Muneeb Hermans plays one for Hanover Park

Africa Day last week was celebrated with a South African jazz first: the first release on the Blue Note Africa label: Nduduzo Makathini’s In the Spirit of Ntu. For once, nobody has to fret about the absence of profile and coverage for a South African landmark. Congratulations to Makhathini for deservedly scoring interviews and showcases all over the place. You can read and hear his thoughts on the album here https://www.bluenote.com/spotlight/nduduzo-makathini-in-the-spirit-of-ntu/ and here https://theconversation.com/spirit-of-ntu-south-african-piano-maestro-nduduzo-makhathini-on-his-10th-album-183950

That should – but won’t automatically – ensure that other voices in South African jazz also attract more international attention. Ours is currently such a joyfully diverse musical landscape that it’s impossible to pick a single “typical” release. Over time, Blue Note Africa represents an opportunity to showcase all of that diversity.

The jazz shaped by the lives and communities of the Western Cape was one of the earliest to make an impact worldwide, in the persons of pianist Abdullah Ibrahim and vocalist/composer Sathima Bea Benjamin. It’s had a persistent international presence – witness the US career of trumpeter Darren English, and the regular touring of McCoy Mrubata, among others. And new voices continue to rise. A fortnight ago, Hanover Park trumpeter Muneeb Hermans launched his debut as leader: the quintet outing One for HP (https://music.apple.com/za/album/one-for-hp/1622083501).

Album covers always declare an identity, and Hermans’ is no exception. The backdrop of a narrow alley between yards, with washing strung high, asserts community roots. And the five black-clad, shades-sporting musicians – if not exactly the wreathing smoke and formal dinner suits of a Herman Leonard image – nevertheless declare something akin to that kind of jazz. You can expect this to be music where the head is stated and then the impro does most of the heavy lifting, demanding serious chops and tight swing all round.

Hermans, alto sax Justin Bellairs, pianist Blake Hellaby, bassist Sean Sanby and drummer Kurt Bowers don’t disappoint.

It’s hard to imagine Hanover community roots that go much deeper than Hermans. He grew up in a klopse family, linked to that most historic of troupes, the Pennsylvanians (who were founded in 1932 although their current incarnation dates only from 1989). Fascinated by the sound of Louis Armstrong, he joined as soon as they’d let a child in, simply to get his hands on a trumpet, “and then there was Miles Davis [who] captured my heart rather than my ear.” Over time, he also played with the Seven Steps and D6 troepe.

At high school (Alexander Sinton) he was spotted by legendary jazz teacher Ronel Nagfal, and later by another mentoring titan, George Werner, who found him space in the Little Giants, with whom “I saw the world”. In 2012, 2014 and finally 2017 as part of Buddy Wells’ National Youth Jazz Band, the Joy of Jazz National Youth Jazz Festival at Makhanda (then, Grahamstown) played its part in growing his musicality. Jazz performance studies at UCT followed. Then the usual rounds of tours (Europe, Asia and the US as well as South Africa), theatre and club gigs and festival shows ensued. Last year, his streamed Jazz in the Theatre concert won a Makhanda Festival Ovation Award. Drummer Bowers was a high-school buddy who travelled much of that same journey with him.

Hermans shapes a velvety trumpet tone that definitely owes something to his youthful bromance with Miles. His compositions extend beyond that historic style, though. The eight album tracks stretch from the meditative opener Inner Peace Parts 1&2 , through the jaunty, catchy, goema-flavoured Kaapstad and the churchy, anthemic Song for Douks (written for his late paternal uncle, and possibly the most retro in conception: definitely a timers’ song) to the Trane/Tyner-ish soaring of Yet Another Day , the hard bop of Me and the slow, narrative unfolding of the closer, The Bridges We Build.

