Xhosa Cole
On A Modern Genius (Vol 1)
by Howard Lawes

However, before deciding to become a musician Xhosa attended dance lessons provided through ACE. Founded in 1996, ACE Dance and Music has become a national and international touring dance company. Although firmly rooted in Birmingham, the company now has a global perspective and are universally recognised leaders in the field of Contemporary African and Caribbean Dance.

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Xhosa was able to hire a saxophone and receive free lessons through the local education authority and attended Andy Hamilton’s Community Music School in Ladywood. He went to Holyhead School in Handsworth and became a member of the jazz band led by Ray Prince and Sid Peacock. Xhosa would later play in Peacock’s Surge Orchestra. As if to illustrate the remarkable range of opportunity available to him Xhosa also joined the Jazzlines Ensemble where tutors included Percy Pursglove, Soweto Kinch and Jean Toussaint and where he met bass player Shivraj Singh. He also joined the Birmingham Schools Symphony Orchestra, the Midland Youth Jazz Orchestra and while studying at Bishop Vesey's Sixth Form, Xhosa attended courses with the National Youth Jazz Collective and National Youth Wind Orchestra. On leaving school Xhosa spent a year at the Royal Brmingham Conservatoire before gong to Trinity College of Music in London. In 2018 he won the BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year competition with a critically acclaimed performance at The Queen Elizabeth Hall during the EFG London Jazz Festival.

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Following an education crammed full of music Xhosa’s career is equally frenetic. An early project that Xhosa became involved in was called "for-Wards". This remarkable project focussed on the diverse communities and fostered the talents of residents of all the ten wards that make up the City of Birmingham. Xhosa Cole was nominated as a composer to create music representing Ladywood and he found the project to be immensely rewarding as he writes here. The project released an album, for-Wards (2018), featuring 41 tracks that represent contributions from every part of Birmingham. Another early album, Autumn Conversations (2018), features Xhosa on the flute improvising with the electronic duo EIF.

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In 2019 Xhosa was back at the EFG London Jazz Festival playing saxophone and flute with Soweto Kinch for his commissioned Black Peril work. It was released as an album in 2019 and commemorates both the centenary of the 1919 race riots in the UK and 100 years of “black music” across the Diaspora (video excerpts here). A year later, Xhosa performed his own composition, Fajar, at a concert in Birmingham Cathedral accompanied by Shivraj Singh on bass, Mark Sanders on drums and a classical ensemble, The Ripieno Players. A recording is available on Soundcloud here.

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In the following year Xhosa released his widely acclaimed debut album, K(no)w Them, K(no)w Us (2021), celebrating the rich tapestry of music and heritage of great African American composers and improvisers that have inspired his own music. The title is a nod to Dizzy Gillespie’s tribute to Louis Armstrong “no him, no me” and as Xhosa explains, “this album acknowledges the shoulders on which all the musicians in the band stand as one. To understand me and my music is to understand all the amazing teachers and musicians who have helped me along this path”. A year later Xhosa released Ibeji (2022), the title being a Yoruba word meaning “twins” and the music featuring Xhosa, playing his own compositions, in conversation with and duetting with seven different percussionists.

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Here is a video made by jazz.refreshed of Xhosa duetting with Mark Sanders (drums and percussion).​