Africa’s premier jazz festival took place in Cape Town this past weekend. Tonight was there to soak up the sounds of the tried-and-tested and possible future stars
Theresa Smith
Barring politicians getting booed off the stage and Yasiin Bey highjacking BadBadNotGood’s set, this year’s Cape Town International Jazz Festival was not exactly a surprising affair.
The bad weather rather muted the mood, at least outside, and thanks to the VIP-hosted areas keeping their guests busy with goodness-knows-what, corridors were mercifully not perpetually jammed up.
Music-wise it was a half-way split between jazz and anything from reggae-pop to Khuli Chana’s very popular turn with Muzart. Concerts did not run too late and even Meshell Ndegeocello adroitly found a way around the reverb and obnoxiously overloud bass at Kippies.
The second night at the Jazz Festival always starts off with a school band and this year Elsies River High were doing a cover of Jimmy Nevis’ Heartboxing as I walked up to the Manenberg stage. The popcorn vendor lustily singing along was as good as audience participation was going to get – it was still early and, while the parents had come out in full force, it is always difficult to get an early crowd invested.
Band leader Camillo Lombard has done a great job with the high school students, though – they were slick, well-rehearsed and, when he mentioned that the three keyboardists were actually brothers, it elicited a strongly sentimental ripple from the crowd.
The raw energy on the stage outside was more than matched by Tete Mbambisa’s exacting and sophisticated Big Band sound inside on the Kippies stage. Then upstairs at the Moses Molelekwa (MM) stage, the Benjamin Jephta Quintet perfectly merged energy and skill. Marcus Wyatt’s haunting trumpet was wholly suited to Jephta’s One for the Plain and bassist Jephta commanded centre stage.
The MM stage is where you are most likely to find the avant garde jazz offerings and it is certainly the stage I returned to throughout the evening.
What you hear on this stage speaks to endless possibility, whereas the big Kippies and Manenberg stages are more about what is tried and tested. Pianist Thandi Ntuli has come out of her shell since last year’s Standard Bank Jazz Festival at the National Arts Festival – now she seems more comfortable making her own liquid sound without supporting artists.
Rosies, of course, is for the serious jazz heads and sitting next to a musician in that venue is always elucidating. But, this time I was almost in stitches thanks to a musician, who shall remain nameless, who took exception to Cassandra Wilson’s violinist. His harumph of derision almost had me laughing out loud in what is usually the “stay quiet and listen venue”. Wilson was her usual graceful self, starting off with works from her New Moon Daughter album and impressing with her vocal range.