Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.It takes guts to release an album smack in the middle of a pandemic lockdown, especially when it’s your debut as leader. But that is precisely what alto saxophonist Linda Tshabalala did in 2021 withThe title expresses her reasons.
The latter centres on a stretched-out sax solo that definitively proclaims who Tshabalala is as a player. The arrangements create generous space for soloists, something Tshabalala says the group noted in the studio, “but not something I deliberately set out to do”. “When you make the choice to play in a certain way, you’re not playing ‘like a man’ or ‘like a woman’. You’re playing like a musician.”“At college, I got to a point where ‘being one of the boys’, which is the usual way of surviving that atmosphere, got very confusing.
Now, Tshabalala feels, “The older you get, the more you understand those dynamics and are able to speak up. If you lose a gig through speaking up, you just learn how to find another one. I like taking the opportunity to dispel myths.”