Is there a more fascinating bassist’s journey than the one undertaken by Bakithi Kumalo? From a scrappy beginning on the streets of Soweto, South Africa, where he embraced music amid much personal and political strife, to meeting Paul Simon and coming to the U.S. to record Graceland — a musical and social landmark that also ranks as a desert-island bass disc, thanks to Bakithi’s ear-grabbing fretless forays. In the years since moving Stateside, in 1988, Kumalo expanded his Western influences by playing with Herbie Hancock, Cyndi Lauper, Randy Brecker, Mickey Hart, Gloria Estefan, Josh Groban, and Tedeschi Trucks Band — all while remaining as Simon’s recording and touring bassist, a stint that has now stretched to 35 years. That’s a lot of miles traveled and people met, and it’s the inspiration for Bakithi’s vibrant latest effort, What You Hear Is What You See [Ropeadope]. Bakithi explains, “Over the past few years, when I was on tour and we’d spend a few days in a city, I would go out and experience the local culture, the residents, the food, the shops. I’d also make it a point to find the local homeless people, to give them clothing, buy them a meal, and ask what their stories are. They’d say, ‘I had a house but it burned down,’ or, ‘My wife left me.’ I would let them know that I was once one of them, homeless, sleeping at friends’ places. I’d try to give them hope and tell them they can rebound, like I did. Then I’d go back to my hotel room and write music with those encounters in mind. Creating is much easier when there’s a story.” The advent of the COVID lockdown in 2020 afforded Kumalo the opportunity to listen to all of the material he had written and start recording it in his Bethlehem, Pennsylvania home studio. The linchpin was meeting saxophonist Max Gast in Philadelphia, when Bakithi went to sit in with a Gracleand cover band. “I told him about my idea for the record, and he was all in to collaborate. Max is an amazing musician, composer, and producer. He educated me on mixing and mastering, added his musical ideas, arrangements, and production, and most important, served as a second set of ears and musical foil.” Bakithi called on a cadre of friends for the album’s ten tracks — including drummers Antonio Sanchez, Poogie Bell, and James Rouse, guitarists Biodin Kuti (cousin of Fela and Femi Kuti), Oz Noy, and Omar Haddad, and Paul Simon percussionist Jamey Haddad — somehow retaining a live-in-the-studio sound, even though the musicians had to record remotely for the most part. “The key is I played a lot of organic percussion on the tracks to start, so when someone added their part, it sounded natural.” The title-track opener establishes Kumalo’s writing style on the record: less traditional forms like verse–chorus–bridge, and more through-composition and creating and developing in the moment. Offer