his music and his worldview or life philosophy in an acute awareness of spirituality:

I live my life by being more aware of the spiritual world; I am attracted for instance to the spiritual masters; the teachings of Jesus, the teachings of Buddha, the teachings of Krishna, the teachings of Guru Nanak, the prophet Mohammed [and] of all different religions.

(Bheki Mseleku: Talkin Jazz,1994).

References to spirituality and mysticism abound in Mseleku’s musical aesthetic, as is evident in album titles like Meditations and Timelessness as well as track titles like ‘The age of the divine mother’, ‘The age of the inner knowing’ and ‘Looking within’, to name a few); but also in his discourse about music, for instance in liner notes or interviews. Before his contract with Verve, Mseleku recorded on the label Samadhi, a Buddhist and Hindu term that refers to the state of consciousness induced by complete meditation (Jazzwise, 2007).

A study of Mseleku’s life and music cannot sidestep the theme of spirituality, which is inextricably part of Mseleku’s construction of his musical practice and the narratives surrounding his life and music. The persistent foregrounding of spirituality, however, poses difficulties for academic writing which, on the whole, suffers from the generic constraints of (Western) conventions and their demand for reason and science. The historic role that spirituality played as a counter-discourse to Western ideals such as rationality and Christianity, especially in jazz practice and in black resistance discourses (Civil Rights and Black Consciousness movements), offers one way of understanding Mseleku’s ideas. The ways that Mseleku’s spiritual ideas play at the edge and often transgress the boundaries of accepted academic conventions – in other words, the moments of academic unease in this text – perform this understanding of spirituality as a counter-discourse. This article therefore deliberately does not shy away from these tensions.

Perhaps this interpretation of spirituality as resistance is not the only way to view Mseleku’s spirituality. Marcel Cobussen’s understanding of the interplay between music and spirituality may also provide a helpful frame of reference for what follows. For Cobussen, “music is able to instigate a rethinking of spirituality”, whilst the resultant reimagining of spirituality “opens up new possibilities to encounter music” (2008: 26). “Dwelling in this space that is both created by and allowing of reflection”, he continues, “becomes simultaneously the act of transforming it, adding on, replacing, altering, transgressing the already existing limits” (Cobussen 2008:26).

In what follows, I discuss modalities of spirituality in Mseleku’s music and worldview as avenues for “transforming…, adding on, replacing, altering, transgressing the already existing limits”. In the following two sections, I will focus on three such modalities, namely Christianity, African philosophies and Eastern mysticism, which display and oscillate between both these interpretations. I then discuss how Mseleku’s spirituality informs his musical development and aesthetic.

South Africa: Between Christianity and Indigenous Practices

Christianity in South Africa has a long history that is intimately linked (as elsewhere) with colonialism. It is important to note that, since the arrival of the Dutch settlers in South Africa in 1652, Christianity increasingly became the administered religion. The constant flow of missionaries from Britain and elsewhere, and their tireless efforts to translate the Bible into local dialects and languages, further popularized and perpetuated the spread of Christianity (Elphick and Davenport, 1997:118).  As a result, Christianity is still a dominant religion in South Africa (Erasmus, 2012:45).

This predominance of Christianity is even more evident among those who demonstrated an interest in learning to play musical instruments. As missionaries introduced Western classical musical instruments, they also introduced the skills to read and write this music (Ansell, 2005: 9). By the 1950s, missionary establishments still played a big role in music education among black South Africans. Father Trevor Huddleston, the head of the Anglican St. Peters College, initiated the jazz band that became the training ground for prominent South African musicians such as Hugh Masekela, Jonas Gwangwa and others who later worked with Mseleku (Masekela and Cheers, 2004: 63-5; Ansell, 2005: 96 and 213).

Mseleku’s family attended St. James Roman Catholic Church in Lamontville, where his father William Mseleku was choir conductor and composer. His older brother, Langa Mseleku, later became a conductor and organist in the same congregation (personal communication with Langa Mseleku, 20 August, 2017). As much as many families were Christian, this was not to the exclusion of African spiritual practices, as noted by Richard Elphick and Rodney Davenport who wrote “But alongside the [holy] Spirit, some churches also recognize ‘the spirits’ – ancestral beings who appear in dreams to convey messages to the living” (1997: 222). Alluding to this hybridism in South African religions, Langa Mseleku also confirmed in a conversation with me that the Mseleku family maintained links with African spiritual practices.

In keeping with African views of music as bound up with the spiritual domain and healing practices, Mseleku viewed himself as a medium through which healing might be channelled (The South Bank Show, 1994). Although partly indebted to Eastern philosophies (as we will see in the next section), this kind of thinking bears a strong resemblance to African modes of healing or ubungoma. Typically practiced by traditional healers in Southern Africa, ubungoma is believed to be the link between the seen and the unseen, the unseen being the realm of the ancestors. Isangoma is a medium, someone who is chosen by ancestors and entrusted with the gift of healing and divination (Ogana and Ojong, 2015). Although never undergoing the conventional initiation process of ukwethwasa (as discussed in detail in Peek 1991: 27), Mseleku’s conviction that he was to act as a medium bears the hallmarks of ubungoma. Describing the process of conceiving “Umngoma”, a song Mseleku claims to have received from a dream, he relates the process of ubungoma through music:

I also see myself a medium but using sounds, using music and I try to be more conscious of this working towards purifying the tube which this energy runs through.

(The South Bank Show, 1994)

Before Mseleku, there were other artists similarly committed to these practices in their music, notably guitarist Philip Tabane (Galane, 2010: 6-11). As the reader will recall, Mseleku played in Philip Tabane’s group Malombo early in his music career when he was still in Johannesburg. At a time when many South African jazz musicians went into exile abroad, Philip Tabane remained in South Africa and developed a distinct jazz sound that drew deeply on endogenous music practices. He also viewed his music practice in these holistic spiritual terms. Tabane’s use of the malombo drum (and its invocation in the name of his band), is significant since the malombo invokes the ancestors in Venda music and spiritual practices.

The South African-American connection

Like John Coltrane, Mseleku embraced a universal consciousness that encompassed all religions. Perhaps through these parallels one can argue that similar to the American Civil Rights discourses in the 1960s, embracing different forms of spirituality functioned as a counter-hegemonic strategy in Mseleku’s artistic work and within a broader context of the black South African community. In her essay “Appropriating Universality: The Coltranes and 1960s Spirituality”, Franya Berkman remarks that the shift by jazz musicians to spirituality was a significant contribution in the creation of a new jazz aesthetic, suggesting that it is therefore limiting to view the music of this period entirely within political frameworks (Berkman, 2007: 41).

Mseleku’s preoccupation with spirituality has its precursor in a generation of jazz musicians who were prominent during the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. This period coincided with a transformation in the articulations and the aesthetics of experimental jazz, one that was marked by a quest for spiritualism (Pitchfork, 2015; Berkman, 2007: 41-62). It is also interesting that when saxophonist Joe Henderson first encountered Mseleku’s music during the recording of Timelessness, he located Mseleku’s music within this period in jazz: “It’s like he should have been part of the ’60s in America… I feel a very strong kinship with him” (Bheki Mseleku: Talkin Jazz, 1994).

In the 1960s in America, Black political leaders, artists and musicians experimented with different modalities of spirituality: the distinctly Christian ethos of Martin Luther King Jr and the practice of non-violent protests (History.com Staff 2009) but also Islam, Eastern, African, Swahili and Arabic traditions (Pitchfork, 2015; Berkman, 2007: 41).

It is important to stress that this turn towards religion and spirituality occurred in the name of freedom, a freedom that refused to conform to the social and religious norms imposed by the governing classes. One of the landmark albums that led the way in this regard is John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme.

