There’ll always be cynics out there who insist on giving critique of the jazz credentials of veteran American R&B funk ensemble Earth, Wind & Fire and psychedelic South African soul rockers the Flames.
Or ask exactly what American house trio Tortured Soul and local urban pop pin-ups Gang of Instrumentals are doing playing at a jazz festival.
Thing is, what makes the Cape Town International Jazz Festival worthy of its billing as Africa’s Grandest Gathering is that it avoids any attempt to canonise jazz as some kind of classical music preaching to an elite audience of converts ‘in the know”.
On the contrary, boasting an even spread of international and home-grown heroes alongside a roll call of rising stars, this is one jazz festival that sidesteps generic snobbery. Rather than try to answer that old ‘What is jazz?” nugget, the festival’s five-stage showcase reminds audiences that in Cape Town enjoying jazz is all about shelving your listening prejudices and discovering just what jazz means to you.
Of course, whether you’re a veteran festivalgoer or a first timer, navigating the bewildering array of music on offer each night can be a headache.
Senegalese mbalax sage Youssou N’Dour in the Kippies main arena sprawl or funky drummer Cindy Blackman’s tribute to electric jazz fusion legend Tony Williams on the intimate Moses Molelekwa stage?
And can I squeeze 15 minutes of a rare Hugh Masekela straight-ahead quartet set on the reserved ‘seating only” Rosies stage somewhere in between? These are just some of the calls you’ll need to make, so here’s our guide to help you do it.
Friday March 25
6pm: Parking within a 10-minute walk is still a possibility. And you’ve got an hour to peruse the merchandise stalls, craft market and an exhibition of jazz photography at the Duotone Gallery. It’s recommended to grab an early dinner in the expansive food court. You’re going to need the sustenance.
7pm: ‘Home is where the music is” when Spirits Rejoice pay homage to deceased Mother City jazz pioneers Winston ‘Mankunku” Ngozi (sax), Ezra Ngcukana (sax), Robbie Jansen (sax), Hotep Idris Galeta (piano), Tony Schilder (piano) and Donald Tshomela (vocals) at Kippies. Guitarist Alvin Dyers leads Buddy Wells (sax), Mike Perry (piano), Errol Dyers (guitar), Ian Smith (trumpet) and Sylvia Mdunyelwa (vocals) through Cape jazz standards including Schilder’s Montreal, Galeta’s Harold’s Bossa and Ngozi’s Crossroads.
7.15pm: Cool-toned trumpeter Feya Faku reminds us why he’s one of the country’s leading composers when he performs impressionist African jazz originals from his latest album, Hope and Honour, at Rosies.
8:30pm: Forget smooth jazz sax-man Dave Koz and his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The chance to tune into South African finger-picker Steve Newman, Mauritian Creole jazz southpaw Eric Triton and Niger’s desert blues guru Alhousseini Mohamed Anivolla Guitarafrika conversation on the meditative 600-seater Moses Molelekwa stage is not to be missed. Expect a master class in African guitar-fuelled folk, swing, funk and blues.
8:30pm: Hearing the ‘Hong Kong Sinatra”, Hanjin, ease into standards such as Fats Waller’s Honeysuckle Rose, Cole Porter’s I’ve Got You Under My Skin and Chick Corea’s Spain on the vibey Basil ‘Manenberg” Coetzee stage outdoors is worth a 20-minute pit stop.
10pm: Catch the latter half of Gang of Instrumentals’ genre-surfing set of urban pop grooves on the Bassline party stage under the stars. The self-proclaimed ‘lieutenants of funk, corporals of beat and renegades of rhyme” romping through hip-shakers from their Sama-winning album, Round 3, makes for the perfect segue into the last 20-odd minutes of pioneering kwaai jazz pianist Dona Laka’s set back at Kippies.
11pm: Manenberg’s is definitely where it’s happening when the Flames re-unite for their first South African show in 41 years. Expect the Mother City crowds to go crazy when Durban’s legendary Fataar brothers and Blondie Chaplin kick out psychedelic soul-rock jams from classic albums such as Burning Soul! and Soulfire!
Midnight: Earth, Wind & Fire take forty- and fifty-somethings on a nostal-gically funky trip down R&B memory lane in Kippies. If you’re under age, don’t sweat it. Better to camp out at Bassline. Hip-hop heavyweights Tumi and the Volume keep it consciously funky when they map the missing links between spoken word, hip-hop and jazz with some poetic raps from their latest album, Pick a Dream, at 11pm. American dance mavericks Tortured Soul then keep the experimental jet set well lubricated into the wee hours of the morning with their kinetic live house music cocktail.
Yes, yes, you’re wondering why you missed trumpeter Christian Scott’s cool neo-fusion tones.
And damn, shouldn’t you have forked out the extra R25 to book a ticket to listen to legendary tenor sax headliner Wayne Shorter with the serious jazz listeners at Rosies? Relax. That’s why buying a full weekend pass for R499 instead of being a R365 day tripper is worth it.
