Moses Taiwa Molelekwa is the new big name in SA progressive jazz. GWEN ANSELL talks to him about his new work
THE club was small and crowded; the vibe intense. A foreign sax player of some repute had been teamed with a pick-up backing group of South Africans. At the
break, a voice asked; “What about the piano player, hey? Don’t you think he’s
going to be somebody?” “I think,” said the distinguished foreigner, “that he
is rather somebody already”.
The piano player in question was 24-year-old Moses Taiwa Molelekwa. And the vi ew of his status is one increasingly shared by jazz fans here and even some ov erseas. Molelekwa’s first album Finding Oneself (B&W) won both jazz categories at last year’s SA music awards and he’s currently commuting between Johannesb
urg and London to complete the mixing of his second.
He has changed, this lanky, soft-spoken ex-Fuba student. Fewer live gigs (“… a huge effort, for almost no money” ) and more time alone, practising and com
posing, have allowed him to draw sharper definitions of his own style. When he talked to the Mail & Guardian two years ago, he was wary of the “jazz” label.
Now, that wariness has subsided.
“In Europe I’ve met and worked with many musicians from West and Central Afric a. I’m starting to understand certain things about the beginnings of the music and the history of jazz – and to understand that what I’m trying to do is in
the tradition.”
What Molelekwa is trying to do now focuses on rhythm. Whereas the first album was grounded in the tunes he’d composed in his teens and during his studies, t he new one is “more of a beginning. I’m trying out a lot of different styles. There’s ragga with a kalimba groove; Tswana vocals over a programmed drum trac k; a duet with Chucho Valdez and a re-working of my tune Ntate Mogolo with Cub an band Ir akere.”
“In all of this, I’m paying more attention to finding a range of rhythmic alte rnatives. The world in general seems to be dancing to a 4:4 beat and I wonder why. If you listen to cultural music, there is a much wider range of rhythms – in Zimbabwe, for example, there’s a prominent 6:8 – and people can still danc
e to it. In Europe, I came across African musicians who were composing in this broader r
hythmic repertoire, and that’s one of the things I’d like to experiment more w ith.
“And, yes, creating music people can dance to is important, because I think it ‘s important to win younger listeners for jazz music.”
Does this mean that Molelekwa is also planning to jump on to the kwaito/townsh ip house bandwagon?
“Look, kwaito is here to stay. And there are things in it I like very much – l ike the emphasis on groove and the use of chants and call-and-response in the vocals. But outside that vocal stuff, it uses a musical language that is very western, very American. I’d like to look at that idiom but find an alternative musical language that has more African elements.”
Now he has acquired four-track recording gear, Molelekwa the producer looks re ady to emerge. But he’s quick to emphasise that he’s still primarily a pianist with an interest in producing. “Many of the kwaito producers have their first
identity as producers, even if they do play an instrument. They’ve got that p
roducer’s interest in the end product, to be successful in the market. A music ian might programme and mix things very differently, because he’s interested in the proc ess of making the music, not just what comes out at the end.”
“I can’t complain about South Africa: my first album – though it took some tim e – is being played now. But I know so many other musicians who aren’t getting chances here to record their own music.”
Those chances, however, aren’t just about the different recording climate over seas. The pianist concedes that his label, B&W, is unique even in Europe and t hat he’s found a real spiritual home there. “Almost everyone I respect in mode rn music is on that label. And nobody else is doing what they’re doing; talkin g to comparative unknowns in this country and coming up with a vision of futur e music th at the musicians can share.”
Elsewhere in South Africa, the paucity of future visions depresses him slightl y. “The culture of jazz in this country is still the stokvel scene. That start ed off really radical – it was there that people latched on to bebop, Coltrane , other radical things in those days. And you can still see that fresh vision in the way the old guys at stokvels dance: they work with old-style swing, but they’re a
lways creating something new.
“But today the listening is a lot more limited. Very little music from the res t of Africa finds its way there. Fathers don’t bring their sons – or maybe the sons don’t want to come any more. I don’t know if it’s that jazz here has got
identified only with an older generation or if the older generation have draw
n a line round it. But the scene has become conservative and that reflects in a lot of o ur good younger musicians being nervous to take risks.”
Yet Molelekwa doesn’t see the current jazz hiatus as wholly negative, more as a space to breathe and take stock. “Before the commercial breakthrough for new music happens, we don’t have to rush things; we must just work at developing
the music. This time is giving me the space to take chances.”
It was the experience of the first recording, however, that really forced his own stocktaking. “I’ve realised it’s all about recording. The more you record, the more you can move forward.”
That’s also the question posed by next week’s video on Molelekwa. He’d known f ilm-maker Palesa ka Letlaka for some time, and was intrigued by her approach t hat, again, tried to capture music-making as process rather than simply produc t. “Some of the stuff she recorded was us sounding really rough in rehearsal, but I understand what she was trying to do.”
He hasn’t yet viewed the final edit, but the experience of film-making has lef t an impression. “It was interesting, travelling the road of my life one more time, and realising it wasn’t so bad after all. Afterwards, I understood some parts of me better.” Another stage, maybe, in Finding Oneself ?
A portrait of Moses Molelekwa will be shown on SABC3 on Thursday February 20 a t 10.45pm