IT’S NOT every lifetime you get the opportunity to experience four world acts on one stage in one night. But if Saturday night’s Winter Jazz Festival at Carnival City – aka Jonathan Butler & Friends - is the last show I ever get to see, in any of my lifetimes, I will consider my world-act must-see boxes pretty well ticked.
Any show that starts off with Judith Sephuma as the supporting act is going to be pure class, and it was. The diva dazzled with a few jazz numbers, and then “something ragga”, in her own words, with the upbeat and catchy Try - all from her new album One Word. Of course the evergreen A Cry, A Smile, A Dance had everyone singing in their seats. Her voice is in phenomenal form – if Sephuma had been the only act we’d seen that night, the audience would have gone home satisfied.
I have loved Jonathan Butler since I was a teenager, and he hosted the show with such etiquette – showing off his massive talent while at the same time standing back for his guests to glow, first introducing Sephuma and then after an interval, the fiercely funky Euge Groove. The man cannot keep still, and neither can his audience. He’s a wizard on the sax.
I have a top three for everything. Top three artists, top three male vocalists, top three female vocalists … Oleta Adams has always been in my top three. She is all power for me vocally. And when she glided onto the stage all smiles, style and confidence, and sat herself at the piano, the audience was instantly mesmerised. Her fingers had barely touched the ivories and we were spellbound. Her performance was flawless – from her soul-wrenching rendition of Everything Must Change, which had me in tears, to a prayer that anyone who has a child will relate to, Adams was perfect. And then what everyone was waiting for – Get Here. I can’t even imagine how many times since 1990 Adams must have performed this song – but how she handled it, treating every note like gold, shows the true worth of this performer. She sang it like it was the first and last time – and it was more spine-chilling than I’ve ever heard it.
The band was tight and energetic, and held the festival together with accomplished ease, sending the audience into the chilly Joburg night with a finale featuring all four acts – it’s Monday and I’m still on a high.