Released in 1965, the album features McCoy Tyner (piano), Elvin Jones (drums), and Jimmy Garrison (bass) (The NPR 100, 2012). A Love Supreme is entrenched in devotion, religion and spirituality: “A Love Supreme has even spawned something of a religious sect.” (Westervelt, 2012). A notable group of musicians followed Coltrane’s lead, amongst them the pianist McCoy Tyner, pianist and harpist Alice Coltrane, saxophonist Pharaoh Sanders, saxophonist Archie Shepp, and saxophonist Albert Ayler, all of whom at one time or another played in Coltrane’s band (COS 2016; Red Bull Music Academy Daily, 2016).

Most musicians in the 1960s were becoming more explicit about their quest for spirituality. As examined by Berkman, the Eastern approaches to spriritual enlightenment became evident in their interviews, song titles and liner notes. Moreover, these artist were also practicing Yoga, Hinduism, Buddhism, Ahmadiya Islam and Bahá’í. This influenced their compositional styles and sometimes instrumentations (Berkman, 2007: 41).

Eastern philosophies

Mseleku’s engagement with Eastern notions of spirituality became more evident during his years in exile in the 1980s. Although Mseleku embraced diverse modalities of spirituality (The South Bank Show, 1994; Bheki Mseleku: Talkin Jazz, 1994), he was especially inclined towards Eastern philosophies or ways of doing (Fordham, 2008). Amongst these, Buddhism deserves special mention. Taken broadly, Buddhism is concerned with spiritual awakening through meditation and with detachment from the material world (Pande, 1995). For Mseleku, the Buddhist temple became an important space of retreat and reflection, both during his time in exile in the 1980s and upon his return to South Africa after 1994. As John Fordham wrote in an obituary shortly after Mseleku’s death in 2008:

Typically, the fragile Mseleku backed away … retiring for two years of occasional teaching and contemplation in a Buddhist temple, with no phone, and no piano. He was to tell me at that time: “I feel if I evolve spiritually, the music will have more depth. Maybe even from one note, like Pharoah [Sanders] does”.

(Fordham 2008)

While in exile, Mseleku would occasionally set aside routine comforts and material possessions, retreating from the music scene to spend time at the Shyama Ashram Radha Krishna Temple on Balham High Road in London. This incidence in Mseleku’s life resembles that of Alice Coltrane in 1976 when she renounced the world and devoted herself to the Hindu traditions where she participated in learning Vedanta philosophy and played devotional music until her death in 2007 (Berkman, 2007: 43). It was during this time in Mseleku’s life that he received a devotional name, Kishoridas (or Kishori for short), given to him by his guru, Mataji Shyma. When she left the temple, Mataji Shyma assigned her first disciple, Guru Dass, to care for Mseleku (personal communication with Eugene Skeef, 2017).^{[1]Guru Dass is identified as Mataji Shyma’s first disciple in the acknowledgments Mseleku wrote for Timelessness (1994) and Star Seeding (1995).} Unlike musicians such as Abdullah Ibrahim, Yusef Lateef and Art Blakey, (Curtis 2010: 308) Mseleku did not change his name to signal a religious and personal shift, but rather retained Kishoridas as a devotional name.

Partly in response to frustrations he experienced in the music industry, Mseleku’s habit to retreat for extended periods attests to an enduring commitment to a spiritual life in tandem with a process of self-purification (Eugene Skeef, personal communication, 27 July 2017; Fordham, 2008), as well as a keen awareness of the implications, challenges and responsibilities that stemmed from his approach to music and improvisation (The South Bank Show, 1994). Mseleku believed that an overt purification of the self was integral to the process of becoming a “medium” that could channel healing (The South Bank Show, 1994):

…From a spiritual point of view, I still need to let go more and open myself, purify myself more for let [sic] the complete Holy Spirit to come through and work through me….

