3 July 2020

We lost Big Beats guitarist Ivor Wagner on Monday. We lost Spirits Rejoice drummer Gilbert Matthews last weekend, and Invaders and Chayn Gang keyboardist “Spewy” Pillay the week before. And Respect bassist Melly da Silva passed away a few weeks before.

All four made their mark in the Swinging Sixties in bands that had huge followings in Cape Town and, in the case of the Invaders, around the country.

Ivor Wagner started out with the Big Beats in the very early Sixties as the lead guitarist. Apart from tapping successfully into the sound of the very popular UK group The Shadows, the Big Beats were noted for the fact that Ivor and bass guitarist were both blind.

When the Big Beats faded he linked up – as an organist – with top Cape Town group Respect (which had Melly da Silva on bass). Respect was one of the first groups to embrace the psychedelic and underground music styles of the late ’60s. Ivor took to it like a duck to water.

When Respect disbanded, Ivor joined jazz pianist Tony Schilder in a “white” City nightclub, he switched to playing the bass guitar, and by all accounts, excelled at it.

He left for London with his young family in ’72 where he studied law and became a successful solicitor specialising in property law . . . a remarkable achievement for a vision-impaired man who had gone as far as Std 6 (Grade 8) when he entered the workforce as a switchboard operator. When he retired, Ivor came back to Cape Town to settle. He died on Monday in Oudtshoorn where he lived with his partner Lynette Deyce. He was 78.

Melly da Silva started with a group called The Shannons in the mid ’60s and had a strong neighbourhood following in the northern suburbs. He moved on to the Lunar 5 that had vocalist Bernie Brown as its charismatic frontman.

The Lunar 5 had a bigger following and recorded songs like Hi Hi Hazel and She’s Yum Yum that enjoyed pretty good sales for the time. Melly moved on to The Raiders for a while and then formed Respect with guitarist Issy Ariefdien and drummer Noel Kistima. They were innovators.

He settled in Australia in 1970 where he worked in the IT industry. He died in May, aged 75.

Rajin “Spewy” Pillay started his career in Durban where he was from. He played with Naked Truth and then Chayn Gang with Jack Momple on drums and Henri Donjeany on guitar.

The group was one of the first Durban groups (with The Exotics) to head to Cape Town to make it their base.

The Chayn Gang broke up because some wanted to go back home. Spewy did odd gigs for years but concentrated on making leather goods (it was a ’60s peace and love thing and Spewy, with his ever present headband, and shoulder-length hair, lived it to the full).

The Invaders found him playing in a white club in Durban and were looking to broaden their repertoire and their appeal to accommodate the changing music styles of the late Sixties. Spewy hit the road with them.

Invaders lead guitarist Joe Moses, who kept in touch with him over the years, remembers it well: “We met him in this white club and he sounded great on keyboards. He had a nice style.

“We asked him to come and play for us. At first he was reluctant and long, hard think about it, but he eventually he came around.

“Spewy had a cool manner and what I remember most about him was his quality leather products and his habit of having his Alsatian dog, Tessa, on stage with him all the time.

“Just recently we made contact and he asked me if we could team up again because, as he put it, he had never played with such nice guys. I didn’t know what to say. Now he’s gone.”

Gilbert Mathews was a fixture on the jazz-fusion scene in the ’60s, moving around to different groups wherever there was an opening for a skins man who was comfortable in the genre. He ended up with Spirits Rejoice, one of the top groups in the country and recorded the eponymous LP with them. He moved to Sweden in the ’70s and plied his trade there.

Photographer and jazz promoter Rashid Lombard was deeply saddened by the passing of the four musicians, all of whom had a part in shaping his life as a young man growing up in Athlone.

“I knew all four of them,” Rashid said. “At some stage or other I caught their act hanging out in the clubs in Athlone.

