Friday 27th March 2015
From humble beginnings as the Cape Town arm of the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Good Hope Centre sixteen years ago, the Cape Town International Jazz Festival has grown in stature to mature into Africa’s Grandest Gathering at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
The CTIJF may have outgrown its venue since inception but it still offers a platform for young, up and-coming artists to share stages with internationally-acclaimed artists. The magic of the CTIJF lies in the appreciation of the audience. The artists are fuelled by the energy generated by enthusiastic responses from the audience.
Without exception, artists are blown away when audiences sing and dance along to their songs and an exchange of vocals and dance moves takes place between artists and audience in the most engaging way. It’s not always possible to soak in all the performances so I will share a few of my highlights.
The Heathfield High School Jazz Band is conducted by Lynn Hannibal and managed by Enrico Hartman. From the outset the Band impressed the audience immensely. The horns were tight and in sync with the rhythm section and together with the young vocalists, Kelly Kelderman, Sarah Cozett and Samuel Frans; they took a great command of the Basil “Manenberg” stage, delivering a solid performance.
The possibilities of solo artists emerging from this band look promising and I trust that these young ones will pursue their musical careers fervently. To experience the variety of performances at the CTIJF, your feet must do the walking.
I navigated my way into Kippies where I took a walk down memory lane with Basia. It is such a spine tingling experience when the opening lines of a song transmit a message from the ears to the brain and the memory banks return an investment from a deposit made when you heard the song for the very first time but to see the artist perform it in front of your very eyes is an adrenaline rush which kicks stronger than morning coffee!!! The audience erupted into cheers then sang aloud to every song as Basia delivered everything off the menu with spicy salsa to go and the audience response was like a generous gratuity.
I tore myself away from Basia to venture back to the Manenberg stage where Jason Miles was doing his tribute “To Grover with love”. Jason Miles is a musical genius. I will digress at this point for a ‘Back to The Future’ moment: five-year-old Justin Shultz of the JL Band (who featured on SA’s Got Talent) is going to exceed the genius of Jason Miles. Jason Miles produced award winning albums for Sting, Luther Vandross, Michael Jackson, Miles Davis and collaborated on many more notable albums. The Grover Washington Jnr tribute was as smooth as you can get, interspersed with sax solos phrased superbly by Marion Meadows and Elan Trotman.
As smooth as Grover’s songs can be, he left a legacy of energetic up-tempo compositions too. Vocalist Maya Azucena released a tornado which erupted from her belly and spiralled out of her mouth into the acoustic atmosphere. The twister choreographed her dance moves too as she stormed both corners of the stage to drive the song right into the audience! The effect was such that many onlookers were shaking their heads in awe of her vocal abilities.
What a fitting tribute to Mr Magic! I spent some time networking in the Media Centre so unfortunately I completely missed Naima Mclean, Melanie Scholtz and Sipho “Hotstix”Mabuse but my media colleagues reported that these artists did not disappoint!
I particularly enjoyed their engaging interviews at the press conferences earlier in the week as well as Hotstix’s midweek performance at the CTIJF Community concert at Greenmarket Square. Overall, the artists’ performances were so diverse, ranging from the teenaged Heathfield High School Jazz Band to the eldest of the Mahotella Queens’ 73yr old Hilda Tloubatla who still has the moves like Jagger so much so that President Jacob Zuma jived on stage with her!
Cape Town in Colour 