Saturday March 26
5:15pm: Multiple Sama-winning songbird Simphiwe Dana at Kippies? Or Grammy-winning bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding at Rosies? Tough call. On platinum-selling albums Zandisile (2004) and The One Love Movement on Bantu Biko Street (2006) Dana earned her status as one of Africa’s most bewitching soul-azz sirens. Her breakthrough performance at 2005’s festival famously spawned a mini-riot with an additional outdoor show quickly having to be scheduled to cater for the thousands of adoring fans. This year the singer, who was born in the Eastern Cape and is based in the Mother City, returns to showcase meditative maskandi-jazz hymns, Xhosa a cappella calls to consciousness, and chic Afrobeaten funk rhythms from her latest album, Kulture Noir.
5:30pm: Bass is the place when Esperanza Spalding’s Chamber Music Society blends the spontaneity and intrigue of jazz improvisation with sophisticated classical string trio arrangements. Sounds like highbrow jazz buff stuff? Sure. But it’s also so much more. Blessed with uncanny instrumental chops, a multilingual siren call and a natural beauty that borders on the hypnotic, the Grammy-winning 26-year-old bassist and vocalist has mesmerised everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Barack Obama.
7pm: If you’re going to grab dinner on the go, you’ve got 15 minutes for a quick pit stop to watch poet and singer Naima McLean in action at Bassline. The daughter and granddaughter of saxophonists Jackie and Rene, Naima previews urban contemporary originals from her debut album, Things I Wish.
7:30pm: Serious listeners need serious jazz. And it doesn’t come more serious than saxophonist Wayne Shorter’s acoustic Quartet set at Rosies. ‘Nothing comes to anything unless you’re serious about it. Man, that’s the only things I dig … serious people doing serious things … otherwise, there’s not much to it,” Shorter told jazz writer Amiri Baraka way back in 1959. Fast forward a half-century through his career and you can understand why the septuagenarian saxophonist and composer is so revered by serious jazz listeners. From his apprenticeship in drummer Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in the fifties and his stint in Miles Davis’s classic sixties quintet to co-founding jazz-rock fusion pioneers Weather Report and his current acoustic outings, Shorter’s been committed to extending the art of the improviser. Expect a tour through his prolific songbook with old compositions reinvigorated in line with Shorter’s philosophical belief of there being no beginning and ending.
8:30pm: Jazzanova at Manenberg’s. Purists may want to pigeonhole Berlin’s nu-jazz innovators as the DJ collective who gave Blue Note a soul, funk and broken-beat make over. But over the years they’ve graduated into a full-blown live band with increasingly strong roots in improvised music. ‘In the past we used many samples,” says percussionist Axel Reinemer. ‘But today we create our sound through musicians. Live recordings translate better and are more flexible.” A regular collaborator, Detroit-based vocalist and bassist Paul Randolph, is their special guest.
9:30pm: ‘What isn’t jazz?” is the question when self-styled ‘Lim Pop” crew Gazelle hit the stage. The Bee Gees’ disco fever, Johnny Clegg’s maskandi-rock, Brenda Fassie’s township pop, George Clinton’s cosmic funk, Nigerian Afrobeat and despotic African dictatorial couture are just some of the pop cultural frequencies that feed Gazelle’s Chic Afrique aesthetic. Cynics may question whether electro prankster Xander Ferreira and DJ Invisible Nick Matthews’s multi media mash-up is a clever conceptual critique of contemporary culture or just some hip postmodern pastiche of brand consciousness. Catch the duo tread the tightrope between satire and shtick with their full band featuring Grenville Wiliams (bass), Dubmaster China (percussion, ragga raps) and backing singers.
10:30pm: Almost Like Being in Jazz: Hugh Masekela at Rosies. Part of Bra Hugh’s global appeal for the past five decades has pivoted on the fact that his music has always been rooted in a genre-hopping pan-African groove. ‘This is not jazz!” was the kneejerk reaction from conservative United States critics Leonard Feather and Stanley Crouch when he first began recording and performing in exile. For the next 40 years he wanted to record an album to prove these ‘jazz policemen” wrong. In 2004 he got the chance, recording Almost like Being in Jazz, which featured 12 jazz standards taken from the Great American Songbook. It’s this straight-ahead jazz repertoire he revisits with long-time pianist and friend Larry Willis, bassist Victor Masondo and drummer Lee-Roy Sauls. Expect an impeccably mellow late-night listen, with intimate readings of evergreens mapping the kind of cool jazz spaces that would have made Miles Davis proud.
11:30pm: Looking for a fitting finale? You’ve still got a half-hour to hear Senegalese superstar Youssou N’Dour spread some spiritual consciousness at Kippies. ‘Music is a language, maybe the first language, and I use it to deliver a message because people can hear it and understand it first, quicker than if they waited for a newspaper. I sing about reality, about my society, which is more than just Senegal or Africa. I sing about the world.”
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