The Standard Bank Jazz Festival,
Grahamstown 2013 incorporates a variety of disciplines into its programme. Modern
Jazz is one of the genres that will be highlighted at the festival this year,
though it is just one part of the formidable line-up which includes Mainstream,
Blues / Funk / World Music, Afro-Jazz, Youth and the Standard Bank Jazz and
Blues Cafe.
Bassist Shane Cooper, Standard Bank Young
Artist for Jazz 2013, is an eclectic young musician who has rapidly emerged in
the jazz world as first-call bassist for serious jazz. For his first Young
Artist performance he draws on collaborations that emerged out of the Jazz
Werkstatt in Bern, Switzerland – a fascinating festival run by young Swiss
musicians who bring together like-minded musicians from around the world. He
returns to Grahamstown with two of the festival organisers – Marc Stucki (sax)
and Andreas Tschopp (trombone) – and the concert explores the diverse sounds created
by different mixes of instruments with all members of the collaboration (Kyle
Shepherd on piano and Kesivan Naidoo on drums join the mix) providing original
compositions.
Shane Cooper’s second Young Artist
performance features his own original music in a group of some of his favourite
South African musicians. The music goes from left-field groove to post-bop to
South African rhythms to introspective ballads, featuring two past winners of
the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Jazz – Kesivan Naidoo and Bokani Dyer;
with Justin Bellairs (sax) and Reza Khota (guitar).
Jazz musicians are normally inspired by
something completely fresh and different – a new form of sound; unusual chord
progressions or rhythms; or collaborating with musicians they have never met
before. However, sometimes it is equally invigorating to revisit old musical
relationships and explore afresh what made you the musician you are. An
exciting group of musicians come together from Australia: Mark Ginsburg (sax);
Canada - Bruce Cassidy (trumpet); and South Africa -Andrew Lilley (piano), Dave
Ledbetter (guitar), Shaun Johannes (bass), Ronan Skillen (percussion), Kevin
Gibson (drums). Though the musicians in this band now live on three different
continents, their links to each other stretch over the past three decades, and
in this collaboration they explore each other’s music, sharing diverse musical
journeys with a desire to merge their collective influences and through this
process to create a fresh sound: Global Express.
“Malcolm Braff is a great bear of a man
with such heightened musical sensitivity that he brings hardened jazz musicians
to tears. Well, that’s certainly what happened last time we had the chance to
showcase his playing in Grahamstown in 2010!” say the Jazz Festival organisers.
“The piano keyboard sings and hums as he hunches over it and the rhythms –
complex and multifaceted – wash over the audience in lapping waves, stirring to
frenzies and receding to lullabies. His South African rhythm section,
comprising Shane Cooper (bass) and Kesivan Naidoo (drums), will no doubt do the
beauty of his music justice.”
French pianist Laurent Coq is a performer,
composer and musical activist who has notched up a formidable list of
recordings and collaborations in Europe, Japan, Vietnam and the US. He studied
with Mulgrew Miller and performed with Frank Wess, Rick Margitza and Otis Brown
III, among many others. He has composed film scores for full orchestra;
improvised collaborations with a dancer; and performed at leading festivals in
Europe, New York and Tokyo. He was voted Best Jazz Musician in 2006 by the
French Jazz Academy and joins the Festival in Grahamstown as part of an
extensive African tour. He performs with fellow Frenchmen Ralph Lavital
(guitar) and Nicolas Pélage (vocals).
Mark Fransman – appearing here in the guise
of Makeson Browne – is a versatile, talented young Cape Town musician and past
winner of the Standard Bank Young Artist for Jazz Award. His music flows from
R&B, funk and social commentary to serious jazz and he has become as
accomplished on saxophone as he was renowned on piano and voice. He has won
SAMAs for his production, is an accomplished composer and arranger and plays in
productions as diverse as his recent two-month stint in London with the
award-winning play Mies Julie. He
collaborates here with Dutch pianist Jeroen van Vliet and the solid rhythm
section of Shane Cooper (bass) and Jonno Sweetman (drums).
The Mike Rossi Project is the result of the
mixed musical life of an artist and educator who has travelled extensively and has
performed with as diverse an array of musicians as the Czech Radio Symphony
Orchestra, Clark Terry, Tony Bennett, Aretha Franklin and Winston “Mankunku”
Ngozi. Born in the US to Italian emigrants and now Professor of Jazz at UCT,
woodwind specialist Mike Rossi’s music reflects American, South African and
Italian influences and experiences. The music was specifically orchestrated for
trumpet, trombone and multiple saxophones with a stellar rhythm section, and
ranges in style from South African township jazz to hard bop, modal, Latin and
contemporary jazz. He brings together Lee Thomson (trumpet), William Haubrich
(trombone), Jason Reolon (piano), Wesley Rustin (bass), and Kesivan Naidoo
(drums).
