Gwen Ansell
NOSTALGIA and the recycling of old legends dominates the public face of South African jazz and audiences might be forgiven for fearing that’s all there is. But while we have, as yet, no coherent new jazz movement in this country, a ha ndful of players are striking out in fresh directions – there is, at least, a new ripple.
Not all the innovators are young. The godfather of free jazz has to be Cape re edman Robbie Jansen, who combines ferocious swing with a totally individual “o ut” approach to playing. Jansen doesn’t fit easily anywhere except behind his horn. Other out-there uncles include trumpeter Bruce Cassidy (who’s progressed from the jazz-rock fusion of his alma mater, Blood, Sweat and Tears, to a ton
al, medita tive, electronic style) and his sometime partner Pops Mohamed, experimenting w ith traditional instruments in new formats.
Tananas’s last album used both Jansen and Mohamed, plus traditional players an d programmed tracks to chart some fresh folk-jazz territory. That’s also the p ath of young groups Medu and Afro-Vision (although there’s much that is still unformed about their style) and by guitarist Jimmy Dludlu’s dance bands.
Zim Ngqawana has been a young lion for so long now his mane must be going grey . That shouldn’t make listeners forget his original vision, particularly the w ay he layers modernist blowing over his roots in Eastern Cape music and his gi fts as a composer. But he’s reached the stage where he needs something – perha ps a decent recording contract – to move his music forward again.
Sean Fourie and Vee Ferlito are busy building a South African acid jazz scene virtually double-handed: going back to the fast-tempo grooves of Seventies jaz z-funk but adding heavy programming (and the odd idiom lifted from kwela, jive and Soweto soul). It’s on club dance floors that their sound will prove itsel
f.
There’s a loose coalition of players and composers – Wessel van Rensburg, Marc Duby and Rob Watson among them – whose music, in its concern for texture and
space, points in an ambient direction. Paul Hanmer has a unique composer’s v
oice. And two young vocalists, Gloria Bosman and Max Mntambo are also involved in some interesting a capella and fusion experiments.
Pianist Bheki Mseleku is still in the first rank of South African innovators, although he finds more playing opportunities overseas. So, too, do all the mod ernists who haven’t come home yet, like free blowers Sean Bergin and Claude De ppa and percussionist Thebe Lepere.
Yet picking this score of names is monstrously unfair. Record companies and th e SABC are looking for unchallenging five-minute tracks. Club owners want live music that won’t disturb the diners. These names are just the ears of the hip
po. Nine-tenths of South Africa’s jazz new wave is still submerged.