Indeed. Mseleku’s first U.S. release, “Timelessness” (Verve), puts him in the front rank of jazz’s mystics. Music’s core function is “spiritual transformation,” he says, and whatever one makes of that, his writing and playing are undeniably ethereal. Surrounded by top-flight colleagues, notably the drummer Marvin (Smitty) Smith, Mseleku, 39, also proves he has technique to spare. “Unlike some of the younger unknowns we’ve seen, he doesn’t have to wait a couple of years: he’s there,” says saxophonist Joe Henderson, who has hired Mseleku for his next tour.
As a composer, Mseleku has grown away from his roots. Although he first came to England with Hugh Masekela in 1985, his latest tunes only hint at the indigenous styles the trumpeter celebrates: marabi, kwela and mbaqanga. Some American players who have looked to Africa for inspiration-pianist Randy Weston and, more recently, saxophonist Rene McLean-sound more African than this Zulu son of Natal province. Mseleku’s playing owes at least as much to Chick Corea and McCoy Tyner. The repetition in traditional African music can bore Westerners; part of Mseleku’s gift is knowing how to relieve the incantatory vamps that propel many of his compositions. These tunes have staying power. Abbey Lincoln got it right in the lyrics she wrote for “Through the Years,” a ballad on the record honoring those “who bring a haunting melody and play a simple song.”
But music isn’t Mseleku’s main mission. “My life is based on trying to find out who I am in essence,” he says. “I’m not interested in the gymnastics of the sport of music-I want to use it as away of unifying people.” In 1987, disheartened over squabbling among members of his band, he quit performing and moved into a Hindu temple in London for three years, teaching at a cooperative school. He emerged in 1990 to record his first album. “I’ve been somewhat isolated sometimes, being in myY own world,” he said. jazz is richer for his eccentricity.
