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Saturday, September 30, 2017

ANDILE YENANA BEYOND OCTAVE TRENDS TOUR



(Andile Yenana. Pic by Steve Gordon)

In association with Concerts SA, legendary jazz pianist Andile Yenana presents Beyond Octave Trends Tour with seven performances in three cities and three different provinces- with his band Umngqungqo Wabantu.

Conceived as a musical metaphor, Beyond Octave Trends is a decade-long project through which jazz pianist, composer and teacher Yenana aims to engage mainly legacy audiences such as the youth (who he will also involve centrally as band members), who will carry the fabric and universal principles of jazz into the future.

This touring project seeks to also challenge himself and fellow musicians - the nation as well – to” go beyond our music, to ensure it embraces and reflects our greatest ideals of our society. Because music, and especially jazz, is the way society can re imagine itself by embracing its highest universal ideals while watering its own seeds, its own roots, to nurture the voice of its collective conscience.”

Yenana will tour with his band Umngqungqo Wabantu, in various formations. The band celebrates the modern jazz shaped in the Cape, primarily among Xhosa-speaking peoples. The roots of Xhosa language and music track back to the Khoisan people whose sounds, instruments and collective music-making still echo today: ‘clicks’; flutes and bows; the heptatonic scale; the oscillating harmonics of a bow’s stretched string; a polyphony of human and instrumental voices, each cycling through its own sequence of notes and beats and adding its own “salt” to the tune.

In Durban, Umngqungqo Wabantu will play in sextet format, with Yenana on piano joined by Dalisu Ndlazi (bass), Phumlani Mtiti (saxophone), Zolani Rafuza (drums), Kgethi Nkotsi (trombone) and Thabo Skhakhane (trumpet).

The Beyond Octave Trends Tour is supported by Concerts SA through the Music Mobility Fund, a funding mechanism which offers opportunities for South African musicians to undertake live music tours.

Performances take place as follows:

October 6 at 19h00: The Headroom Studio, 21 Bridlington Road, Seaview, Durban. Tickets R60. Bookings: 031 459 0840 / marius@theheadroom.co.za

October 7 at 19h00: The Jazzy Rainbow, 93 Smiso Nkwanyana Rd, Morningside, Durban. Tickets R70 including a free drink (T&C). Bookings: 031 303 8398 / jazzyrainbow@mweb.co.za