The longest, oldest and coldest jazz festival in the country is the Standard Bank Jazz Festival in Grahamstown, which this year presents 45 stand-alone jazz gigs over 10 days, with musicians from 14 countries and performances encompassing the whole gamut of jazz genres.
The festival, which is part of the National Arts Festival, began in 1988 as the Smirnoff Jazz Festival. Standard Bank came on board in 1995. The Standard Bank National Youth Jazz Festival was subsequently incorporated into the professional programme, and 350 students and teachers from around the country will get the chance to mix with their peers and have a shot at getting into the National Youth Jazz Band.
They will also rub shoulders (literally — we all know what it’s like to stand in the queues in Grahamstown) with some of the best jazz musicians from South Africa and the world.
Grahamstown has never been a commercial funfest and has always been about developing jazz as a serious art form. It has given South African students, teachers and musicians an opportunity to make contact and play with foreign musicians, who themselves are afforded a chance to interact with South African jazz.
The third pillar of the jazz industry is the
audiences, who are exposed to the latest developments in jazz.
The festival punts itself as ‘the annual barometer of South African jazz”, and acknowledges our country’s heritage.
South Africa’s jazz identity
Jazz heritage is complex territory for a festival but, with the large number of jazz musicians who have died recently, an urgent one. On the bill in Grahamstown are some musicians who have helped to forge South Africa’s jazz identity, with Jo’burg saxophonist Khaya Mahlangu a central figure.
His career is a brief lesson in the history of South African jazz, as is that of Durban trumpeter Brian Thusi, who specifically pays tribute to South African jazz in his gig. A hidden gem is trumpeter Charlie Sayers, who has been playing professionally for nearly 60 years.
What makes Grahamstown unique is that the nod to the cutting edge is augmented by the melting pot of the week-long collaborations that emerge from the many nationalities represented. There are few foreign household names on the programme but Grahamstown keeps finding jazz musicians who you might never have heard of but who blow audiences away.
Big names
This year is no exception, with the participation of Parisian pianist Carine Bonnefoy, Swiss duo Andreas Schaerer and Bänz Oester, WonderBrazz from Denmark, the Ploctones from the Netherlands, Excess Luggage from Norway, Mark Ginsburg from Australia and the collaborative North Sea Big Band. Probably the best known of the foreign musicians this year is saxophonist and rapper Soweto Kinch, who is one of the United Kingdom’s biggest jazz and hip-hop stars.
The bulk of the programme is South African, featuring artists and bands such as Dave Ledbetter’s Cape Town band the Clearing, Tutu Puoane and her Belgian quartet, Gavin Minter with Big Band and Sestet, Standard Bank Young Artist for Jazz Bokani Dyer, Melanie Scholtz, Selaelo Selota and vibraphonist Ngwako Manamela, and South Africa’s favourite a capella group, Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
Alan Webster is director of the Standard Bank Jazz Festival. The event is held during the National Arts Festival. It opens on June 30 and runs until July 9 on the DSG campus in Grahamstown