In a couple of weeks’ time, on April 30, it’ll be the UN-sanctified International Jazz Day. (IJD  https://jazzday.com/.) The event had been destined for its first African host city in 2020: Cape Town. Sadly, Covid put paid to that. But it returns to Africa this year, with the host city of Tangier in Morocco.  The programme for the international concert is an impressive one, reflecting the diversity of sources, styles and generations that make up jazz, from Gnawa drumming to avant-garde trumpet and from blues guitar to Spanish/classical harmonica. The southern African flag is held hi ..read more

I completely missed the 2019 release of Cape Town collective Kujenga’s debut album, Nationality. (https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=4aEZwlQBEWg&list=OLAK5uy_kRe1SLktM-wilODoUmzU57DCc-DMzK4ps). Listening to it now, I realise that even had I heard it at that time, it probably wouldn’t have prepared me fully for their second release, In the Wake, https://kujenga.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-wake ,which launched on Sharpeville Day last month. In 2019, the outfit was smaller – no horns – helmed by Milnerton-born bassist Zwide Ndwandwe, with most compositions by his twin brother, Olwethu and ..read more

Last Friday April 5 was a good day for South African jazz. Not only did it see the first two releases from the new Africarise label (https://mg.co.za/friday/2024-04-06-africarise-sa-jazz-to-the-globe/), but also the first truly archival release from a more venerable one, As-Shams. Its not the first time As-Shams has dug into its archival tape crates. But those earlier outings have re-released existing albums that, under apartheid-era, independent label conditions, never received the profile their quality merited. But African Day (https://as-shams.bandcamp.com/album/african-day) is one you’ve ..read more

Cover artwork by Romy Brauteseth Somehow, the Feb 23 release of the Lady Day Big Band’s(LDBB) debut album, Livus’umoya (https://theladydaybigband1.bandcamp.com/album/livusumoya) passed me by at the time. But it’s a release worth celebrating. First, new big bands on disc are always worth celebrating. The scope their generous sonic palette offers to composers and arrangers is un-matched and so they give listening audiences access to many more combinations and textures than are possible with, say, a trio. Second, the LDBB is unique in South Africa because it’s an all-female big band. That could b ..read more

The UCT Little Big Band The year’s first jazz festivals used to happen around Easter. Then, a whole bunch of public holidays meant whatever month the religious event fell in turned into one long weekend briefly interrupted by a few bothersome working days. This year, they’re both in May. Newcomer, the Prince Albert Journey to Jazz, now in its second year, stretches over the week of 1-5 May, with the concert events concentrated at the weekend. The event has been scheduled since last year, with most of an exciting line-up announced in January: enough notice to make plans and bookings. The revena ..read more

Often, on Human Rights Day, I publish a playlist of songs related to the fight for freedom, from here and elsewhere. I’m doing so again below. (One of them isn’t a song, but Jayne Cortez’s poem, Rape, says things that could never be prettied-up with music.) The Galela Campaign on the Concourt steps What are you doing with the day? Chilling? Catching up on a Netflix series? Quaffing a few cold ones and charring bits of dead animal over hot coals? Or maybe, if you’re in Joburg, heading up to Constitution Hill for their Human Rights Festival? The Hill, of course, and the Concourt within it, are t ..read more

In 1977, music professors from Rutgers College in the US convened a jazz workshop for South African players in Maseru, Lesotho, to develop conversations and co-operation outside the prison apartheid was busy making of South Africa. The South Africans who attended, by all accounts, had a rewarding time. Long-lasting friendships were established. One attendee, though, found the jamming and transnational conviviality far more rewarding than the professorial tuition. “They were teaching,” reflected guitarist Allen Duma Kwela later, “what I already knew.” In many ways, that response was typical o ..read more

Most times, news about record labels isn’t the most interesting or cheerful: it’s news about closedowns, mergers and monopoly deals with platforms that are bad for original creative music (especially music from Africa) and contribute to the general enshittification https://www.ft.com/content/6fb1602d-a08b-4a8c-bac0-047b7d64aba5 of online life. There are occasional bright spots, though. One was back in 2022 when Blue Note and Universal Africa launched the Blue Note Africa imprint and supercharged the international profile of Ndududzo Makhathini. (Makhathini’s originality and skill had already ..read more

Reading election manifestos is dispiriting at the best of times. The media obviously take the greatest delight in slating the ruling party, because it’s easiest to check whether their promises from last time were kept. But all the parties seem to have their sales pitches written by graduates of the same University of Weasel Words. They all contain slogans nobody could possibly disagree with (“End crime!” “End loadshedding!”). They all use the same linguistic tricks: crammed with passives without an actor (“X should be done…”; “X is needed…”). All of them focus on the “What”, with longwinded wa ..read more

I’m in the middle of the mammoth task of putting together some information on what the various political party manifestos have to say about arts, culture and music. It’s every bit as depressing as it was last time, but I hope to have it done in the course of the week… In the meantime, here’s something far less depressing: from Tutu Puoane’s new album Wrapped in Rhythm ..read more