(Mseleku: Talkin Jazz, 1994)

Cobussen’s idea (cited in the introduction) that spirituality “opens up new possibilities to encounter music”, holds true also for Mseleku. Thus, retreats to the Shyama Ashram Krishna Temple became occasions for learning and ultimately mastering Indian ragas on multiple instruments, namely saxophone, harmonium and flute. Before the recording of Star Seeding (1995), few of Mseleku’s musician colleagues knew about his considerable abilities on instruments other than the piano, since professionally Mseleku regarded himself as a pianist (Guru Dass, 2017; The South Bank Show, 1994). Guru Dass was responsible for introducing Mseleku to yogananda teachings/modes of meditation (this form of meditation is based on the teachings of Parhamhansa Yogananda, which are based on self-realization among other things; Yogananda, 1946), and later also to swaminarayan mantras (a key mantra within the swaminarayan faith believed to relieve devotees’ karma bondages; Guru Dass, 2017). The idea of a mantra – a repeated phrase capturing a spiritual idea – features prominently on Mseleku’s Meditations album of 1992.

In an interview with Eugene Skeef, Guru Dass shared his recollections of Mseleku’s talents and involvements in the Temple (Mseleku played flute, saxophone and harmonium during meditation in the Temple):

He was a man who had multiple talents, he was very attractive, [and] he was very good looking… He was like a Krishna playing flute….

(Guru Dass personal communication, 2017)

Others, such as trumpeter Hugh Masekela, saxophonist Courtney Pine and drummer Marvin “Smitty” Smith, have remarked on the importance Mseleku accorded spirituality (The South Bank Show, 1994; Marvin “Smitty” Smith interview with Eugene Skeef, 2016). As Masekela commented: “He is very sincere and committed to his spiritual beliefs. … It helps him. I don’t say he leans on it, but I say that some of [Mseleku’s] magic … comes from [it]” (The South Bank Show, 1994).

Although Masekela attributed Mseleku’s “magic” in part to his spirituality, Mseleku himself was aware of both the necessity and limitations of excellent technical ability. That Mseleku possessed exceptional pianistic abilities cannot be denied. What is intriguing, however, is how he would always stress the importance of spirituality as something independent of technique, although he was attentive to the ways in which excellent instrumental technique could be pressed into the service of spirituality:

…There are people who are maybe touched by the spiritual side of the music, which has nothing to do much with technique though technique can help….

(Bheki Mseleku: Talkin Jazz, 1994)

Furthermore, Mseleku draws attention to the importance of capturing through music lived experience, beyond the confines of the purely technical. It is almost as if Mseleku was in a constant trance — not unlike what one would encounter in shamanism — allowing him to transcend the merely physical (discussed at length in Lewis, 2003: 25-51):

Technique is something but experience is something else. Some people have a good technique but they don’t have a story to tell because they haven’t lived deeply.

(Bheki Mseleku quoted in Willgress, 1994: 30)

Intersections between Mseleku’s musical development and spiritual notions of transmission

I now want to turn to Mseleku’s musical development, specifically in relation to the learning of different instruments, and how this pedagogy informed – and was informed by – different modalities of spirituality. It is interesting that, unlike most of his colleagues, Mseleku never received any formal music education, let alone private lessons with mentors or teachers. Typically, he spoke about his proficiency on multiple instruments without any conventional sense of training and technical challenges:

When I started playing, I discovered that I could play effortlessly. I must have had a lot of music when I was young….

(Bheki Mseleku, The South Bank Show, 1994)

In Mseleku’s account, his musical development transpired through a series of realizations, or what he referred to as memories from past lives. Implicit in this last phrase is Mseleku’s assumption that this was not his first life, signaling his belief in reincarnation and a previous incarnation in which he may have been a musician in a former life or lives (Ansell, 1999; Fordam, 2008).

…I use a lot of theories, my own theories. What I’m saying is that it’s natural for me… That knowledge comes from my past life. So there is nothing new I can bring to anyone else, because there is nothing old. Life never started, life always was.

