Adam Haupt
If you’re one of those people who thinks that Steve Newman and Tony Cox are the only acoustic guitar virtuosos around, you’ve been lied to. It’s no sordid conspiracy, though. It’s just that Leslie Jovan sees himself as a community worker and not a musician. To him music is a vehicle for other things and, as we chat, it becomes clear that he is still very much the activist.
Jovan’s classical training started at Wynberg Senior Secondary of the Arts with people like Terence April and Dave Ledbetter. He also studied under Frank Gambalie and taught briefly at the University of the Western Cape’s music school. Most notably, however, he taught at Mapp (Musical Action for People’s Power) at the Joseph Stone in Athlone.
Jovan reflects that it was a great pity that Mapp went under – due to organisational problems, it seems. He and Charles Louw tried to continue their commitment to serving the community at Manenberg People Centre (MPC). Unfortunately, they ended up working for no pay and Jovan had to call it a day. He now teaches under a project he calls Atmosphere and speaks proudly about the fact that his students now teach music in places like Tulbagh, Paarl and Atlantis. During the course of our chat, I am reminded that I am here to review his gig and I try to get him to talk about Leslie Jovan, the musician. He is currently doing session work with Alex van Heerden’s Gramadoelas.
He enjoys working with van Heerden, Jonathan de Vries and the other musicians, some of whom hail from Sons of Table Mountain. There is much by way of mutual exchange, it seems. Jovan’s second project is Atmosphere and involves David Burns, Alistair Adams and, hopefully, Lynette Reid. Atmosphere’s first album will mostly contain Jovan’s jazz compositions and four of David Burns’s compositions.
Jovan confesses that he has around 1 000 compositions and 48 tapes that he still needs to master. At the same time, he says the is reluctant to take to the stage. I take a deep breath and think of all the people who might kill to have what this muso has. As a live performer he might be somewhat shy, but his music speaks for itself. His instrumental pieces display the range he has as a composer and provide him with ample space to demonstrate his skills on the guitar, without getting into the meaningless pyrotechnic displays well-known to rock instrumentalists. In his cover of I Heard It Through the Grapevine you’d probably feel the urge to take to the floor and dance as he gets into a fit of funk fury to the proportions of Michael Hedges’s The Funky Avocado. There is much variety in the show as he moves through rhythms inspired by blues, jazz and kwela. In songs such as Cape Town Gold and Would You Love Me This Way? his nuanced guitar performances suggest how a full band might perform his music.
If I were forced to choose an absolute favourite love song from this show, it might be How Could This Be? because of the depth of emotion hinted at ever so subtly by Jovan’s vocals and lyrics. The rhythms, muted at the beginning, and chord progressions add to the subtlety of this evocative jazz song.
While there’s no doubt that these songs would do well in the hands of his skilled band, one hopes that Jovan does more acoustic gigs and that he considers an acoustic album of some sort.
Atmosphere’s second album will apparently feature his students and will venture into what he calls trans-ambient-eclectic. In the meantime, Jovan says he will return to the Harbourside Theatre with Atmosphere some time next month. Watch this space.