A fascinating young European innovator is
pitted with a killer South African rhythm section in Young Guns. Swiss
trombonist Andreas Tschopp has played with Bob Brookmeyer's New Art Orchestra
and the European Jazz Orchestra, and in major festivals from Montreux and
Berlin to Shanghai and Bagkok. They join three of the most exciting young
players in South Africa: Nduduzo Makhathini (piano), Shaun Johannes (bass) and
Ayanda Sikade (drums).
Drummers Kesivan Naidoo and Håkon Mjåset
Johansen played together at a late-night jam session years ago, and that
powerful energy is harnessed as the source for a collaboration that is Rhythm
Changing, but beggars description. Swiss pianist Malcolm Braff plays with a
rhythmic complexity – influenced by a childhood in Brazil and Senegal – that
adds further layers to those of the drummers; and Carlo Mombelli, bassist and
composer extraordinaire with collaborative credits as wide-ranging as Lee
Konitz, Miriam Makeba and Simphiwe Dana; fits in beautifully. With the addition
of the lyrical sax of Norwegian Atle Ny mo, audiences can expect a mind-blowingly
beautiful performance.
Mombelli and van Vliet are two unusual
composers on a sound design journey and their collaboration is bound to be
nothing short of interesting. The American Bass Player magazine writes of Carlo
Mombelli: ‘his latest release shows off a musician in full, with his command of
the instrument so secure his virtuosic moments fade into unexplainably
delightful sonic pastiche… Avant-garde bass-focused jazz composition has rarely
sounded so gorgeous.’ Mombelli will be collaborating with Jeroen van Vliet,
described in the Dutch press as ‘a master of nuance...whose playing is
enchanting, emotional and full of fantasy... With his silent moments, his way
to use suspense, the alternation of melody and rhythm and the logic of his
harmony, Van Vliet is an important figure within the Dutch improvising music
scene.’ They are joined by Rus Nerwich and Kesivan Naidoo.
In Rus Nerwich & the Wondering Who,
Nerwich is joined by Andrew Lilley (piano),Nick Williams (bass),Ronan Skillen
(percussion), Kevin Gibson (drums). It sounds like wind and water, noise and
calm; confusion in the midst of a groove that eventually makes sense only
because it’s repeated - the confusion, that is. It sounds like a torn packet of
grain painting the streets and an elephant grinding it; horns warn of change
and it grooves and it grooves and it grooves. Cape saxophonist Rus Nerwich is
always wondering, considering, exploring and searching for ways in which to add
a new face to the prism, and by introducing eclectic sounds and exotic colours,
instruments that have "predictable" tones suddenly find new life.
The Svein Olav Herstad Trio is tight-knit
piano trio that met 20 years ago as students at the Trondheim Music Conservatory
and has played together since then with each instrument regarded as an equal
musical partner. Svein Olav Herstad (piano), Magne Thormosæter (bass), Håkon
Mjåset Johansen (drums) produce a classic sound with modern ideas. All three
musicians are highly-accomplished and busy in many other projects, but the
intention of this trio is to have fun when they get a chance to play,
influenced by a common fascination with American jazz history.
This year will also see the establishment
of the Standard Bank Jazz & Blues Cafe at the Lowlander, St. Andrew’s
College, which will end each night with a great jazz show and a late night jazz
jam session or blues gig – a place where audiences can catch musicians letting
off steam and butting musical heads late into the night, featuring the likes of
Nduduzo Makhathini, saxophonist Dan Shout, Lee Thomson, Imbaula, and the Rick
van Heerden Quartet.
The 39th edition of the National Arts
Festival, Grahamstown will take place from June 27 to July 7 2013. For more
information check www.standardbankarts.co.za
or www.youthjazz.co.za
The Standard Bank Jazz Festival is
presented with support funding from: Institut Français, the French Institute of
South Africa and the Alliance Française; Paul Bothner Music; ProHelvetia; Royal
Netherlands Embassy; Royal Norwegian Embassy; SAMRO; Swedish Arts Council /
Swedish Jazz Federation / Mary Lou Meese Youth Jazz Fund; Jamey Aebersold Jazz.
The National Arts Festival is sponsored by
Standard Bank, The National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, Eastern Cape
Government, Department of Arts and Culture, National Arts Council, City Press
and M Net.
For more information on the NAF, link to their website by clicking on
the banner advert at the top of this page.
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