A six-year long dream has become a reality as the North Sea Jazz Festival kicks into gear this weekend
Karen Rutter
It’s debatable who is more excited about the upcoming North Sea Jazz Festival in Cape Town – the organisers, the artists or the punters. All said, it’s certainly the most prestigious event on the city’s musical calendar.
”Africa is the mother. South Americans and South Africans have got the same mother. That’s the link between our music. The fathers, they’re different, but that doesn’t matter. So when I come to the North Sea Jazz Festival this week, I’m going to feel like I’m coming home. To my mother, you know? I can’t wait …”
Legendary Brazilian pianist, singer and composer Tania Maria is waxing lyrical over the phone from Paris. She’s got a few days yet before she arrives in Cape Town for the biggest jazz festival the city has mounted to date, and she’s itching to be here. Having just completed her latest album, Viva Brazil, and a series of United Kingdom and European dates with her three-piece band (drums, bass, percussion), the Grammy Award-winning musician is on a roll.
She usually divides a busy schedule between Paris and New York, but is genuinely delighted to break it with a detour to South Africa.
”Festivals are about being together – we become one big family. Especially us musicians, who’re often in a pretty solitary position when we’re touring or performing on our own – festivals are a chance to share and to communicate. And when you have an event like this one in Cape Town, it’s extra special. For many of us, it’ll be our first time in the city – the country, even. And the kind of line-up that’s been planned – your country can feel proud. It’s an honour to be a part of it all,” she says.
Maria joins Herbie Hancock, Courtney Pine, Ronny Jordan, Hugh Masekela, Abbey Lincoln, Kenny Garrett, Busi Mhlongo, Hotep Idris Galeta, Jimmy Dludlu, Youssou N’Dour, Bheki Mseleku and at least a handful more top international and national names for the two-day festival at the Good Hope Centre.
The ungainly venue, often criticised for its cavernous coldness and dead acoustic spots, will be chopped into four separate performance areas, each imbued with a warm name borrowed from a well-known jazz dive (like Kippies and Manenberg’s). Performances will run simultaneously in each of the areas, offering punters the chance to swing between acid jazz, Afro-fusion, Latin American rhythms or straight-ahead standards.
A photographic exhibition, restaurants, childcare facilities and the usual merchandising stands will transform the centre into a self-contained festival unit for the duration. Audiences can buy a one or two-day pass, allowing them unrestricted access to any of the concerts. Which, when you have to choose between a cutting kwaito- jazz session with Bongo Maffin, funky Latino vibes with Tania Maria, or the polished edges of Roy Hargrove, becomes a tricky thing. But this, as much as Maria’s comments on communication, is also what professional jazz festivals are all about. We’ve just never really had one before.
Unlike Holland, which has been hosting the original North Sea Jazz Festival for 24 years. The annual jamboree has become a landmark event on the international jazz calendar, attracting the very best of the world’s blues, fusion, free jazz, world and funk musicians.
This year marks the first time that the festival extends a ”branch” to another country. South Africa was chosen as a result of several year’s worth of negotiations between photographer and jazz producer Rashid Lombard and Theo van den Hoek, director of The Netherlands North Sea Jazz Festival.
That the festival was able to attract such an illustrious list of musicians for its debut is partly due to good organisation and solid sponsorship (the lack of which, in the past, has led to the cancellation of several major jazz projects in Cape Town), as well as being a measure of the interest and respect shown to South Africa by the international jazz community.
”Your country has a strong reputation for its unique jazz. One of my favourite South African musicians is Miriam Makeba, of course – she had a musical director who was Brazilian, and he introduced me to her sound. But there’re a lot of other names that I want to hear, to make contact with,” says Maria.
She’ll get her chance. From the smooth polish of Jimmy Dludlu and his C-Base Collective, to the contemporary meditations of Zim Ngqawana and Moses Taiwa Molelekwa, from veteran Winston Mankunku’s township- based drive to Interzone’s maverick tricks, the cast-list can be said to be pretty representative. There’ll even be mix’n’scratch jams with the likes of DJ Reddy D and live musicians working together, contrasting with the more traditional, though no less exciting, creations of Hugh Masekela. The only criticism could be that, apart from Busi Mhlongo, Sylvia Mdunyelwa and Thandiswa from Bongo Maffin, the inclusion of women on the bill is lacking.
Maria, however, offers placatory words. ”Quite frankly, I’m very happy to be one of few women jazz musicians earning a living,” she says. ”It is so much harder for us. It means that the woman who makes it must be extra strong. So when you see a woman jazz musician on stage, you know you can expect quality.
”Jazz musicians can be so egocentric sometimes,” Maria closes off with a laugh. ”For that reason alone, something like this festival is going to be very good for breaking down boundaries and for being together, instead of doing one’s own thing. I’m very, very happy to be coming.”
This weekend, Cape Town is in the pound seats.
The North Sea Jazz Festival takes place on March 31 (7.30pm to 3.45am) and April 1 (6pm to 2am) at the Good Hope Centre, Main Road, Woodstock, Cape Town. Book through Computicket or visit the North Sea website at
www.mweb.co.za/northseajazzfestivalcapetown/
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