“I was 17 years old living in Lawrence Road, in Athlone, when I heard of the group, the Chayn Gang from Durban that moved into a house in Church Street, the next road up from where I lived. They performed at the Columbia ’68 Club and the Soul Workshop, the two hot clubs in Athlone at the time.

“During that same period at Columbia, Melly da Silva and Ivor Wagner were with Respect. They were the regular house band there, well-rehearsed and always adding new songs to their repertoire.

“They played the stuff that got me into appreciating music that went beyond the pop and bubblegum stuff that you heard on the radio.

“Through them I got hooked on the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Clapton, Blood Sweat and Tears and the like. Those were good times.

“The biggest loss to me is Gilly. He was originally from the Eastern Cape. We grew up together and became family in many ways. Before he left for Sweden, he was a regular at the Beverly Lounge and the Landdrost Hotel, both popular spots for cool jazz music.

“Gilly later joined the super fusion group Spirits Rejoice with Mervyn Africa, Paul Petersen, Duke Makasi and Robbie Jansen. They were dynamite. They recorded the album, Spirits Rejoice, and had a long residency at the Club Montreal in Manenberg.

“It is so sad that we lose all these great musicians in quick succession and now we have lost a great photographer in George Hallett too.”

“They should not be forgotten. They laid the foundation and shaped my appreciation of the different music genres and of photography.”

As an entertainment journalist, I also knew all four of them. If I replayed the soundtrack of my life, Melly and Ivor would feature prominently. And I’d press the repeat button for the sheer enjoyment of it.

Related material:

The life and times of Ivor Wagner

 

Comedian Marc Lottering’s one-off My Fellow South Africans show has been a monster, runaway hit. It was H-U-G-E!!!

Ticket sales, according to ticketing company Quicket, came in at about 18,000. That is phenomenal. That’s not me saying it; that comes from Marc’s peers in the entertainment industry.

The first thing most of them did was to crunch the numbers – 18,000 tickets at R70 a pop. Yep, that’s in excess of R1,000,000 for the night’s work. That’s great money in any entertainer’s language, more so as a comedian.

And think about . . . he was performing in a studio that had no audience bar technicians. It is part of the “new normal” where artists have no choice but to go online and stream shows “alive”, as Marc’s Aunty Merle character puts it.

Marc was so overwhelmed at the response that he opened the June 13 show absolutely ecstatic at having heard the news that they had sold 15,000.

“We’re rich. I wish I had charged more,” he told viewers (probably in jest).

With more than 60,000 followers on social media and a history of sell-out runs at his live shows in the past, it was kinda expected that he would draw a few hundred viewers.

“I was hoping to sell one thousand tickets,’’ Marc said. “People currently have many shows to choose from.

“As we got closer to show-day, Aki of Penny Lane Studios kept sending through the numbers.  We were all in continual shock as it kept climbing.  And fans were buying from all over the world.

“When we started to creep past 7000, my stomach nerves started losing the plot.  I was like ‘oh flip Marc, you cannot screw this up’.  It got so bad that I eventually asked Anwar [Mc Kay, his partner and manager] that the figures be kept from me. I was not dealing with it.  I just desperately wanted to not be distracted, and to prepare as I would for a normal preview night at the theatre.  Except this was not going to be a preview.  This was going to be the preview, the opening night, and the final performance rolled into one.  It was a crazy feeling.”

A week after the one-night stand, Marc was still in awe of the achievement and how it stacked up as a source of income against a long run at a theatre.

“Seventeen thousand tickets sold! [It ended up being 18,000 when online access was stopped.] I’m really not sure if that will ever happen again.  I made good money.  Everyone was doing the math on their couches and sending me screen grabs with calculator totals.

“The show was shot at a filming studio.  So there were expenses attached, as with any other big theatre show.  Studio and crew costs, opening act costs, PR costs, SARS, . . .

