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Cape Town's North Sea Jazz Festival 2004
Afropop Worldwide's Sean Barlow recently traveled to the 5th annual North Sea Jazz Festival in Cape Town, South Africa April 9-11.
The Festival brought together some of the lions of American and SA jazz--Stanley Clarke, Cassandra Wilson, Abdullah Ibrahim, and Miriam Makeb--with emerging artists from Cape Town, Jo'burg, and Durban.
The Festival drew over 15,000 boisterours music fans saturday and sunday nights, with some 30 acts performing on five stages each night.
Afropop Worldwide's live concert recordings, interviews with the artists, and photographs will appear on Afropop Worldwide, on PRI's weekday newsmagazine "The World", on www.afropop.org, and in other venues.
As always, there is a huge gap between what world music fans think of as "South African music" and what is currently happening in the country. There is a very lively hybrid jazz, hip hop, and poetry scene bubbling up that is virtually unknown outside of the country. Some of our favorite artists at the North Sea Jazz Festival this year that were new to us: Tumi and the Volume, Soweto Kinch, and Freshly Ground.
The Festival is also a great people watcher's opportunity. The folks there have a strong, personal style sense. And they are so photogenic! See what you think.
Congratulations to Festival founder and Director Rashid Lombard and his crew and to Marilyn Thompson and her youthful publicity team.
The next edition of the North Sea Jazz Festival will be March 26-27, 2005. More info:
http://www.afropop.org/community/site_link.php?link=http://www.nsjfcapetown.com
Thanks to South African Airways and to the South African Tourism Board for supporting our research.
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