Dutch bassist Eric van der Westen keeps forging links with South African jazz. Now local musos can sample his technique at a series of workshops. Gwen Ansell reports
`LAST time I left South Africa,” reflects Dutch jazz bassist Eric van der Westen over a heaped plate of Yeoville’s best bacon and eggs, “it took me three or four weeks to come down, I so much missed the spirit I found here.”
Van der Westen has returned to forge another link in the chain that keeps pulling him back here. First there was a collaboration with Jackie Semela and the Soweto Dance Company on their visit to Amsterdam in 1993. That culminated in a joint performance with Soweto Dance at the 1994 Guinness Johannesburg Jazz Festival, and work at the same festival with pianist Jasper van t’Hof. From that visit came a composition — Diepkloof — which is now wowing audiences in the jazz clubs of Amsterdam and Tilburg and will feature on Van der Westen’s forthcoming CD.
“The day after I landed in Holland … I was sleeping on a mattress in (saxophonist) Paul van Kemenade’s attic. I just woke up with the melody in my head and we tried it out at the sound-check the same day. Now people ask for it whenever we play.”
The bassist has flown in straight from Tilburg’s Festival Mundial which this year had a South African theme. Artists included singer Busi Mhlongo, Moving into Dance and a 15-piece jazz orchestra with alto saxophonist Zim Ngqawana as featured soloist. Van der Westen elaborated his composition into The Diepkloof Suite, featuring the South African dancers alongside conservatory ballet artists. “It was fantastic. I’ve never felt so much energy from the music. A thousand people attended the ballet, 150 000 the festival concerts. The South African sound just broke down the joint.”
Van der Westen feels much of the strength of South African jazz lies in the fact that “musicians have their own voices. That’s why Zim (Ngqawana) sounds so good to us. That’s a very precious thing. After so many years of oppression, it’s time for all South Africans to recognise that the distinctive identity of this African culture is a most beautiful thing.”
Yet he and his fellow traveller, saxophonist Mete Erker, bemoan the fact that “it’s incredibly hard to find original South African jazz on record or CD here. And if you can’t listen to jazz on the radio, and catch up with what’s going on live, it becomes impossible for the music to build a following.”
For Van der Westen and the jazzmen he plays with, the big influences are still Mingus, Coltrane and Eric Dolphy. “Mingus’ music has such an appetite for life: the good things, the sad things. The more avant-garde, free-form music is interesting — but for me, it lacks the blues. And Mingus’ music offers space for both experimental improvisation and a strong basis in rhythm, harmony and melody. I find those same qualities in the South African jazz compositions I hear.”
But as a prolific composer and arranger, Van der Westen’s own concern is for expression. “When I compose, what’s important is not the postage stamp view of every tiny detail, every note that the soloist should blow. I compose with a broad conceptual overview of where the feel of the music is going, so that I can give musicians with great individual voices easy tools through which to express themselves.”
South African musicians will get a chance to sample Van der Westen’s technique, for he’ll be giving a series of workshops at the Civic Theatre. “Cultural exchange is about seeing what others bring into your music — and then turning it around and making your statement in your voice. I’ll be workshopping around some Mingus tunes, but I hope we’ll see not just bass players but horn players and all kinds of musicians.
“I’m hoping to show people some techniques for working on their music alone. The things you learn by yourself definitely get more permanently into your system. The problem nowadays — and it’s partly the influence of the conservatories — is people think too much about their instrument, about technique, about playing louder, or faster, or more notes. It isn’t about that, but about the music, the concept, your own voice.” “Yes,” interjects Erker wryly, “nowadays you can study jazz instead of just doing it.”
“South African music will get recognition,” Van der Westen says. “The world is so much smaller now that musicians listen to, and will soon be playing, everything from avant-garde to kwela. But recognition takes courage and honesty — and time.”
* Eric van der Westen will conduct jazz workshops in the Civic Theatre foyer at 1pm on July 26, 27 and 29 and Aug 1, 3 and 5. Participants must be able to attend on all dates. There will be a performance of workshopped items on August 6.