Jonathan Butler Transfer Celebrates 50th Anniversary

UBUNTU: "I am because you are. Humanity toward others. The inter-connectedness of people." 

- Giget C. Johnson

Jonathan Butler, like many of us at some point in our professional (and personal) lives, found himself in a desert place musically. "Creativity-wise my well was rather empty. I didn't know what direction to take." He found himself running home to South Africa to get back in touch with himself, to reconnect with his roots and nature, to refill his tank. In his words, "I came home to look for Jonathan Butler." "I've come full circle." "I came home with this album." "I've never left South Africa even though I've lived here [U.S.A.] for thirty-five years. Africa has always been in my spirit." "I went completely home. I came around to this place where I feel now that I'm really excited to be embraced by smooth jazz and all of the formats out there but I wanted to come home." As a result, we are gifted with UBUNTU, pronounced with a long U. U-BUN-TU. UBUNTU! 

The fans are not the only ones gifted by this project. A bucket list item of Jonathan Butler was to have Marcus Miller produce a project. On a safari in South Africa, where "a giraffe may come up to you, an elephant may be in the back yard" and the gaze upon God's landscape was awe-inspiring, the conversation was had and a decision made. A trip to Johannesburg followed for three days of tracking in a studio for what became "Ubuntu" the album, with his friends from Cape Town and Johannesburg joining in.