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"I've been victimized by music since I could first think," said Hugh Masekela, South Africa's legendary trumpet player and headliner at Cape Town's 10th International Jazz Festival. Celebrating his 70th birthday onstage, Masekela thrilled the jam-packed crowd, a few of whom voiced the thought that this may be their last chance to see the legend play live. Indeed, Cape Town's Jazz Festival overflows with lasts and firsts, music legends and musical unknowns likely on the verge of fame. But however you dice up the 41 acts playing five stages for two nights on the southern tip of Africa, everyone here is a willing victim.
Since its inception ten years ago, Cape Town's Jazz Festival has grown tremendously, and for good reason. Fondly referred to as "Africa's grandest gathering," the festival attracts 30,000 music lovers from around the world to South Africa's second largest city.They come to hear old favorites and discover new talent. As has been the case in previous years, the 2009 line up showcased a medley of classic jazz musicians, African artists, and a host of acts that defy classification, but tend to touch on world music, soul, funk, hip hop, electronica, and reggae. Every year seasoned legends like Masekela, Dianne Reeves, and the Stylistics share the festival with a new generation of musicians like local bands, Goldfish and Napalma.
Headed to Rosies, the festival's most intimate and formal venue (woe betide those who fail to silence their cellphones), I began the festival with Dr. Malombo Philip Tabane. Described the previous night as "an indigenous Jimi Hendrix," Tabane did not disappoint. Emerging onstage in snakeskin pants, the 70-plus year old guitar wizard and free jazz improviser played his instrument with elbows, feet, sly winks, and bashful grins. Using guitar chords to recreate polyrhythmic Pendi and Venda sounds, Tabane's delight in making music is as evident as his masterful control. An electric bass, African drummer, and percussionist playing everything from a cowbell to a kudu horn, provided genius accompaniment to this relatively unknown South African legend.
In the 180-degree contrast that typifies jazz fest acts, Pete Philly and Perquesite, a Dutch hip-hop duo, were the next stop at Bassline, one of the festival's two outdoor stages. Combining hip hop, broken beats, and rap, and using a live band rather than preprogrammed music to back them, the performance was one of the unexpected gems that makes jazz fest such a fantastic event. A mix of saxophone, cello, flute, bass, and keyboards infused incredible texture and energy into some of the most inspired rhyming I've heard in years. The duo and their band also should get props for playing the free concert in Cape Town's Greenmarket Square, held prior to the festival (in fact their performance there stole the show).This was arguably the city's most diverse, inclusive, positive cultural event of the year.
Running from Pete Philly, we made it for the end of the Magic Malik Orchestra at Moses Molelekwa, the other indoor "serious" jazz stage. Born in Ivory Coast and raised in Guadeloupe, flautist Malik Mezzadri studied at the National Conservatory in Marseille, where he was heavily influenced by Bach, Ravel, and Xenakis. Although I only heard two songs, Malik's performance on the kalimbas created a sound I can only describe as ethereal and heart breaking. Magical, indeed.
Leaving the flautist, we returned to Bassline to witness the coming of age of South Africa's rising star, electronic duo, Goldfish. Like Pete Philly & Perquesite, band members Dominic Peters and David Poole, known for producing eminently danceable deep house/electronica, actually play real instruments. Classically trained as jazz musicians, “the fishies,” as they are known here, jumped between playing the saxophone, flute and contrabass, and mixing with synthesizers, effects and samplers to create catchy, hypnotic dance music with a texture and depth usually absent in electronic music. Vocalists Monique Hellenberg and Max Vadima respectively added a layer of African soul and a bass shot in the arm of energy. Recently nominated for a record 8 SAMA awards (South Africa's Grammy), and contracted as the resident group at the world famous Pacha Ibiza club, the duo are bringing South Africa's biggest new sound to the rest of the world.
"We think it's great if we can introduce people to a new idea of African music," commented Dom Peters about their growing international fame. "People have this idea of African music as guys wearing lion skins drumming around a fire, and so we're happy to be part of the process of opening perceptions so people see that music in Africa is far more diverse, and coming from so many different places these days."
