mo jazz please

One month of adventures and all-nighters, new friends and new cameras, flapjacks and flat tires. It will all come in due time. First things first, my jazz affair.

Over 70,000 people (or so they say) attend the Cape Town International Festival each year. The Convention Center hosts a two-night festival with six stages and over 40 artists, from Cape Town, from Africa, Sweden, India..everywhere. I bought my ticket well in advance which was lucky because both nights sold out. People pulled up in limos and hired cars, wealthy Africans dressed to the nines, flashing jewellery worth more than my savings account. I went with my friend Jade, a UCT saxophone star herself, and we spent the nights chasing down band after band. Sunday night I was dreaming in jazz, I kid you not.

Highlights from the festival:
1. The Bad Plus – from my darling Minneapolis, they were everyone’s highlight and one of my favorite groups ever. My friends are still talking about it, thanking me for forcing them to go. If you haven’t heard their covers (think Rush, Radiohead, Aphex Twin, Nirvana) please listen to them now. www.thebadplus.com
2. Regina Carter- she’s an American violinist who played with a man on the Kora, an African string instrument, and a jazz accordion. We were floating
3. Charles Lloyd- saxophone. Legendary
4. Marcus Wyatt and the Language 12 – former UCT student on the trumpet. He played with Language 12, including a fabulous vocalist who sang in Xhosa. We were still floating
5. Kesivan & The Lights: Instigators of a Revolution – These guys are young, spunky, Cape Town jazz. They played with Feya Faku (legend!) and guests from Europe. So good I went and saw them again on my birthday the next week
6. Melanie Scholtz- South African vocalist. Sultry and delicious. Mmm
7. Makeson Brown and Akoustik Knot: more young feisty Capetonians, they play at a bar near my house sometimes. It's amazingly good.

Ok I could go on and on. Anyway the jazz here is wonderful. South African musicians have struggled for a long time with bans and stigmatism because of political issues and anti-apartheid protests. Now that South Africa is big in the world again, it’s a great opportunity for music to mix. It’s really interesting because there’s all different styles: Cape Jazz, South African jazz, African jazz, modern jazz… the awesome thing about this festival was seeing everything and everyone combining and celebrating and blowing my socks off. Jade is also a great musician and one morning hosted a giant pancake breakfast for her musician friends and her nonmusician friends to chow some delicious food and talk music. It was fun jumping into their world for a day and eating whipped cream and chocolate for lunch is never a bad idea.

I only have a little over a month left in SA and I’ve still got so much of South Africa to explore. And things are getting so hectic with preparations for the World Cup. Construction projects are frantically being built, cities are panicking, trying to clean up the streets. Cape Town is working on a mega transportation system to get fans to and from the games. It’s chaotic. I’m not sure how it will all pan out but it will be interesting to watch. I keep having mixed feelings about the whole thing. It’s great that South Africa is finally on the map, entering the global arena, so to speak. But honestly I’m not sure they’re ready. Here’s an interesting article that should get you thinking:

http://www.abahlali.org/node/6566

And I didn’t even get to AfrikaBurn. Expect fun things next post! xoxomo