“Anwar and I also support selected charity groups.  But having taken all of that into account, the income for one gig was still helluva good.  There’s obviously no way you could make that money in one night at a theatre.  Which is why I usually run at a theatre for a month or so.  I am mindful of the fact that that live stream show was somewhat of a phenomenon though.”

Although Marc’s last live gig, Aunty Merle – It’s A Girl, ran until the end of February, he, like so many other artists, found himself without work when the national lockdown came into effect in March. Initially he wasn’t keen on “pivoting” to the new online medium.

“I was reluctant.  Everyone else was doing it but I was resisting the idea, as I simply could not get my head around the thought of not having a live audience.  But then so many of my followers were pushing for me to ‘please step forward during lockdown’.

“They wanted to hear what I had to say right now.  So I guess I figured that there would be some support.  I estimated that we would sell around a thousand tickets.  Anwar quietly booked the studio and the put out the flyer.  Quietly.”

Given the success of this event, is he considering doing another?

“There’s been some talk of me doing another live stream show.  It’s probably going to happen around the end of July.  We’ll see.  It all depends on what’s going on inside my head, creatively.  Also, the world is currently a surreal space.  People are fighting for their lives, and people dying.  It sometimes feels as though comedy is not the easiest thing to do right now.  And yet, many have said that it’s a very necessary thing to do right now.  We’ll see.”

While many local acts that have decided to stream live via Facebook from their lounges or garages at home and ask for donations, Marc opted to use the Penny Lane Studios and Quicket ticketing company.

“I wanted to do things right.  I wanted the fans to have as few technical hitches as possible.  Or even better, no technical hitches at all.  Hence me deciding to shoot at a studio where the team knows their stuff.

“It’s also very good for my headspace to leave home to do a show.  I’m old school like that. It just feels right. I have to point out that the show went out live, so there was little room for screwing up.  Many online shows are pre-recorded. Ours was not.  So I needed a solid team.”

Marc’s advice for any other artist who has hopes of emulating his achievement is to treat the show like any other show: “Prepare in the same way.   Not only rehearsal-wise, but also in terms of PR.  Have a solid PR campaign.  That helped me a great deal.  Fans loved the little promo videos of Aunty Merle and Colleen the Cashier.  We were also fortunate to secure radio and TV interviews.  Those were amazing.”

Of the show itself, it was vintage Marc, or should I say Aunty Merle, Colleen the Cashier and Shmiley, the taxi Sliding Door Executive, with lots of new material, some specifically corona virus related.

“Anwar was only willing to direct if I came with only new material,” Marc said.  “So of course I hated him.  I usually do new material with new shows but then I usually have the luxury of fine-tuning the material night after night.  This was going to be different – brand new material into a camera with no idea as to whether the material is landing or not.  It sounded like career suicide.  Well apparently it was not.”

The use of a sign language interpreter was commendable. We must always be mindful of people who are hearing-impaired.

For those of you who were not among the lucky 18,000 who bought tickets, (thousands more probably saw it because it’s only fair to assume that many households had multiple viewers glued to the screen) hope and pray that the show could be viewed in the future.

“Some people have asked if they could catch the show online forever, I’m looking into that,” Marc said.

If and when you do get to see the show in the future, be alert to the sombre moment at the end when Marc slips into social commentator mode and reminds people of the other “pandemic” in the community . . . TIK TOK! Very potent.

Ticket seller Quicket revealed some interesting facts about the show. The day before the show, June 12, about 9000 tickets were sold. By the time the curtain went up it had hit 16,500. An additional 2000-plus tickets were sold after the show as viewing was extended for a week.

Indicative of Marc’s far-reaching popularity – and his fans’ yearning for something from home – about 1500 people based overseas bought tickets.

There are lots of local acts streaming online now in an effort to generate an income in lockdown. Emo and Loukmaan Adams had a quite entertaining show with their father on Father’s Day to honour him. The Makhanda/Grahamstown festival has kicked off in an online format and it will feature some brilliant artists. And next month Madeegha Anders has on an online gig as has radio personality Clarence Ford celebrating 30 years behind the microphone.