The festival's first night ended with the Afro-Euro band Zap Mama playing the Bassline. Widely known for innovating jazz polyphony with sounds from her mother's native Congo DRC, Zap Mama founder Marie Daulne gave the eager crowd some polyphonic love, hitting old favorites like “African Sunset” from the CD Seven. A consummate performer, Daulne put on a real show. Unfortunately the music felt a little tired, most of the songs coming from more recent albums that lack the unique simplicity of Zap Mama's early a cappella days. The result strayed somewhat too close to a generic world-pop sound that denies Daulne her true place in the sun.
Going from one of the festival's most anticipated acts (Zap Mama) to the last act signed on, we began festival day two with a bang of Napalma. Fusing Brazilian and African beats, relative newcomer Napalma turned out to be one of the best acts at the festival (another one of those amazing surprises). Playing the first show of the evening is never easy, but the band's pulsing cocktail of electronic grooves mixed with traditional percussion instruments like the djembe had the crowd in a frenzy. Weaving kwaito, drum 'n' bass, and dub in with traditional rhythms like samba and the baião, Napalma is creating a new millennium Afro-Brazilian sound.
Properly energized and back in the jazz-fest zone, we headed over to see Zaki Ibrahim at the Manenberg stage, which is situated between two highways (an arrangement that amazingly functions from an acoustic if not always traffic point of view – a car had pulled over so its passengers could listen to the concert). Unfortunately by the time I arrived, young South-African/Canadian Zaki had started to lose her voice. However, from all reports, she had hitherto put on a great show: "very 90's hip hop-soul-eclectic."
Heading back to the Bassline, we received reports that legendary jazz vocalist Dianne Reeves had just put on a "life-changing" performance back at Rosies. With five stages, you just can't win 'em all. Back at Bassline, vocal-guitar-bass-drum quartet 340ml was playing to an adoring crowd. Though the Mozambican-South African group's indie-ska sound has a huge regional fan base hungry for its alterno-groove to recommend it, I found them inoffensively uninspired.
"They call this a jazz festival. Well… we play 2% jazz and 98%...." Maceo Parker said in before launching into a serious funk groove at the vast Kippies stage. Parker's roots playing with the James Brown group from the 60's to the 80's, and more recently with funk-pop musicians like Prince, was clearly in evidence this evening, and his enormous South African fan base ate it up. Unfortunately the saxophonist and his "greatest little funk orchestra on earth's" genius was somewhat lost in the cavernous space of Kippies, where great musicians and bad acoustics have a terrible way of meeting every year.
Finally it was time for a decision. All night long people had been amped to see Hugh Masekela and Mos Def, the last shows at Kippies and Bassline, respectively. Choices had to be made. Foolishly I attempted to have my cake and eat it. Mos Def's delayed arrival to South Africa didn't help my attempts to beat the system. At Bassline, an increasingly impatient crowd became ungracious, booing the announcer whose task it was to finally admit that Mos Def was late (no doubt her co-announcer who had been asking Cape Town if we were ready half an hour before Mos Def was even scheduled to play, had not helped matters). The tension and expectation that mounted around the appearance of 90's hip-hop icon Dante Terrell Smith, aka Mos Def, was thick in the air. When he finally appeared, the crowd exploded, but the sound he produced wasn't the jamming, lapidary beat expected. Soft soul was more like it, and soon there was a small exodus to Kippies.
But it was a no-go to think you could arrive late to Hugh Masekela on his 70th birthday. It was standing room only for South Africa's legendary trumpeter, and only in the back, at that. Playing songs from his newly released Phola, Masekela also hit some old favorites, (because "you have to," he had commented in an earlier press conference). The curse of Kippies struck again, however, and standing in the back, not only was Masekela diminished into a minuscule figure on stage, his rich sound was rendered tinny and thin.
My last shows notwithstanding, I maintain that Cape Town's Jazz Festival is possibly the best weekend in 's MotherCity. Barring poor organization on one's own part (there were so many shows I couldn't make it to), and the terrible acoustics at Kippies, the festival is a miracle of talent, energy, organization, and good vibes, pure and simple. Thanks to the incredible artists and tireless producers, jazz fest is the one time of year that Cape Town emerges from its naval-gazing, segregated (albeit beautiful) carapace, and becomes an open, engaging, diverse hotbed of creativity and action. Or as Hugh Masekela pointed out: "A nation or a city cannot live on one festival a year. Especially if you have the content we have, this should be happening every night." I couldn’t agree more.