Muneeb Hermans

It’s all recognisably music of history and community: there are songs a dancer could jazz to (if they were good enough), the yearning horn voices of the Basil n’Robbie era and the crisp kkr-tick of goema drums. But these are young players who have absorbed much more, and newer, and worldwide. So they’re not confined inside those legacies but rather use them as jumping-off points for impro that’s recognisably individual and contemporary. (Hellaby’s unashamedly early Dollar-ish piano on Kaapstad, for example, takes multiple detours into the edgy and modal.)

Everybody has the chops to make the compositions sound good. Hermans can do the speed-merchant thing when he wants to, but sensibly doesn’t overload the more moving, lyrical compositions with tricky technique: another Miles legacy is letting stuff breathe. Bellairs can shout when the emotion demands, but also respects space. And the rhythm team of Bowers and Sanby is a dream: the former possessing the controlled energy of a tightly-wound spring; the latter never retreating to mere routine foundations and adding resonant, growling, singing solos. As a result, everything swings like the clappers, just the way it’s supposed to.

Hermans’ album respects the traditions rather than attempting to break any mould – it’s the skill and commitment of the playing that keep it sounding fresh. You can hear that for yourself on Amazon Music, Soundcloud or Spotify, or catch the live launch gig here:

The slow detumescence of the DSAC flagpole

A government department would have to be pretty dense not to realise its error when even the President jokes about it. ( https://www.news24.com/fin24/economy/cancel-this-thing-ramaphosa-says-about-r22m-flag-project-20220520 ) A more perceptive and democratically inclined departmental leadership might, however, have responded slightly more swiftly to days of criticism about the proposed R22M flagpole from all kinds of people.

In case you’ve forgotten what it looks like….

Indeed, the idea certainly succeeded in ‘bringing the nation together’ (its purpose, as described by the DSAC minister, Nathi Mthethwa), though perhaps not in the way envisaged. For one of the first times in recent history, everybody from Cosatu to the DA was singing from exactly the same hymn-sheet about how scandalously dumb the idea was.

And it was dumb. It was a wholly unjustifiable expense in the context of a post-Covid arts landscape where practitioners, venues and events are still struggling and many have been forced out of the industry by poverty. The miniscule amount of metal involved in even a giant flagpole won’t mean a thing to “the steel industry” (another departmental justification) – which will generate $7.1 billion in revenue this year despite Covid and really doesn’t need another small job. The ’employment’ may go to a few construction workers – but will go mostly to the consultants and other profiteering, tenderpreneurial elites no doubt already salivating over the prospect. And the suggested night-time illumination at Freedom Park is unlikely to inspire a sense of belonging when distantly viewed by a Mamelodi resident load-reduced for the umpteenth time because the authorities can’t spare enough electricity for her to cook for her family or bathe her child in warm water.

As usual, however, the idiocy of both the proposal and its defences has taken the debate away from some important issues and onto the terrain of the personal. I’ve argued before that reducing the debate to ‘the Minister must go’ is no solution to anything if the government disdain for arts, culture and heritage that has permitted mismanagement of the sector for so long persists. We don’t just need a new face at the helm, we need new policies; informed, committed, efficient civil servants – and a kick-start to all that from the top: the ruling party, the President and the parliamentary Portfolio Committee.

But what about the flagpole, and the idea that its existence will educate people about national unity? Perhaps DSAC should talk to their colleagues in the two Depts of Education, who might inform them that putting up a static object somewhere for limited numbers of people to passively observe doesn’t actually provide any kind of education. Learning happens when people actively engage: it’s a process, not an object or an event.

…although most South Africans already know

So if you really want to use the flag to help build unity, what matter are the aspects most minimally mentioned in all the Departmental blustering: the ideas it symbolises (discussed a little), and the processes around it (discussed not at all). The official flag website ( https://www.gov.za/about-sa/national-flag-0 ) is very clear that while the flag’s colours have historically had resonance for various communities and movements “no universal symbolism should be attached to any of the colours.” The key symbol is that ‘Y’: a metaphor for the coming-together of diverse elements and thus for the idea of unity as strength.

