Nduduzo Makhathini

Nduduzo Makhathini is an improvisor, scholar and musicologist at the University of KwaZulu Natal school of the arts with a PhD in music obtained from Stellenbosch University. Makhathini’s practice and scholarship focus on constructing alternative sites for practicing and theorising jazz studies in South Africa that consider ba-ntu cosmologies as points of departure.

Makhathini is also a multi award winning artist and internationally acclaimed musician from Pietermariztburg in KwaZulu Natal. As a bandleader, Makhathini holds 12 albums under his belt and he features on many as a sideman and producer. He is currently signed to the prestigious Blue Note Records in the US and has a busy tourist schedule that keeps him relevant in current jazz practices and discourses. Makhathini has collaborated with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Centre Orchestra, Richard Bona, Hamilton de Holanda, (the late) Zim Ngqawana, Omagugu, Shabaka Hutchings, Black Coffee, Thandiswa Mazwai, Mbuso Khoza and most recently, the WDR Big Band just to name a few of his favourite musicians that he has worked with.

Makhathini has also done reputable festivals around the globe such as Umbria Jazz Fest, Joy of Jazz, Jarasum Jazz Fest, Chicago Jazz Fest , Montreal Jazz Fest and Cape Town International Jazz Fest among others.

Currently, Makhathini is performing his recent offering uNomkhubulwane (2024) out on Blue Note Records. uNomkhubulwane is understood to be a mythical rain Goddess who regulates fertility through the language of water. The album is underpinned by an understanding of mythical institutions of Nguni peoples of Southern Africa, their connection to the cosmos and how that relates to ingoma (sound making and healing strategies).

Makhathini has recently returned from a long US, South America and European tour that included his debut at the historical Carnegie Hall in New York and at the Koln Philharmonie.