Joe Cocker, Sting, Vaya Con Dios… Local bands are having a rough ride in their wake, reports Fred de Vries
AS foreign stars flood into South Africa, local bands struggle harder to attract small crowds. Last weekend saw Live Jimi Presley doing two gigs at Tandoor’s in Rockey Street, Yeoville. Friends had been praising LJP into oblivion — “a real rave”, “exploring new musical boundaries”.
On they came on Saturday night, after hours of a relentless electronic drone and grim black-and-white videos showing where LJP shop for inspiration: the 1980s German avant-garde panel-beaters Einstrurzende Neu-bauten. By 11pm, about 100 people had gathered — the usual Rockey Street flotsam and jetsam, dressed in black and in dire need of sun, vitamin C and a sense of humour.
On stage a handful of guys, mirroring the lack of dress sense among their admirers, played a panel-beating cover of an old Neil Young song, Mr Soul. One of them showered us with sparks. It looked promising, albeit in a very deja vu kind of way.
But then they resorted to an horrific heavy, early ’80s drone using conventional instruments. It was the kind of soundtrack to the apocalypse that one hoped had died with the birth of house and techno. But not here tonight in Rockey Street.
“Here come the young men, the weight on their shoulder,” was the old Joy Division song that kept ringing through my head while LJP went through all the humourless motions, insulting the pitiful handful of dancers in front of the stage.
That same night, Vaya Con Dios were somewhere mid-air, on their way to Jan Smuts Airport. Vaya Con Dios are possibly the complete antidote to LJP — definitely not a cool name to drop in the dark corners of Rockey Street. Their semi- acoustic music mixes hazy nightclub sounds with a bit of Latin, some soul and blues, and adds a spoonful of smoky European cabaret of the Edith Piaf era. The result is a sound that is unmistakably European.
“Of course we in Belgium have always been deeply influenced by French culture,” nods singer Dani Klein later in a room in Braamfontein’s Parktonian Hotel.
Things are hectic, but Klein seems unperturbed by it all. She has too much class to play the nervous, erratic pop star. As can be heard in her smoke ‘n whiskey voice and the grievous lyrics, here’s a woman who has lived life to the hilt, culminating with the death of ex-lover and co-founder of Vaya Con Dios, Dirk Schoufs, in 1991.
At 41, Klein is a well-preserved product of the hippie era. “What still remains of the idealism of that era is the willingness to be open to different cultures and philosophies, and the need to travel.”
The first record she owned was one of Leonard Cohen’s, who is still one of her heroes. “I was 16 then and couldn’t make much of the lyrics. So what I did was I wrote them down phonetically. Then I bought a dictionary and tried to make sense of them. That’s how I learnt English,” she says.
Her music career started in the streets of Brussels, where she played Dylan songs with an acoustic guitar. Later, influenced by early Fleetwood Mac and Chicken Shack, blues took over.
In the late ’80s, after a spell in America and Mexico and membership of a New Wave band, she started Vaya Con Dios, named after graffiti she saw in a documentary on the Cuban quarter in Miami. Their first gig was at the opening of a trendy clothing store in Brussels.
Vaya Con Dios are now a multimillion act, striking a global chord with their lyrical and musical tristesse.
“The lyrics tell stories which are dear to me,” explains Klein. “I’m often very sad. Life isn’t easy, especially if you start asking the obvious questions, like why are we here? Yes, the third album is a lot sadder. Yes, because of the death of Dirk.”
“Time’s up,” warns their tour manager. One more question: how do your old hippie friends view the staggering success of Vaya Con Dios? Klein smiles. “In the beginning they found it quite interesting and exciting. But then they accused us of being too commercial, not underground enough. We had sold our soul to the devil. I hardly see them these days. Most of them are record company executives or have a boring office job. So who sold his soul to the devil?”
Swinging cats — by the horn, not the tail
In a room where the proverbial cat would find it difficult, talented youngsters are really swinging.
It’s a remarkable jazz renaissance and it’s all due to trumpeter Johnny Mekoa, writes Gwen Ansell
IT’S 10am on a bright, windy day in Benoni. Across an expanse of schoolyard-cum- parking lot, a sign cross-hatched in koki pen, pasted to a window, announces “PWV Music Academy”. On the windowsill sits a row of gleaming horn mutes. Inside, in a long, narrow room set under sloping eaves, 15 young musicians perch on plastic chairs, almost nose-to-nose with a similar number of listeners.
Holding the line between the two groups is the substantial figure of the school’s guiding spirit, jazz trumpeter Johnny Mekoa, horn in hand and ready to play. “We’ve got an RDP (reconstruction and development programme) going here,” says Mekoa, “and what’s more, we’ve already started ours.”
The recital is in honour of a visit by Mekoa’s former music professor at the University of Indiana, Patrick O’Meara. It’s also an opportunity to show off the achievements of young people from the East Rand, an area which normally only attracts the media when the internecine warfare gets particularly vicious.
And once the band starts playing, the remarkable scale of those achievements quickly becomes apparent.
While some of the players are graduates of other music establishments like Fuba, now working as teachers under Mekoa, the majority — including the frontliners — are young people who only started formal music instruction in April this year. Yet with verve and confidence they proceed to tackle a programme ranging from Milestones and Tintinyana to Neil Hefty’s Li’l Darlin’ and Frank Foster’s chart for the Count Basie classic Shiny Stockings.
The horn top notes (and not just Mekoa’s) are as clean as Monday washday. There’s inventive soloing from saxophonists Sue Moganedi on alto and Maureen Mahlangu on tenor, Athanasius Mohlaka on trumpet, and one of the baddest young trombonists I’ve heard in this country, Mokone Senkhane. What’s particularly remarkable for such a young band is the tightness of the ensemble work. And they swing, in a room where the proverbial cat would find it difficult.
Much of the credit must go to Mekoa and his team of teachers (who include some relatively well-known young players like baritone sax Vee Sabono and drummer Walter Kotu). Mekoa’s clearly a tough taskmaster: one of the charts he puts them through is Matt Harris’ Smoothsability — one of those slick, GRP-style big-band arrangements graded for 4,5-level students. Five months this band has been playing. But he’s also a pro: “Let’s go — but if you do hit some wrong notes, just ride on past them.”
Mekoa’s energy also went into persuading Anglo- Vaal to finance the rental of the school building, the United States Consulate to provide some playing opportunities and other support, and Engen to donate some instruments.
The remaining horns and reeds are a motley collection of second-hand finds: he reminisces about pawnshop odysseys with saxophonist George Lee in tow to help beat down the prices.
The hard work comes out of some equally tough politics. Mekoa and his colleagues are doing this, they say, largely for what the media write off as “lost and marginalised kids. Actually, there are too many talented kids from all backgrounds roaming the streets. Not all of them have to be footballers, you know.”
And one of the school’s trustees points out: “If you want a decent community you have to stand up and be part of that community… The secret is drawing out what’s already in these kids, not trying to impose things on them.”
Mekoa gives a great deal of credit to the determination of the players themselves: “These young people work Monday to Monday — even Sundays after church.”
Now the school is set to expand. This group will write their Associated Board music examinations in October and move into their second year. After that, a new intake will be recruited — although Mekoa’s not quite sure where a second set of instruments will come from. “And we’ve started sowing seeds elsewhere. If we can get more resources, we want to start moving into other townships with an outreach programme.”
It’s almost noon, and Mekoa has escorted the last of the concert guests out to their cars. All the band wants to do now is blow the stresses of the morning away. The tune is Miles’ So What? But nonchalance has had absolutely nothing to do with the remarkable jazz renaissance that’s starting down Daveyton way.