Support them, local is lekker!

 

Pianist Ramon Alexander realises one of his long-time ambitions this weekend when he takes to the stage, in a manner of speaking, at the prestigious Standard Bank Jazz Festival 2020/Makhanda.

The enterprising musician will showcase his prodigious talents when his quartet is featured on Sunday’s program of the festival – with one significant difference: this time it’ll be an online streaming event.

The jazz program is part of the Virtual National Arts Festival that had its genesis 44 years ago as the Grahamstown Arts Festival. The jazz component goes back 33 years to give performers a place where “artists meet and challenge audiences to expand their expectations of the art form”.

The corona virus pandemic has forced the event, like so many others, to go online and stream to an audience sitting in the comfort of their lounges.

For Ramon, the fact that it is an online streaming event has not taken off the gloss of him being part of the Standard Bank Jazz Festival.

“It has long been a dream of mine to play at the festival,” said Ramon who, back in 2004, was selected as pianist for the Standard Bank National Youth Big Band.

“It would have been great to be live at the festival but for me just being part of it is fantastic, even if it is a streaming event.”

The streaming event itself won’t feature the quartet playing live. It will go out as a pre-recorded set. The group recorded their tunes last week at Artscape.

“It was a very professional set-up on stage at Artscape,” Ramon said. “Standard Bank organised a quality crew to tape the show.

“I wasn’t too fazed that the auditorium was empty. It was like recording in a studio.”

Solo piano links

Ramon said the set would feature some of his older tunes with Dance of Our Fathers being reworked. Other tunes in the set include Apex, Louwskloof se Mense, Ebrahim Khalil Shihab’s Jing’an Park, Oom Robbie Jansen, Roderick and Reflections.

Roderick is a new tune dedicated to his brother who died a few years ago.

The set will also feature a significant part where Ramon plays solo piano as he links the various tunes. “I just feel that is an area of my playing that I need to explore a little bit more.”

Ramon’s quartet is made up of Byron Abrahams (sax), Valentino Europa (bass), and Annemie Nel (drums).

The boy from Mamre hasn’t only been busy preparing for the festival. Behind the scenes he has been working on his next album.

“I have most of it done already,” he said “It’s just a matter of adding one or two more tunes and doing some mixing.”

He has used bassist Chadleigh Gower, Annemie Nel and saxophonists Byron Abrahams and Zeke le Grange for the recordings which were laid down at i-Studios.

“The Covid-19 situation has put a spanner in the works with this project as well. I am now hoping to have it out by the end of the year or early next year.”

The coming album will be a follow up to his highly successful Echoes from Louwskloof that featured the very popular ghoema tune, Sons and Captains and Essence of Spring which was a collaboration with Shihab.

Tickets to view Ramon’s online streaming gig can be bought here:

https://test.nationalartsfestival.co.za/show/ramon-alexander/

The festival runs from Thursday, June 24 until July 5. Tickets can be bought as single event passes, a day pass or a festival-long pass. It features some of the best young jazz performers in the country.

Support the artists. Times are tough!!!

Related material:

Wine-maker Ramon . . . don’t give up your night job

 

In the midst of all the suffering and grief that Covid-19 has inflicted on us, there has been one little upside (if one can find an upside in such tragic circumstances) – it has allowed us to listen and view “live” some of the best local music in the comfort of our homes.

It has made the dreaded lockdown just a little bit palatable.

In the past week I have had the pleasure of watching concerts by pianist Kyle Shepherd, saxophonist McCoy Mrubata, and the vibrant group, Top Dog, led by Camillo Lombard and DonVino Prins.

It was an awesome experience, particularly for one whose opportunities to watch live South African acts are few and far between. That would be the case for all the expat South Africans who hanker for a taste of the home-grown stuff.

