It's so long ago but hearing this I thought back immediately to the 1990s and hearing Bheki Mseleku, the great South African pianist. I saw Bheki in Bath and in London a few times at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and outside during the Jazz on a Summer's Day festival at Ally Pally. At the QEH Bheki, who died in 2008, was playing with Joe Henderson. Mseleku had a mystical sense to him and when you heard him you travelled to another sphere entirely. He conducted us there.

The other force of nature whose sound is also here very certainly somewhere in the air is the late McCoy Tyner, his sound a contrast to Mseleku's not Afojazz in the folkloric sense harnessing local music and ancient traditions that you got with Mseleku although Mseleku's sound like Abdullah Ibrahim's slots directly into African American jazz in certain senses, probably through the inspiration of Duke Ellington. What Tyner brings inside Makhatini's sound and it is certainly there, is direct from John Coltrane, the harmonies that underpinned the classic quartet and a sense of the universe.

The most exciting pianist to emerge from the South African scene in many years Makhatini is an important signing for Blue Note. Who knows what the future is but this pianist I think will be an icon of African jazz. This album is certainly an instant classic.

Makhatini is the pianist in Shabaka and the Ancestors, here he unveils a new side to his artistry: all tracks are consistently engrossing. The fervour of 'Indawu' is striking, particularly, a tribute to the spirits of the Nguni people that live in and underneath water and features Logan Richardson on sax among the personnel and in their excellent rapport recalls Mseleku's understanding with Henderson. Lift your spirits, begin a new consciousness, by discovering these epic sounds today. SG