Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Download includes PDF of liner notes
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Down Lucky's Way + Bheki Mseleku limited bundle
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
'Down Lucky's Way' bundled with TW01 Bheki Mseleku 'Beyond The Stars' at a reduced price.
We have a handful of copies of Beyond The Stars remaining, which we are reducing to £20 when purchased with a copy of Down Lucky's Way.
Includes unlimited streaming of Down Lucky's Way
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Sold Out
12" Vinyl LP
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
12" black vinyl LP. Audio restored by Colin Young at See Why Audio, lacquer cut at Dubplates & Mastering, vinyl pressed at Optimal. Housed in replica laminated flipback sleeve, with artwork remastered from original photography. Printed inners.
Edition of 500 copies.
*WE'RE NOW SOLD OUT! THANK YOU!! If you need vinyl, please head over to www.honestjons.com where there are still copies available*
NB. Sadly, we are not shipping to South Africa at the present time, and any vinyl orders to South Africa will be cancelled and refunded. This is very regrettable indeed, but *every single package* of the Bheki LP we shipped to South Africa was either lost or returned. Copies of Down Lucky's Way WILL be available in South Africa - please enquire at Holy Water Records in Johannesburg (insta: @holy_water_records)
Includes unlimited streaming of Down Lucky's Way
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
First issue since 1969 of the Malombo Jazz Maker’s unknown third album, fully licensed from Julian Bahula, with liner notes featuring interviews with Julian Bahula and Lucky Ranku.
'Malombo music is an indigenous kind of music. If you listen to it, you can feel that it can heal you, if you’ve got something wrong. It’s healing music.'
Lucky Ranku
Lucas ‘Lucky’ Madumetja Ranku (1941-2016) was one of the greatest African guitarists of his generation. He first made his name with the Malombo Jazz Makers – the successor group to the legendary Malombo Jazzmen, formed in Mamelodi township by guitarist Philip Tabane, drummer Julian Bahula and flautist Abbey Cindi. When Tabane left the Jazzmen in 1965, Bahula and Cindi called on Lucky to replace him, and the Malombo Jazz Makers were born. Building on the popularity and success of the original Malombo Jazzmen, the Malombo Jazz Makers become immensely popular, touring widely, winning numerous jazz competitions, and recording two successful albums for the Gallo label.
The deep and hypnotic 'Down Lucky’s Way' was their third album. Recorded in 1969, it was the first Malombo Jazz Makers album to feature additional instruments, and the first to feature Abbey Cindi on soprano saxophone as well as flute. But more than anything else, 'Down Lucky’s Way' is a transfixing showcase for Lucky Ranku’s sui generis guitar virtuosity. Quite different from their previous recordings, the album shifted the Jazz Makers’ sound toward hypnotic, extended compositions, layered by organ bass and guitar overdubs. Of all the Malombo Jazz Makers recordings, 'Down Lucky’s Way' is the deepest of mood, and the richest of vision.
However, through one of the erasures that are ubiquitous in South African musical history under apartheid, it seems that the record may not ever have been properly issued. Original copies are outrageously rare – only a few are known among collectors. When we asked Lucky about the album, he was unaware it had ever been released, and had never seen a copy. Perhaps it was pulled; perhaps it was pulped; perhaps Gallo simply took their eye off the ball. Nobody knows, but it is not impossible that the apartheid authorities were involved, for by 1969, the Malombo Jazz Makers were well known to them.
Julian Bahula’s introduction of malopo drums to the music of the original Malombo Jazzmen was a moment of crucial political and cultural radicalism for South African jazz. Traditionally used by BaPedi people for healing, the malopo drums of Malombo music re-centered jazz around indigenous sounds and culture, and over the next decade, the Malombo Jazz Makers became deeply involved in political opposition to apartheid. Their recovery of indigenous sounds made them the musical standard bearer for the Black Consciousness movement, and they toured South Africa clandestinely with the writer and anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko. They also broke apartheid laws by playing with the white rock group Freedom’s Children, sometimes appearing on stage in masks or made up with UV paint to avoid detection by the authorities; they appeared regularly at the rule-bending Free People’s Concerts organized by David Marks, where Marks’ clever exploitation of a loophole – mixed audiences were prohibited from attending ticketed concerts where anyone was being paid, but the law said nothing about private functions played by artists for free – meant people could come together in defiance of apartheid laws. The notorious Special Branch would raid their concerts; Lucky remembered police storming an auditorium, throwing smoke bombs.
Eventually the political situation became too dangerous, and the band were being actively sought by the police. Though Abbey Cindi remained in South Africa, both Julian Bahula and Lucky Ranku went into political exile in the UK, where Bahula founded the group Jabula with Lucky and former members of Cymande, Steve Scipio and Michael ‘Bami’ Rose. With Jabula, Julian and Lucky worked tirelessly for the anti-apartheid movement, raising funds and awareness all over Europe and in the US. They played with Dudu Pukwana’s Spear in the joint formation Jabula-Spear, and worked together in Bahula’s Jazz Afrika formation; in 1984 Bahula organized the first Concert for Mandela, and it was Jabula that supplied the chorus for The Special A.K.A.’s hit single ‘Nelson Mandela’. Lucky also played and recorded with Chris McGregor’s South African Exiles Thunderbolt group. After the fall of apartheid, they both remained living and working in the UK. In 2012 the South African government awarded Julian Bahula the Gold Order of Ikhamanga for his cultural work during the struggle against apartheid.
Until his death in 2016, Lucky continued to play with countless groups and musicians, putting together the band Township Express with Pinise Saul, and leading his own African Jazz Allstars. The influence of his playing on the international perception of South African township music was immense, and he was held in the highest regard by his peers – ‘Lucky was a guitarist who could bring any house down’, said Michael ‘Bami’ Rose.
But despite his continuous presence on the UK live circuit over four decades, Lucky Ranku never recorded an album as leader. And so as well as restoring an important lost piece of South African musical heritage, 'Down Lucky’s Way' is a precious opportunity to hear one of Africa’s foremost guitarists stretching out, in focus and in his element.
For distribution enquiries please contact Honest Jons Records - distribution (at) honestjons (dot) com
credits
released May 5, 2023
Lucky Ranku: guitar
Julian Bahula: malombo drums
Abbey Cindi: flute, soprano saxophone
Dick Khoza: drums
Zakes Mkhubule: bass
Andrew Mfundi: organ
Licensed from Julian Bahula
Produced for reissue by Federico Bolza and Francis Gooding
Liner notes, interviews, editing: Francis Gooding
Mastering: Colin Young at See Why Audio
Layout: Andrew Symington at Divine Inc.
Produced in collaboration with Honest Jons
supported by 52 fans who also own “Down Lucky's Way”
Magic in its purest form. I love Floating Points, I love Pharoah Sanders, I love The London Symphony Orchestra. It's a match made in heaven, and the result is absolutely gorgeous. I have loved this record since its release, and realized I don't own it for some reason. So its time to change that. 9.5/10 honestly could become a 10/10 on an indepth vinyl relisten. angrypizza98
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On this sprawling double LP, the South African drummer leads his band through a series of mournful and vibrantly melodic spiritual jazz compositions. Bandcamp Album of the Day Jul 6, 2020
supported by 38 fans who also own “Down Lucky's Way”
Long-form trance-y rhythmic jams, with a fun shambling edge, sounding like a cross between music from Africa's Sahel region crossed with a Tom Waits instrumental... Jascha Narveson