The online concerts serve another purpose. It is providing an income stream for all the artists, musicians and thespians alike, who have seen the work disappear into the ether when the lockdown was put in place. No gigs, no performances. Nothing.

This is what made watching the concerts all the more satisfying. I was getting a fix of “local is lekker” as well as contributing financially to the performers who have no gigs.

Rashid Lombard, the man who for years was the spearhead of the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, says the online concerts have been an “absolute blessing” for the performers.

“People are doing it tough,” he said. “The work just dried up overnight and there was no money coming in. For the lucky few who have put together an online concert, there is some relief but there are thousands of other performers who have nothing.

“I urge people to support these concerts and to be part of an initiative called MuzosDirect. It is a network of musicians, media identities, business people, cultural activists, and music lovers all over the world, who are chipping in to help arts people in desperate need.”

People in the arts haven’t had financial relief from the government. MuzosDirect has set up an online fundraiser – www.backabuddy.co.za/muzodirect – for people to donate.

“The money will be used to purchase food vouchers,” Lombard said.

Top Dog’s Camillo Lombard said the group appreciated the support that came in via the purchase of tickets to view the concert live as well as the donations that came in afterwards.

“We are very pleased with the whole venture and we are exploring ways to generate more such opportunities in the online space,” Camillo said.

A number of studios are equipped to provide top-class streaming services along with quality lighting to give the occasion the full concert ambience.

Kyle Shepherd’s concert was streamed by Penny Lane Studios; McCoy Mrubata’s by Militia Broadcasting; and the Top Dog gig by Victory Kingdom Studios. All three were commendable efforts.

The head of Jo’burg-based Militia Broadcasting, Eban Olivier, said they had been doing sessions “off and on for five years but really started to get to business only three weeks ago”.

Militia currently has a number of concerts available for streaming on demand on its platform, including Bokani Dyer, Benjamin Jeptha, Sydney Mavundla, Mandla Mlangeni and Keenan Ahrends, all of whom lean towards the jazz genre. The average cost of a live concert is about R80 and a stream on demand about R30.

“All genres are welcome on the platform . . . with that said, we do adhere to a level of musical quality,” Olivier said.

Militia Broadcasting’s company has streamed a number of international live concerts, among them big names like Mumford and Sons, Chris Brown and Linkin Park.

“We have sold over 4500 tickets in the last three weeks with only 42 per cent of these tickets coming from our own local soil. It is being promoted straight from artist to fan via social media.”

Kyle Shepherd’s concert was a solo piano performance titled After the night, the day will surely come. It was music of a very high calibre, almost cerebral in places. Not much of the spoken word during the performance bar the opening remarks.

Of his concert, Shepherd said: “My performance will be a reflection and meditation on a time when we can be together again! A musician’s purpose has always and will always be as an advocator of community. As it has been throughout the ages, balance will be restored to life.”

McCoy Mrubata had Lex Futshane on bass and Paul Hanmer accompanying him and the three provided an eclectic set that touched on some smooth jazz, some ghoema and some interesting influences on a tune called Tunisia on which Mrubata played a haunting flute.

Top Dog dedicated their set to indigenous African music that embraced their Khoi and San roots, some traditional ghoema sounds, Afrikaans tunes and moving poetry.

All in all three very satisfying concerts for a music lover stuck thousands of kilometres away. Like many other expats in a similar situation, I relish the thought of the smorgasbord of “local is lekker” stuff that is being made available online (even if we watch it on demand at a decent hour).

For those in South Africa, turn off the radio, Chromecast to the big screen telly from your smartphone/laptop and enjoy. I did. And think of the benefits to the struggling artists.

If your entertainment taste is a bit more diverse you can always check out Mujahid George, Loukman Adams and Alistair Izobell on their live stream on Friday June 5. Or comedian Marc Lottering’s My Fellow South African’s live stream on June 13. Click on the link below and follow Auntie Merle’s instruction on how to get a ticket.

