McCoy Mrubata - The Strings Attached Project - First Green (2022)

For Cape Town-born Mrubata, this, his 13th release as leader since Firebird in 1989, realise a long-cherished dream to work across the whole community of musicians – vocal, rhythm, brass and strings – he has been building. He describes pre-production work from 2016 with fellow saxophonist and arranger Gareth Harvey and in 2018 meeting string players from Daveyton on the East Rand: "a place that is so rich in talent." Some tracks were laid down in that year, at the same time as Mrubata's Brasskap Sessions Volume 3, a project conceived with space for young community musicians.

Collaborations span regions, musical generations (from veteran vocalist Sylvia Mdunyelwa on Thula to the young instrumentalists) and styles. The dozen tracks include a new arrangement by bassist Concord Nkabinde of Mrubata favourite Khumbul'Ekhaya, four by Harvey and five by another bassist Viwe Mkhizwana. Some tracks feature string players from Daveyton and Soweto alongside regular Gauteng playing partners; others present collaborations with jazz musicians from Cape Town's Unity Band and a string quartet assembled there by Harvey.

All of this is deliberate: enacting Mrubata's highly personal approach to social cohesion: not as a slogan, but a lived assertion that, to achieve anything, we all have to be able to exist and work together. "Other musicians' work always adds something to mine," he says.

Compositions reflect a similar sharing. Rune left a mini-disk for Mrubata after finishing work on a South African project. "She'd written a song for me – 'It's about spring in Sweden' – and she hoped I liked it. Well, I loved it!" The song, First Green, finally found its perfect fit on this album: so perfect that it provided not only the title but also a cover image, taken in Sweden by Rune.

More poignantly personal is South African, Norway-based saxophonist Shannon Mowday's composition Women of Africa. It was written in 2010 to challenge gender-based violence in the aftermath of the murder of Mrubata's daughter in Cape Town. He says he was "emotionally...knocked out" by it. Having asked Mkizwana to develop string arrangements from Mowday's big-band charts, he was "really nervous so I sent her a rough to make sure she approved." In its new form, the song still carries all the emotional punch of Mowday's original, with Mrubata's horn speaking of both hope and haunting regret.

Both are examples of Mrubata's deliberate intention that this album must represent all the roles women play in music today: subject matter, vocalists, composers and instrumentalists.

Original tracks sit alongside re-visionings of earlier Mrubata compositions such as Two Ma Sophies, Tunisia and Ma Madosini – sometimes sounding startlingly fresh in their new string clothing. For empathy with the strings, Mrubata chooses a gentler reed and flute tone, "which was important for this music" and was developed much earlier, working with "my old friend Paul [Hanmer, pianist] ...on his albums Playola and Windows To Elsewhere."

The idiom of South African jazz playing – " dragging or anticipating the beat" – occasionally frustrated his classical colleagues, Mrubata says: "Their training is to come straight down on it. It's tricky for them: 'Eh, man, this is jazz you're playing now!'" Tricky or no, you'll hear the strings swinging and grooving (listen to Zodwa Wam') alongside everybody else here, as well as tackling more formal parts. The First Green shoots of this musical spring represent new directions for everybody involved – Gwen Ansell