(Bheki Mseleku in Sinker, 1987)

The idea of an afterlife is often mentioned in various texts in Eastern religions with reference to enlightened beings who undergo voluntary rebirth as a result of their compassion for the enlightenment of fellow beings (Chitkara 1998: 1). In a different context, a similar idea can be distinguished in African modalities of spirituality, namely in a form of idlozi ancestral spirit (Bryant 1995: 140). Having myself grown up in semi-rural KwaZulu Natal, I encountered similar notions amongst maskanda players who, like Mseleku, were skilled instrumentalists without any formal training. These musicians would often claim that their skills were transmitted, or given them, by ancestors, in a dream, or during a ritual which often involved them spending time by the river or in a particular cemetery. Even amongst a younger generation of musicians, there is the idea that Mseleku’s capabilities on numerous instruments were somehow linked to his sense of deep spirituality. Pianist Moses Molelekwa, himself an admirer of Mseleku’s music, had this to say on the subject:

Spiritually he is at a very high level to learn all those instruments and master them in this life. It tells me he has been here before, maybe two three times before.

(Molelekwa, 1999-2000)

Or as the Stephen Graham notes elsewhere:

There is a zen-like sense of repose with Bheki Mseleku. It’s not just his piano playing, or when he manages, quite extraordinarily, somehow to play a saxophone and accompany himself on the piano at the same time; it’s his persona, the Zulu in his soul, the meditative aura that is central to everything he stands for.

(Graham, 2007)

Situating spirituality in Mseleku’s music

Mseleku’s music, compositional style, album texts and liner notes all bear testimony to the different modalities of spirituality discussed in this article. A spiritual symbolism is significantly present in his choice of song titles, harmonies, chord progressions and melodies; a symbolism derived from his conviction that music brings forth a certain vibration capable of spawning harmony or dissonance (The South Bank Show, 1994).

I get attracted to play[ing] these kind[s] of changes… going from… the key where I started until I’ve played [all] 12 keys… Because of the flow… This has to do with trying to heal myself and to heal the vibration where I’m in rather than maybe distorting things….

(Bheki Mseleku, The South Bank Show, 1994)

Most of Mseleku’s compositions were built from cyclic structures that modulate in a systematic way through all twelve keys before the cycle repeats itself. This compositional technique became more ubiquitous ever since John Coltrane explored Nicolas Slonimsky’s Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns in pieces such as ‘Giant Steps’ and ‘Count Down’ (Demsey, 1991). Mseleku’s preference for cyclic forms ties in with his belief that all life is realised according to a similar pattern, namely reincarnation, which is itself a cyclic progression (The South Bank Show, 1994; Ansell, 1999). I want to suggest that the conclusions Mseleku reached on these matters stemmed also from an enduring interest in cosmogony and Pythagorean studies (Ansell, 1999), all of which are are concerned with the origins, cyclic and geometrical nature of existence (Baldry, 1932).

Such abstract thinking in jazz has always existed through musicians like Sun Ra. Ra was an African American keyboard player who became popular for fusing Afrocentric and futuristic thinking. He had an interest Egyptology, numerology, astrology, interplanetary travels and, similar to Mseleku, Ra believed he carried messages from past lives (Rollefson, 2008).

From a musical point of view the compositional technique was borrowed and inspired by John Coltrane’s ‘Coltrane Changes’, first recorded on ‘Giant Steps’, one of Coltrane’s most popular songs (Porter, 1985). According to Mseleku, this kind of writing was aimed at projecting a positive vibration to consciousness, his surroundings and as a way of healing himself (The South Bank Show, 1994):

Whenever I can get the time, to go within [myself] and feel a sense of purity, peace and security, I try to convey this to my music… The major intention is that of simplicity but it doesn’t mean something that is advanced… a tune like ‘Giant Steps’… is not simple, it is simple because he [John Coltrane] was thinking the same way that I’m thinking about love… It’s a mystical thing.