And how could you better get that idea around (because it’s not a bad one: it’s been the basis of workers’ struggles for centuries)? Well, given that there are multiple national flags in place – there should be one outside every government facility already – how about spending far less on developing teaching materials on the idea of unity, as a resource for educators? How about inviting creative artists to develop projects that engage thematically with unity – crucially, not excluding critical ideas that can spark debate? That latter would also put some of the R22M to the far more productive use of helping artists not to starve.

We don’t want citizens who unthinkingly revere the flag or unity as symbols of narrow nationalism. That way lies Operation Dudula and fascism. We don’t want citizens who pay lip-service to unity while their sons urinate over other people’s study materials. However many impressive and expensive monuments are commissioned, ‘unity’ will stay an empty word until South Africa practically enacts the spirit that inspired the struggle: to make the country genuinely belong to all who live in it. That’s our real heritage. Unity will come from a place where refugees can settle without fear; where women can live their lives safely; where poor people can access the resources and work they need to live decently; where a diminishing minority of racists feel shame for their ignorance; and where the wealthy refuse inflated bonuses and pay taxes without whingeing. That’ll take so much more than a very big flagpole. As the saying goes, it’s not about size, it’s about what you do with it.

The South African Jazz Real Book: a brilliant collection, but less real for women

We’ve been waiting too long for a collection of South African scores that makes our jazz repertoire accessible to musicians, students and teachers. Now, it’s arrived, with the South African Jazz Real Book vol 1: Jika (https://www.sheetmusic.co.za/scores-south-african- jazz ) compiled by George Werner and Jannie van Tonder with Colin Miller. In almost every sense, it’s a brilliant collection. I’ll get back to that ‘almost’ later, because it’s a very important ‘almost’ for 51% of South Africa’s population.

First, let’s give credit to the massive and painstaking work of selecting, transcribing, securing rights and creating the book. It has taken years, and nobody who’s tried to, for example, secure rights to republish even one tune in the trackless forest that the SA music archive often is, should underestimate just how much sweat and dedication went into the project. The R500 selling price isn’t cheap, but for institutions and individuals that can afford it, it’s worth it. For those that can’t, don’t we have government entities called Departments of Education and Culture who might assist? You could, for example, buy 44 000 copies for the price of a certain proposed 100-metre flagpole monument…

With a book like this in place, it will be far less easy for music courses and programmes to argue that there’s nothing on which to base jazz curricula that speak to the majority of jazz learners and tell them about their own history. It will be far easier for South African musicology students to analyse the voices of South African jazz and generate new knowledge about them. And it’ll be far easier for the world to appreciate our jazz voices and traditions.

Apart from that ‘almost’, it’s a brilliant selection too. The 116 picks range from early popular standards to the contemporary sounds of, for example, Marcus Wyatt, Zim Ngqawana, Kesivan Naidoo, Mandla Mlangeni and Nduduzo Makathini. Tunes that are loved and legendary, but were very hard to find, such as Shakes Mgudlwa’s You Can Do It Too, are finally accessible. Everybody will have their preferences and quibbles, but those are matters of taste. No selection can leave everybody completely satisfied. Now there is something where before there was almost nothing, and on the foundations of that something a more representative repertoire for SA jazz education can begin to grow.

Or at least, more representative in some dimensions.

Because that ‘almost’ isn’t insignificant. Out of the compilers’ 116 picks only four women composers feature: Dorothy Masuka for Hamba Nontsokolo; Shannon Mowday for Woza Waltz; Miriam Makeba (as co-composer) for Pata Pata, and Melanie Scholtz (as co-composer) for Meditations on Lost Love. Several male composers get more than one pick, and on that basis Masuka (who composed close to 100 songs across her career) might merit at least another one too – and Makeba, Scholtz and Mowday also have pretty extensive compositional opuses, even if they haven’t quite hit the century mark.

