(Trumpeter Mandla Mlangeni
in Amandla Freedom Ensemble)
True to the open-ended, connected spirit of jazz, this
year’s Standard Bank Jazz Festival, which runs in Grahamstown as part of the
National Arts Festival from July 2 to 11, will bring together the best of South
African jazz today with some of the world’s most exhilarating contemporary jazz
innovators.
The 2015 programme, which features more than 120
sought-after musicians, presents a solid mix of serious limit-shifting jazz as
well as the freshest crossover sounds to appeal to music lovers across the spectrum.
Invited artists include the Stockholm Jazz Orchestra, Dutch
saxophonist Yuri Honing, Austrian pianist David Helbock, US-based guitarist
Lionel Loueke, Zimbabwe’s Oliver Mtukudzi, French drummer André Charlier, South
Africans Kesivan Naidoo, Thandiswa Mazwai, Carlo Mombelli and Pops Mohammed, as
well as Cape Town pop band Beatenburg and Joburg house band MiCasa. Ray Phiri
will be in town for a one-night only solo gig.
“The Standard Bank Jazz Festival acts as a barometer of the
South African jazz scene, reflecting our heritage as well as international
trends, and opening up opportunities for networking and collaboration,” says
Festival Director Alan Webster. “The festival is about acknowledging our roots
as South Africans and inviting the world in. We’re not asking how to do it –
but sharing experiences with musicians from all over the world to create
something new.”
Webster, who has been responsible for putting the programme
together since he took over as director in 2001, says the world’s musicians relish
the opportunity to visit Grahamstown because of the festival’s high artistic
credibility and aesthetic integrity. “It offers musicians 10 days to network,
collaborate and learn from each other,” he says.
This collective improvisational energy will perhaps be best
experienced this year in The Bjaerv Encounters and Kesivan & The Lights,
which will see jazz superstar Kesivan Naidoo mixing it up with the Swedish
musicians he met when he played the festival 10 years ago. “There’s no doubt
that that experience was a key influence on what Kesivan has become,” says
Webster. “It is Grahamstown that allowed that to happen – it’s the essence of
what jazz is supposed to be.”
This year, Bokani Dyer, another former Standard Bank Young
Artist Award winner, will share the stage with four Swiss musicians he met
during his residency in Basel. The Bokani Dyer Quintet will merge the vitality
of contemporary South African Jazz with Swiss precision and musicianship.
In Listening to the
Ground, this year’s Standard Bank Young Artist award winner pianist and
composer Nduduzo Makhathini will perform with fellow South Africans Feya Faku,
Ayanda Sikade and Nomagugu Makhathini as well as Swedish saxophone player Karl‐Martin
Almqvist and bassist Martin Sjöstedt to pay homage to the musical legends who
have built the great legacy of South African jazz.
The festival also incorporates the Standard Bank National
Youth Jazz Festival, which exposes 350 of South Africa’s best young musicians
to the best of jazz over six burning days spent with 50 teachers and 90
professional jazz musicians and educators in rehearsals, workshops, lectures
and performances. The top jazz students in South Africa audition for places in
the Standard Bank National Schools Big Band and the Standard Bank National
Youth Jazz Band.
The Standard Bank Jazz Festival is presented with support
funding from: the Austrian Embassy, Brian Meese, Dutch Fund of the Performing
Arts, the French Institute of South Africa, Paul Bothner Music, ProHelvetia
Johannesburg, the Royal Netherlands Embassy, SAMRO, Spedidam, Swedish Arts
Council, Swedish Jazz Federation, Mary Lou Meese Youth Jazz Fund, Swiss Arts
Council and the US Embassy. SAfm is the official radio partner of the Standard
Bank Jazz Festival.
Bookings open on May 8, 2015, and can be made via the
website: www.nationalartsfestival.co.za.
Ticketing call centre: 0860 002 004
Pick up a Festival programme and booking kit from selected
Standard Bank and Exclusive Books branches from the end of April. The full
programme will be online from April 30 at www.nationalartsfestival.co.za
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