 

 

To all the ex-pat South African’s living where the exchange rate is a gift from heaven, dig deep and give till it hurts.

https://muzosdirect.com/?fbclid=IwAR0u2U4boCwvKWpz70vaBqdwCkBz2Pt37RJ3qLkaezAtaolMprLXSyo2Wws

 

–

Louis Moholo-Moholo, one of the founding members of the legendary South African jazz group, The Blue Notes, celebrates a big birthday today. The master of the drums turns 80 years today.

The enduring Moholo-Moholo has outlasted and outlived most of his contemporaries who popularised be-bop, mainstream and avante garde jazz in the Sixties. (Abdullah Ibrahim – then Dollar Brand – is one of the few still around who played with Moholo-Moholo).

The Blue Notes were the trendsetters when they hit the scene in Cape Town in the early Sixties. But as quickly as their flame burned brightly, it disappeared from the South African scene. The apartheid regime made it impossible for the group to survive here because it was made up of four blacks and a white South African.

That was just inviting trouble in apartheid South Africa.

So the group – Moholo Moholo, Dudu Pukwana on alto, Mongezi Feza on trumpet, Nikele Moyake on tenor, Johnny Dyani on bass and Chris McGregor on piano – headed for Europe and the UK in 1964 to seek fame and fortune.

Fame they certainly achieved. This vibrant group of young South Africans caught the eye of the purist jazz lovers who were taken by their free-form jazz style mixed with the throbbing sounds of African rhythms.

The group played at the much talked about Antibes Jazz Festival in France in July 1964 which further enhanced their growing reputation.

The Blue Notes morphed into the Brotherhood of Breath and the group became an even bigger drawcard in London and Europe even though they had lost a few members along the way.

Louis Moholo-Moholo formed his own group and played with a number of other leading jazz lights.

It was going to be decades before he would be in the shadow of Table Mountain again. Nelson Mandela would be a free man and apartheid as a law would be gone.

As big a name as Moholo-Moholo is, he largely unknown on the broader Cape Town scene.

But Cape Town is where it all started for him. His love for music and drums in particular came from listening to scout bands that walked the suburban streets of the Cape Flats.

This blog had plans to interview Moholo-Moholo do get his views on life, music, the younger generation and anything he wished to talk about . . . but after six months of trying I still have not been able to buttonhole the man. He is constantly on the move. One month he is in Berlin, then he is in Port Elizabeth, now I believe he is celebrating his birthday in London where he lived for many years.

As I have said many times before, musicians like Moholo-Moholo were pioneers in South African entertainment history. Although the Blue Notes had a short lifespan on the South African scene, they did more than enough to be lauded for achievements. The younger generation of jazz lovers should know about them.

It’s been tough trying to have a chat to Tebogo Moholo-Moholo because he still travels overseas for gigs and has a base in London. Maybe one day soon I’ll be able to sit down with him and get inside his head to let him tell me what it was really like back in the day.

But for the moment – DRUM ROLL PLEASE!! – happy birthday Louis Moholo-Moholo.

 

Video of The Blue Notes playing in Europe

 

 

Imagine you’re sitting soaking up some pretty cool sounds . . . Darryl Andrews plucking away on guitar, Dylan Roman on keyboards, Wesley Rustin on bass, Denver Furness on drums, Leslie Kleinsmith and two songbirds handling the vocals and a horn section to die for.

Like a nice cold beer or a chilled sav blanc on a hot day, that should “hit the spot”, right?

Right!. That’s exactly what that group is called – Hit The Spot. That’s the exciting new outfit handling the Sunday night jazz gigs at the Pizza Shack Pub Bar & Grill in Ottery.

The group ain’t exactly “new” new, though. They (without a formal name) have been doing the Sunday night jazz gigs off and on since last year but now management has offered them all the Sunday night gigs in March, starting tomorrow night.

