MOJO Jazz brings festival to life

Jimmy Nevis Performing on the Manenberg stage during the 2014 Cape Town Jazz Festival. Picture Cindy Waxa

Jimmy Nevis Performing on the Manenberg stage during the 2014 Cape Town Jazz Festival. Picture Cindy Waxa

Published Mar 25, 2015

Share

Gutted to be missing out on the 16th Cape Town International Jazz Festival this year?

Tickets for the hippest and hottest music event of the year were sold out weeks ago, but Independent Media are making sure jazz lovers everywhere are still invited.

Independent, media partners of the iconic festival, has launched the

Visit the site, keep tabs of the #mojojazz hashtag and follow @MojoIOL on Twitter for exclusive behind-the-scenes content of the festival, including the jazz master classes for young musicians from top musicians like Courtney Pine, fashion workshops and the popular Free Concert on Greenmarket Square.

A project of Independent’s MOJO Studio, the site will also bring you interviews and snippets of the performances of the top musicians on the festival line-up this year, as well as the excitement from the jazz festinos who will flock to the festival in numbers this weekend from all over the country and the rest of the world.

Armed with their smart phones and backed by sophisticated technology, Independent’s youngest and brightest journalists have teamed up with 17 of the country’s most promising journalism students from Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town for a project which will debut at the jazz festival this weekend, but which will become a major feature of Independent’s newsrooms countrywide.

The MOJO team will record all the action from what has become far more than a jazz festival, but a week-long lifestyle music, fashion and entertainment event. MOJO is all about being smart with phones: shooting video on mobile devices, editing it on the go and uploading it instantly.

The MOJO project is led by Post reporter Viasen Soobramoney, the winner of the Editor’s Choice category at the 2013 Vodacom Journalist of the Year (VJOY) awards, the Cape Argus’ Chelsea Geach, who won the VJOY Editor’s Choice award in 2014, as well as The Star’s Mpiletso Motumi.

As part of the VJOY prize, Viasen spent five weeks getting a strong grounding in multiplatform journalism at the Thomson Foundation in London, while Chelsea will go on a similar Thomson Foundation course this year, skills which will benefit Independent’s MOJO team considerably.

From the first posters to hit the lampposts to the last fan boogying on Amel Larrieux’s dancefloor, the MOJO reporting team will be there capturing all the action with their tripods, mics and cellphones.

Led by MOJO master Viasen, the Durban team will bring jazz lovers all the action from the pits at stage side, just metres from the musical magicians taking over the five stages over the weekend.

The Cape Town crew, headed by Chelsea, will capture all the widespread development music projects running in the week leading up to the concerts.

The Johannesburg team, led by Mpiletso, brings you all that glitters and glows from the festival red carpet and from the crowds.

Just minutes after the MOJO cameras capture the action, the short sharp video clips will be published on the MOJO Jazz website: www.mojojazz.iol.co.za.

Consider it your invitation to experience the festival excitement, to get your fingers clicking and your feet tapping.

The site is clean, uncluttered and easy to navigate. As videos go live on our YouTube channel, we’ll automatically update our homepage offerings, so the very latest in Jazz Fest atmosphere is just a click away.

But if you’d rather cut to the chase, a menu of tabs conveniently categorises the content. Jazz lovers can get a sense of the atmosphere at the Kippies, Rosies, Manenberg, Moses Molelekwa or Bassline stages.

They can also get into the groove with artists like Al Jarreau, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, Sipho Hotstix Mabuse, Beatenberg and Prophets of the City as the MOJO Jazz team package short snippets of their performances, together with behind-the-scenes interviews.

You don’t have to squeeze into a suit or heels to catch the glamorous festival fashion. In fact, you needn’t leave the couch. Simply join our MOJO journalists as they spot the hottest looks on celebs attending the concert, rove from food courts to craft markets, chasing after that irresistible Jazz Festival atmosphere.

MOJO Jazz is fast, its funky, it’s the Jazz Festival at your fingertips.

Come visit us at http://mojojazz.iol.co.za, follow us on Twitter @MojoIOL or join the conversation on #mojojazz for your front row seat of the festival.

Related Topics: