Up until a week or so ago few people, save for the tight-knit jazz fraternity and a few discerning music heads, had heard of Mark Fransman, the winner of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for jazz in 2008. Yet, since 1995, when he received the FNB Vita Award for most outstanding performer in musical theatre for his role in the David Kramer/Taliep Petersen production Kat and the Kings, he has quietly amassed an impressive body of work as a featured contributor, producer and performer.
In the late 1990s, as a member of Jimmy Dludlu’s C-Base Collective, the University of Cape Town alumnus helped compose the guitarist’s hit Winds of Change. He has recorded with many of South Africa’s jazz luminaries and has bagged two South African Music Awards: as a producer, first for Dludlu’s Afrocentric in 2004 and again this year for Moreira Chonguisa’s debut album The Journey.
‘My take on production is taking something that exists on a level where there is not a lot of colouration at the time and, within reason, taking that sound and adding to it a certain amount of grooves or whatever makes the artist and the music come alive,” he says. ‘As a producer you see the bigger picture when there is no picture and visualise the finished product. Like a film director, you’re always three steps ahead.
It is as a performer that Fransman — who plays many instruments, including the piano (his ‘first love”), bass and saxophone — is most enigmatic. The projects he is involved in often seem diametrically opposed, such as the acoustic quartet Akoustiknot and his sample-driven venture Strait and Narro. While jazz is definitely a genre he is grounded in, his strength is his willingness and effortless ability to use the style as a pivot point rather than a ball and chain.
‘Jazz was initially a fusion of different cultures,” he says. ‘So, for a composer to sit down and write music with all these ideas in mind, it becomes quite a hard task to write what is truly your own output. There are influences in my life that are not purely South African.”
The funny thing about this statement is that it was uttered after he emphasised the importance of holding on to our South Africanness if our aim is to be appreciated globally.
But beyond ghoema culture and the imposing stature of deities such as Robbie Jansen, Abdullah Ibrahim and his mentor Hotep Idris Galeta — if that even begins to describe ‘South Africanness” in jazz terms — Fransman takes his cues from his immediate surroundings rather than from any prefabricated notion of nationhood.
‘Urban life in Cape Town is extremely fertile,” he says. There is a lot of urban underground activity as far as music is concerned. Venues such as the Armchair Theatre and Zula Bar on Long Street have created a melting pot where young musicians can perform experimental works. They might not get paid a lot of money, but it is important for them to take care of their craft before moving to bigger and better things.
‘I play music that inspires me, but I understand why it would be different for some jazz musicians, why they would strive to fit the profile the public demands of them.”
Take his long-time project Strait and Narro, featuring the likes of drummer Sean Ou Tim, saxophonist Buddy Wells, drummer Kevin Gibson and vocalist Melanie Scholtz. Last year the ensemble released an album tellingly titled Ahead. While some might, because of his age and the prevailing market conditions, expect ‘smooth jazz”, Fransman chooses to be guided by his whims. His tendency for soundscaping and the spoken word, his reliance on acoustic instruments and the carefree breeziness of Scholtz’s vocals often collude to thrust the project into the realms of nu-jazz, a sound that evokes Future 2 Future-era Herbie Hancock on a collision course with trumpeter Erick Truffaz.
There are also straight down the line gospel ballads à la The Winans, a sample-based reworking of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. But it is the album’s brief cut and paste outro — which builds with the same horn loop used in his version of Love Supreme, then fades into a Moog workout typical of future jazz maestro Kaidi Tatham before closing with some funked up Latin breaks — that best describes his headspace, his vast pool of references and, perhaps, what to expect in the near future.
‘My primary musical influence was my mother,” says Fransman. ‘She was involved in the church and was a choirmaster. I used to sing in one of her choirs, too. That’s where I picked up the mental things, like the building blocks of harmony, and how soprano, alto, tenor and bass combine.” It was also his mother who encouraged him to take his first piano lessons.
This weekend Fransman performs in Johannesburg with the likes of Winston Mankunku Ngozi and Judith Sephuma as part of the Jazz Symphony, a rare opportunity he relishes. ‘[In huge ensembles] there is much more reading involved. The music is more intricate. Just the sonic experience of playing with an orchestra, the huge wall of sound always sounds outrageous and it’s a sound that is not exploited much because it costs a lot of money.”
His debut album, which he says is 90% complete, promises to be yet another reinvention but, this time, you might just be able to keep up.
‘My solo album will be more in the vein of of neo-soul, in contrast to Akoustiknot. The aesthetics of it will have certain elements of Strait and Narro so as not to bombard people with a lot of new things. I’ve learnt that you mustn’t confuse people too much.”
Mark Fransman performs as part of the Jazz Meets Symphony music intitiative on October 27 at the Theatre on the Track. Tickets cost R120 and are available through Computicket