(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
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