Ryan Swano
When renowned photographer, journalist and former radio presenter, Rashid Lombard successfully organised the inaugural Cape Town International Jazz Festival in the year 2000, held in the Good Hope Centre, he already had the vision to make it one of the world’s greatest jazz festivals. A mere eleven years later and I am sure even he is surprised at its phenomenal growth in popularity. Long since having outgrown the Good Hope Centre, it is now hosted at the Cape Town International Convention Centre with three indoor venues as well as two outdoor stages on opposite sides of the CTICC.
The festival is now rated as one of the top jazz festivals in the world, having become one of Cape Town’s major tourist attractions with huge direct spin-offs for particularly the hospitality and entertainment industries, while many other industries also feel the positive ripple effects.
This year’s festival, held over the Easter Weekend, made me wonder if all those stories of the world still struggling to recover from the recession were not just a myth. People certainly are still willing to pay good money for good entertainment.
Catering for the whole spectrum of jazz or jazz-influenced music, each category featured artists who are presently the top exponents of their respective forms of jazz with internationally acclaimed acts like Mezzoforte and Ronnie Jordan drawing great responses from the crowds.
However, there was no doubt that the main attraction for this year was George Benson who
packed the main exhibition hall, which housed the “Kippies Stage”, to bursting capacity on both the Saturday and the Sunday nights.
The other main draw-card was South African born Jonathan Butler who had only performed the Saturday evening but as always when he comes home to Cape Town, he had the crowd singing and dancing along to all his hits.
Andre Henry, Bassist and Donveno Prins, Saxophonist of the Glenn Hilton Robertson Jazz Band with
The Legendary George Benson relaxing in the Artists Lounge.
Not wanting to dwell on the performances of the two main international draw-cards, the artist line-up, as a rule, being equally divided between African (SA and continental) and the overseas artists, it is important to note that the South African artists that were featured are those who are already delivering world-class entertainment and either play regular overseas gigs, are based in Europe and the US or are absolutely dominating the entertainment industry in SA.
Well known South African musicians the likes of Judith Sephuma, Vusi Mahlasela, Marcus Wyatt and Selaelo Selota all delivered highly entertaining performances but in my rather un-objective opinion it is Capetonions like Donveno Prins, saxophonist in The Glenn Robertson Jazz Band, the highly innovative and entertaining guitarist Allou April and a young lady with the voice of an angel, Melanie Scholtz who will be attracting the most attention when the dust has settled after the festival.
Allou, who has three solo albums to date and has won numerous awards, is amongst those established artists I have mentioned before when writing about Jam Sessions held at clubs like The G-Spot Leisure Lounge where young artists get to play with the masters.
He, now for a number of years being one of the masters, is amongst those who made a name for themselves more than a decade ago coming through the ranks at such type of jam sessions.
Donveno Prins had the opportunity to showcase and debut his new song, My Three Miracles that will feature on an upcoming album. This emotionally charged saxophone instrumental was written for and about his wife, their daughter and their then unborn son and any parent will be able to relate with the tones this beautiful piece of music evokes.
When Glenn Robertson, founder of the band, came out from behind his percussion instruments and formed a musical version of a tag-team between his vocals and Donveno’s sax, they had the crowd dancing and singing along to a few salsa-inspired versions of 1970’s pop songs.
Melanie Scholtz in what is probably her biggest exposure to a truly international audience, and has been described as her ‘coming of age’, had the ability to mesmerise a full auditorium including me, into complete silence and total awe with her beautiful melodies. The respect given to this young rising star was well deserved.
A feature of the festival that has always attracted people who are rather into other genres is that artists of those various other genres are able to successfully present their music in a jazz crossover style.
In the past artists like HHP and Skwatta Kamp as well as international Hip Hop artists like Mos Def have burned up the stages of the festival always accompanied by live bands and this year the diversity of styles was much more apparent.
Lira, the Afro-pop diva who needs no introduction, kwaito stars, TKZee, who have rock influences on their new album but performing with a live band that are clearly out to Jazz things up and the awesome neo-soul sensation from Philadelphia in the US, Bilal were all drawing huge crowds and many of their loyal fans were definitely not there for any other reason but to see their stars perform.
Bilal definitely made a huge impact since his Hip Hop influenced style of music combined with his sensual and soulful singing bordering on a raw outpouring of emotion literally had the ladies drooling.The BLK JKS (pronounced Black Jacks), a group that confused me a little when I first saw them on TV a few months ago can only be described as ‘different’ because they are impossible to place in a little musical pigeonhole.