The Skylarks with Mary Rabotapi 2nd left

And why does that matter? Because if women don’t feature in collections like this as composers, neither they nor their male peers (or teachers) see them as composers. At student level, that’s yet another “Keep Out: Not for You” sign posted; another of the reasons – and there are many more worth discussing another time – why many women perform with distinction in music studies, but far fewer go on to make careers as composers and instrumentalists.

“Well…given the prejudices, maybe there just weren’t and aren’t that many women composing?” The inspiration for this column was a comment by Mowday during our interview for a profile that will appear soon in New Frame (thanks, Shannon), and that was the response of a – female – friend to whom I mentioned the idea. You see, most people just don’t know.

Certainly, historic male prejudices were always a disincentive to women staying in music. They also meant that when women did compose they sometimes used a name that made their compositional identity genderless. That was the case with the Skylarks’ Mary Rabotapi (M.Rabotali, who composed Laleli Bantwana and several more of the Skylarks’ songs), Martha Mdenge (M. Mdenge), and the Mahotella Queens’ Hilda Tloubatla (H. Tloubatla: Sindiza Emoyeni and more). Because vocalist was often the only role open to them onstage in that era, they probably composed more songs than instrumental numbers – but if Hamba Nontsokolo counts as an SA jazz composition for the Real Book’s purposes, then so do many other songs, historic and present-day.

Siya Makuzeni

And today it’s not hard to think of South African female jazz artists who were or are formidable composers, with both feet (or at least one foot) in jazz. A completely random and absolutely not comprehensive first call might include Amanda Tiffin, Cara Stacey, Kelly Bell, Sathima Bea Benjamin, Thandi Ntuli, Zoe Modiga, Gabisile Motuba, Msaki, Siya Makuzeni…

This is only the first volume of the SA Jazz Real Book. Perhaps the intention is to include more female composers as the series grows. If it wasn’t, it should become such, and women really should have had a rather stronger presence in the debut volume. Because they can compose, right across the spectrum of what we call South African jazz. Listen to this tiny sample of work I’ve assembled below. There’s a lot more where that came from…

Sathima Bea Benjamin – Music

https://www.youtube.com.watch?v=Q_tzYdX3ORU

Martha Mdenge – Mdegundwini

https://www.youtube.com.watch?v=NZC0LIy5c1E

Siya Makuzeni – Brazen Dream

https://siyamakuzeni.bandcamp.com/album/out-of-this-world

Thandi Ntuli – Rainbow

htttps://thandintuli.bandcamp.com

Hilda Tloubatla – Sindiza Emoyeni

https://www.youtube.com.watch?v=zHmmV_VktA

Gabisile Motuba – Remember Me

https://www.youtube.com.watch?v=kgFc1Un9TOA

Martha Mdenge – La La

https://www.youtube.com.watch?v=cPj3OPF0ONI

Zoe Modiga – Umdali

https://www.youtube.com.watch?v=5bgaHwcdtA

Msaki – Iimfama Ziyabona

https://www.youtube.com.watch?v=P0di1oCbLbw

Keenan Ahrends’ Perseverance: rhythm conversations

I probably wasn’t the only person disappointed that guitarist Keenan Ahrends’ 2018 debut album, Narrative, didn’t feature in that year’s awards lists. Absurd as the notion of “winners” (and by implication “losers”) is in music-making, Narrative told a fresh and distinctive guitar story worth acknowledging.

Now his second release, Perseverance: live at the Birds Eye ( https://keenanahrends.bandcamp.com/album/perseverance-live-at-the-birds-eye) has arrived. It archives his performances at the Basel jazz club last year, streamed as part of the 2021 Makhanda Festival. His trio’s Swiss tour (with bassist Romy Brauteseth and drummer Siphelelo Mazibuko) was part of the ProHelvetia Artist Residency programme; the recording also features Swiss guests, reedman Domenic Landolf and trumpeter Lukas Thoeni.

