Monday, 04 July 2011 19:00
This year’s Jazz Festival saw the exciting first-time collaboration of four of South Africa’s rising jazz stars. The combined energy and flair of Chris Engel (sax), Shane Cooper (bass), Afrika Mkhize (piano) and Ayanda Sikade (percussion) played to tapping feet and whoops of appreciation during Young Guns.
The untried collaboration – the brainchild of Jazz Festival director Alan Webster – produced a performance that brought each muso’s own tunes and styles to the fore. The result was a charged and sweaty performance which ignited the midnight crowd.
Webster explained his choice of artists for Young Guns: “Each of them is a brilliant, emerging young player… they’re all causing waves.” The quartet has regularly combined their talents and sounds, but the four had only played as a unit once before their performance – during a rehearsal that afternoon.
The Young Guns seemed pleased with the outcome of this music experiment. There is a definite sense of respect and camaraderie between the artists. “It was beautiful… these are three really incredible musicians,” said Engel. He added “…when playing with these guys you really feel like you’re getting to know them a little bit with every tune.”
Different stories, same love for music
The four represent the diverse faces of South African jazz. Cooper and Sikade are Eastern Cape boys, born in Port Elizabeth and Mdantsane respectively; Engel is from Cape Town; Mkhize was born in Durban and grew up in Johannesburg.
Cooper and Engel decided to take on music as a profession when in their mid-teens, while Mkhize and Sikade had little choice in becoming musicians. Mkhize is the son of well-known South African keyboardist Themba Mkhize who has played with the legendary bands Sakhile and Bayete. “There were always musical instruments lying around the house – to me that was normal, I thought that everybody grew up like that.” Sikade had a similar experience: “I grew up in music. It [music] is my life, it’s my calling.”
Despite their different entrances into music as a profession, music has always featured predominantly in all of their lives. Engel’s earliest musical memory is of his mother strumming her guitar to folk tunes as lullabies, while Cooper remembers listening to the sounds of Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell.
The new generation of jazz
The four provide a window into South African jazz in the 21st century. They are a breed of musicians who share and combine what Mkhize calls the “the oral culture and the theoretical culture of music.” Their collaboration is a sign of a changing South African jazz industry.
As Mkhize explains: “If we were all born in 1955, there was absolutely no way we could work together like this, we would have to leave the country. We can be here together and actually do it because it’s 2011.”
By Solvej
By Linda
By Seena
By Gary Baines
By brett fish anderson
By Renier
By Warren