Originally released in 1976, African Songbird is the debut album from South Africa’s Sathima Beatrice Benjamin. Along with her husband Dollar Brand, aka Abdullah Ibrahim, she had fled her homeland following the Sharpeville massacre of 1960, finding support from Duke Ellington among others. African Songbird was recorded when she returned from exile, in order that her child might be born on African soil, and the joy of homecoming pervades this recording. ‘Africa’ comes across like Art Ensemble of Chicago’s ‘Les Stances A Sophie’ transported to the Cape, and features lyrics about having been ‘gone too long’ but now being ‘home to stay’, while the waves and bird cries of that homeland are audible on the a capella title track. In fact, Benjamin’s homecoming would be tragically short-lived: the Soweto uprisings of 1976 sent her aboard once again. Yet these three tracks, recorded in that short window, are superb, with South African musicians, including Basil ‘Manenberg’ Coetzee, rubbing shoulders with American players as the Songbird swoops overhead.