When I wrote about that Makhanda performance, I expressed regrets at the absence of a set list: this was new, unknown material. The album’s seven tracks correct that deficiency. I now know that one striking bass/guitar conversation took place on a number called Expendables, while drums and guitar conversed on Aunty B. And the very pretty theme that transformed itself into a very joyful, compelling goema, was called Here We Go Again. The digital download also provides a dozen minutes of two bonus tracks, Stories Behind Expression and Family. More about those later.

Domenic Landolf

I’ve used the term ‘Metheny-ish’ about Ahrends instrumental voice before (he may hate it…). What unites these two guitarists from very different contexts and generations is the sense of exploratory emotional space in their music. They both play music with head and heart. Ahrends prefers to see where a theme takes him, rather than mechanically stating the head and marching in a straight line from there. There’s no rush to the conclusion of the tune’s home, but rather continual invention and reformulation along the road.

That’s not to say that Ahrends doesn’t write or state appealing melodies. Here We Go… certainly appealed to me, as did Lullaby of Solitude and Family . But often those melodies emerge from his explorations, rather than conventionally bookending them. Nor is he a grandstanding soloist. When brass and reeds are on stage he shares the sonic space equally, so that it’s not until the fourth number, Aunty B, that the guitar stretches out alone for a long time. The side of any guitarist that often gets an audience shouting – the assertive, bluesy, rocky side – is employed judiciously, so that when it declares itself, for example, on Expendable and Stories Behind… (on that latter, alongside an equally soulful, bluesy Brauteseth) you can hear the audience riding it joyfully home.

Romy Brauteseth

We often don’t talk enough about the rhythm players, but if bass and drums aren’t equally strong and inventive in a guitar-led trio, the whole concept can sound thin rather than spacious, and anaemic rather than subtle. Brauteseth and Mazibuko are perfect trio partners. The drummer judges perfectly when to lay back and shade Ahrends’ colours and textures with his brushes, when to join the conversation more assertively, as with Thoeni on Wandering Dancer, and when to pull out a bouncing, rattling, magnetic solo – one of which makes Family the most satisfying closer track possible. Brauteseth possesses the same finely judged mix of empathy and power. In addition to the contributions already mentioned, strong bass foundations are often what ground the extended abstract excursions. (And there are some satisfyingly long numbers, something live recordings offer that is sometimes absent on studio cuts of the same material.) It’s the swing of Brauteseth’s walking line that helps the Wandering Dancer to dance.

The two Swiss guests, as I noted when I reviewed the streamed concert, have clearly spent far too long in the company of South Africans. Their contributions catch the feeling of Ahrends’ compositions beautifully: Thoeni’s gently upbeat solo on Revival palpably lifts the mood after the darker emotions of Expendable; Landolf’s solo on the title track definitely talks a shared expressive language. Both of them relish the celebratory mood of Here We Go…

Siphelelo Mazibuko

The Live at the Birds Eye series has consistently – and for quite a long time now – given us music from its South African guests (for example, also Zim Ngqawana, McCoy Mrubata and Feya Faku) that faithfully reflects their character in performance, with none of the South African label nonsense about “You must cut the long numbers because they won’t get airplay”. Recordings in this series always bring back grateful memories of how it felt when we heard these artists live ourselves. Gratitude doesn’t pay the bills, though; for that, you need to buy the album.

International Jazz Day: high-price, big-city clubs only?

Abbey Cindi: veteran of the popular struggle for jazz

Yesterday was the UN’s International Jazz Day – the event, if you remember, whose hosting South Africa was robbed of by the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020. The UN celebrated by livestreaming its customary mega-concert ( https://jazzday.com/global-concert-2022 ), whose timezone meant not many here would have been awake to watch it. Jazz from Africa was minimally represented: superb Senegalese bassist Alun Wade and Congolese veteran Ray Lema are always worth hearing, but their music hardly represents the spread of the sounds we call jazz on this continent. Most performers were America-based. The persistent lack of a South African presence on this annual “world” jazz stage – when we are the only country outside America with a historic indigenous jazz legacy – is a distressing omission. However, as I mentioned recently, Jazz at Lincoln Centre plugged the gap more than adequately with its SA jazz season in Dizzy’s this past week.