(Bheki Mseleku, The South Bank Show, 1994)

Mseleku’s spiritual connections are especially embodied in song titles, often intended as tributes to life, spiritual gurus or musicians. From his debut, Celebration, he used titles such as ‘The Age of The Inner Knowing’, ‘Supreme Love’, and ‘Closer to the Source’. His spirituality is equally witnessed in album liner notes. Printed on his Star Seeding album is a dedication: “This album is dedicated to the divine mother.” In the liner notes, we find a striking example of the eclectic and multi-layered ethos of Mseleku’s spirituality, all embedded in a belief in the oneness of life:

Thanks to Billy Higgins, Charlie Haden and their families, to all the Polygram staff, to Jean Philippe and Francois Zalacain. Thanks to all my friends and to all my family. Special thanks to The Supreme Spirit, The great Beloved Father, Mother, God and all the Masters of spiritual enlightenment; Mataji Shyama, Muktananda Baba, Paramahansa Yogananda and the great avatars; Sri Lord Krishna, Beloved Jesus Christ, Beloved Gautama Buddha, Beloved Prophet Mohamed, Meera-Ma, Sai Baba, Nitya Nanda, and to archangel Michael The Divine Protector.

(Star Seeding, 1995)

Another instance that makes explicit Mseleku’s spirituality is his 1992 solo recording, Meditations. As examined by Berkman, the embrace of Eastern philosophies gave birth to novel nuances in the jazz music of 1960s America (2007:44). The same could be said about Mseleku’s transition to Meditations (1992), where his compositions carry a strong intention and intensity similar to those of Indian ragas (Fordam, 1993). Similar descriptions (borrowing vocabularies from Eastern traditions) within jazz emerged in the 1960s in America, further outlining these commonalties in the music:

Coltrane was clearly getting at music using this vehicle of composition…a modal approach to playing in which he transformed from not focusing on playing jazz chord changes, but rather on delivering a single emotion, similar to the purpose of a raga.

(Rez Abbasi, Demsey, 1991: 171-172)

Concluding thoughts

Mseleku held firm to a belief in the universal oneness of things, a belief that drew on Eastern philosophy and ancient African philosophy alike. We witness the manifestation of such teaching in how Mseleku viewed life, navigated and shared performance space with his various ensembles but also how he shared himself with communities he lived in (Fordham, 1992):

I’m completely open and I am for the union of all religions and also the union of all the people on earth because I feel like that, I think that I attract the universal consciousness so that if I’m playing something will come through and attract the people who are inspiring, who want the world to think this way (Bheki Mseleku: Talkin Jazz, 1994).

It is quite evident that Mseleku’s music and thoughts were connected to even a greater quest of creating harmony in the universe: “…We are all part of one being… Because that alone will lead us to Godhead”.

(Mseleku in Sinker, 1987: 30)

Though Mseleku never imposed his spiritual beliefs on fellow band members, the connections between his music, life and spirituality, as this article has shown, are important. Someone like Courtney Pine, who played with Mseleku during his London years, has remarked on Mseleku’s connectedness to the music that always brought a sense of hope, a spirit of positivity and a feeling of transcendence. In this way Mseleku’s spiritualism touched the musicians he played with (The South Bank Show, 1994). Even though some of these musicians, like the drummer Marvin “Smitty” Smith, didn’t necessarily share Mseleku’s beliefs, they remained alert to this transcendental energy in the music (Smith interview with Eugene Skeef 2016).

It is highly significant that, besides channelling positive vibrations to the universe in his understanding of music and music making, Mseleku’s music became a platform for personal transcendence. As someone who struggled with fragile mental health, Mseleku needed – and found in his music and spirituality – therapy and healing. When understood together with the way in which his notions of “home” developed in exile to encompass the transcendant universal, spirituality and “home” emerge as entangled concepts. Mseleku is in many respects a troubling presence for a politicized South African jazz discourse of exile and struggle. Not because he did not struggle, and not because his exile was not painful and real. But Mseleku’s musicianship was not easily assimilable to political resistance, and his ideas and psychologically and spiritually infused music did not (and still does not) lend itself to the kind of reductionist narrative that sees music as a utilitarian offshoot of politics. In a sense Mseleku’s great gift to the post-apartheid consciousness of history is that it presents a music of resistance and struggle and exile and enlightenment that is open-ended, and allows the listener to embark on discoveries that predate the loss of innocence that made these things political choices.