Cape music picks: March 25 2011

The most impressive jazz line-up on the calender hits Cape Town this weekend.

• What makes the CTIJF worthy of its billing as ‘Africa’s Grandest Gathering” is that it avoids canonising jazz as some kind of classical museum music tailored towards to an audience of aficionados. On the contrary, boasting an even spread of 40 international and homegrown heroes this is one jazz festival that not only sidesteps any generic snobbery, but reminds audiences that enjoying jazz is all about shelving your listening prejudices and discovering what jazz means to you.

  Maybe this starts by paying that extra R25 for a reserved seat at the Rosies stage and just listening. Listening to legendary saxophonist Wayne Shorter’s acoustic quartet conversations or trumpeter ‘Bra’ Hugh Masekela’s share his love for American songbook standards.

  Maybe it continues by discovering the improvisational strategies at play in Grammy-winning bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding’s Chamber Music Society. Or maybe it’s simply about shaking your hips to American R&B funk stalwarts Earth, Wind & Fire or the reunion of Durban’s legendary psychedelic soul rockers The Flames with the throngs of fans at the Kippies and Basil Manenberg Coetzee stages. Or making a pit stop at the outdoor Bassline stage where Tumi and the Volume keep it consciously funky when they map the missing links between spoken word, hip-hop and jazz. Added attractions include a photographic exhibition, food courts, merchandise and more.
  
  Cape Town International Jazz Festival, CTICC, Foreshore, Cape Town, March 25 and 26, 6pm. Entrance is R365 (single day) or R499 (two day pass). R25 extra for reserved seating on the Rosies Stage. Book at Computicket.

• ‘This is Cape Town’s music. I call it Goema: it’s a primeval beat [that] goes into every heart and soul,” says guitarist and composer Mac McKenzie. ‘Goema is the way we walk and dance, the way we talk and interact with each other. Put simply, it is a language.” It’s this vital musical vernacular that McKenzie has been conversing in for the past twenty five years. Back in 1986 it was the Goema groove that glued together the brash punk folk-jazz riffs of The Genuines’ seminal resistance anthem “Struggle”. In 2003 it was the Goema that coloured the cool Cape jazz hues of his Goema Captains of Cape Town album, Healing Destination. And now, Mac’s back, guiding the Goema into a Classical conversation with his 25-piece Cape Town Goema Orchestra featuring strings, brass, mouth-bows, marimbas and mbiras at a performance of his composition ‘Goema Symphony No. 1”. Featuring guest compositions from Derek Gripper, Mandla Mlangeni and Aykes Swartz, the work draws on the indigenous roots of Cape Town music, and tells very distinctly Cape Town stories. Expect additional banjo, mandolin and gummie drums adding some goema colour to the traditional symphonic instrumentation.

  SABC Studios Auditorium, 209 Beach Road, Sea Point, Cape Town, March 26, 8pm. Entrance is R150 or R100 (students, senior citizens). Booking recommended. Tel: 079 726 3582.