The International Jazz Day concert has passed. Still online last I checked was the linked series of workshops (https://jazzday.com/education-programmes-2022 ) including a survey of Jazz Women in Africa featuring, among others, Music in Africa’s Violet Maila, and a brilliant panel opened by drummer Terri-Lyn Carrington on Jazz without Patriarchy. Both are well worth catching up on (although much of the former is in French).

And there was South African jazz galore in this country to celebrate the occasion, reflecting how the scene is really getting its groove back after the devastations of the past two Covid years. (Look at the numbers. It’s not over yet: if we don’t want to travel even a short distance backwards in that direction, vaccinate, mask up, and ventilate your venues!)

But examine the concerts on offer and the vast majority are on city-centre stages, often of the elite persuasion. You might not think that being able to shell out R150 for a ticket (some cost much more), plus the transport to get there and back, plus whatever you’re charged for food and drinks, makes you a member of the elite. But compared to what the majority of South Africans can afford, it does.

At this stage in the discussion, somebody often points out – validly – that when people can’t afford food, whether they can access music is the least of their worries. That truth often trails a dangerous and untrue additional implication: that the arts are a luxury; that they have nothing to do with the lives of those with low or no incomes. But the arts aren’t a consumer commodity like those Louis Vuitton handbags so ubiquitous in parliamentary circles. Rather than luxuries, they are a necessity for reading and speaking to the world: they should be a public, not exclusively a private, good.

The historic power of often impoverished communities to take the making and appreciating of culture into their own hands was strikingly illustrated by an event that opened the weekend: the Wits African Jazz Cosmopolitanisms Colloquium on Friday. Rounding off the first phase of this project, the colloquium was bookended by addresses from cosmopolitanism scholars Professors Steven Feld and David Coplan. Between those overviews, a range of voices from West and South Africa talked about the popular jazz communities in their countries and the music they made, including gbokos music; the Lagos scene – and the story of jazz and popular resistance in Mamelodi.

That last, recounted by Mfanufikile Motau and Manoko Mokgonyana of the Mamelodi Arts and Culture Forum, was an eye-opener for anybody who believes that music always needs a Konka stage and champagne at R13 000 a bottle. (As the Gauteng MEC seems to believe, having in March announced a partnership with that venue to showcase new artists.) During the struggle era, music-makers, for sure, played formal events and stages if those were available. But they also played under the radar, rehearsing, teaching, learning, networking and organising in homes and backyards across the country. A veteran of that scene, 83-year-old Abbey Cindi ( https://www.dailysun.co.za/dailysun/celebs/keeping-malombo-jazz-alive-20220427 ), was honoured in the telling of that history, and on the following International Jazz Day his United States of Africa took to the Wits stage to demonstrate that people’s music still lives.

Survey after survey has reflected that in South Africa musicians and audiences want their musical commons back: the local platforms and events that acknowledge and platform both the creativity and the need for beauty in every South African heart, not just the hearts of metropolitan elites. If less government money was wasted and stolen (and if the responsible Departments at national and many local levels actually knew and cared) supporting at least a few more local arts spaces (something the EFF election manifesto demanded) would be possible.

But it might be that, as in the struggle years, popular organisations need to take back control of cultural spaces for themselves, as KZN-based Abahlali base Mjondolo has done in rebuilding an activist choral tradition as part of its work.

International Jazz Day is a great initiative. But on the UN side, let’s hope next year is just a wee bit more international. And in South Africa, let’s think about how we can help more future IJD events serve both the nations living in this country – the nation of the privileged and that of the impoverished. For all the former seems to know about the latter, they might as well be separate countries.