They have the ability to create a unique crossover of everything including rock, metal, hip hop, psychedelic electro, reggae and a healthy dose of Jazz with only two electric guitars, a bass guitar and a drum kit which they manage to let sound like double the amount of instruments with their clever use of effects. They definitely have a following in Cape Town as there were quite many people in the crowd who seemed to know the words to at least half of their songs. When ‘The D-Himself’ of Bruinou.com and I got to meet them later it was clear that these ‘rockers’ for lack of a better word have no airs about them and actually still seem a little surprised that people are starting to take them seriously.
Being someone who has equal loyalties to Jazz as well as Hip Hop, the CTIJF annually caters for my very specific ‘special needs’. In what is hopefully a developing musical trend in SA, the festival unfortunately still needs to import high quality Live Hip Hop Bands that play a crossover jazz-funk style that makes for awesome live performance and much more organic sounding studio albums in the glorious vein of The Roots .
Miriam Alexander of the Dutch Hip Hop band “La Melodia” had the crowd bouncing.
This year Hip hop Headz were blessed with the sometimes funky and often hardcore sounds of “La Melodia” who are fronted by the slamming rhymes of the female MC, Miriam who had the crowd bouncing along to her oh so sexy, almost hardcore song “Come And Get It”.
There was also the Japanese Jazz/Hip Hop band “The Soil & Pimp Sessions” fronted by MC Satoshi Kusima who also plays the trumpet at times. I unfortunately did not get to see them perform but there was quite a buzz soon after they finished their set.
“Where the hell were you? You missed everything. Soil and Pimp is Gevaarlik!” one of their new fans, Bruce Philander literally blurted out when he saw me later.
Besides the musicians, the festival also had some of SA’s top DJ’s The Real Rozzano, Travisto , The Chief Rockers DJ Collective, as well as Frenchman DJ Fred Spider spinning the discs between the sets.
It was great to see some hardcore hip hop and club DJ’s spin the funkiest jazz in a Hip Hop Turntabilists style interspersed with other genres in a way that did not seem bizarre but rather fitting for the event.
Bruinou.com member “D-Himself” also had a great time at the festival.
By design, the festival is definitely not only for those who love jazz but for all music lovers too.
As Bruinou.com member D-Himself said, “It is a great way for people who are not really into live music to learn to respect the hard work instrumentalists put into their craft”.
The only major setback of the weekend came from Mother Nature with almost gale-force winds blowing through the city centre causing the “Bassline Stage” to be closed to avoid a possible disaster.
This caused that its last two shows, that of Bilal and TKZee had to be moved to other stages.
The only major effects this had was that the festival ended just more than an hour late and that it caused a little congestion inside the building but in hindsight, it was also a good thing because the smaller Bassline Stage would never have done the awesome performances from Bilal as well as TKZee any justice.
Something that festival goers are not always aware of is that each year in the weeks prior to the festival, workshops and courses are presented to youth and adults in various fields of the music industry.
There are courses on the performing arts and musicianship, sound engineering, others in related fields like entertainment industry journalism and photography as well as industry related business courses.
Many of the people who participated in those workshops were given the opportunity to put their newfound skills into practice on the weekend of the festival.
Unconventionally I will near the end of our story dealing with something about a performance at the very start of this year’s festival.
Opening the musical performances for the weekend was the Delft Youth Big Band directed by the stalwart musician Ian Smith.
The very existence of this youth orchestra from Delft, probably one of the poorest communities in the Western Cape, will hopefully always be part of what this festival is all about.
This orchestra, some other bands similar to it and community based arts initiatives that all rely on sponsorships and the goodwill of established musicians dramatically increases the chances that the youths involved will not end up as part of negative statistics.
Given the struggles the organisers have lived through I am fairly certain the festival will always be about celebrating great music in a way that gives young people the motivation to rise above their circumstances and help them achieve a level of success that they can replicate within their own families, lifting them out of poverty.
Talking about poverty, there are many people in and around Cape Town who cannot afford the ticket prices for a high quality event such as this. It has become a tradition that every year on the Thursday before the main festival kicks off a concert is held on The Greenmarket Square so that all Capetonions can get to see performances from some of the local and international artists for absolutely free.
Bruinou.com congratulates The Cape Town International Jazz Festival for not only being up there amongst best in the world but also for having their foundations firmly secured at grassroots level.
Left Picture: Glenn Hilton Robertson with his back-up singers.
Right Picture: Donveno Prins and Andre Henry both in the GHRJB.
Musa Manzini, the bassist, and his band.
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