Group spokesman Leslie Kleinsmith said they thought it was an ideal time to hit the “refresh” button on their approach to the music they will provide on the night.

“Previously, we had been a five-piece or six-piece group with various guest spots on the night,” Leslie said.

“Now that we have the regular Sunday night spot for March, we decided to be a bit more creative and give the crowd more value for their money – we expanded the group to a 10-piece.

“Apart from Darryl, Dylan, Wesley, Denver and myself, we now have two female singers – Lynn Fritz and Leonie le Roux – and a brass/horn section that has Byron Abrahams on sax (and vocals), Athi Ngcaba on trombone and Joseph Kunnuji on trumpet.

“It’s a work in progress. We’ll see where it takes us but we’re all pretty excited about the musical possibilities.

Between Leslie, Darryl and Denver the group has a ton of experience. All three have been performing for 50 years or more. The younger members of the outfit should provide an ideal vehicle to combine the old with the new. The group has prepared a repertoire that will embrace jazz, Latin sounds and anything that Darryl Andrews puts on the table.

“We are very fortunate in having Darryl in the line-up. He brings so much to any group with his capacity to compose and arrange stuff,” Leslie said. “He does some wonderful things with the salsa sound.

“We’re also blessed with having two very talented female vocalists in Leonie and Lynn. It gives us so much breadth and depth in the range of songs we can tackle.

“But what excites us most is the new dimension that a trumpet, trombone and saxophone brings. It should bring out the best in Darryl with his arranging experience.

“We’re hoping that our fresh sound will hit the spot – that’s why we chose the name Hit The Spot,” Leslie says.

Ten-piece groups aren’t an everyday occurrence on the local scene. Makes me think of the days Express used to line-up with the likes of Basil Coetzee, Robbie Jansen, Barnie Rachabane and Stompie Manana.

Hit The Spot is hoping to be a round a little longer than just the Sundays in March.

In the meantime, Pizza Shack is the place to be tomorrow night – International Women’s Day. I’m inclined to check it out myself. The music should be good, DJ Stan The Jazzman always has good stuff on the turntable and the food, like the band, will leave you wanting more.

All up, it should hit the spot, huh?

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CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW FOR VIDEO TEASERS OF HIT THE SPOT AT REHEARSALS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cQqZ8gzwrQ&list=PLeNMjOFQij2fe_N7v_r9ZNV3g0F4HU-90&index=5&t=0s

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-dRMkU8eHE

 

 

10 August 2019

Guitarist-composer-arranger-conductor Darryl Andrews played his last gig with his UCT School of Music Big Band outfit last week and will finally cut ties with the School of Music in about three months.

It brings to an end decades of captivating Cape Town audiences with the innovative sound of his youthful students performing under his direction.

As always, the last gig of the UCT Big Band (under Daryl’s leadership) was at the Baxter Theatre and despite it being a miserably cold and wet July night, there was still a good turnout.

“We did a variety of tunes for the crowd – a bit of Whitney Houston, classic jazz, some of my old tunes, Boz Scaggs, Benson, Harry Connick,” Darryl said.

“It was quite an emotional night; I have been doing two or three concerts a year with my students since 1991. It has become something of an institution in Cape Town.”

Darryl’s time as professor of jazz studies at the School of Music has seen some of the best of Cape Town’s young talent pass through his hands.

“There have been some really gifted kids who learnt their craft at the jazz school and I am proud to say they have gone on to bigger and better things. At the moment some of my ex-students are playing with top musicians in Atlanta and in New York.”

Now it all comes to end for the man who started out working as a fitter and turner while doing club gigs with local bands and then went on to gain a BA and Master in music. At age 65 (in November), he has to retire from his post at UCT.

But all is not lost. Followers of Darryl’s music will still be able to hear and see him play for as long as his ability will allow him.

“I will still have my own Darryl Andrews Jazz Orchestra that will be available for gigs and I will also be heading into the studio to record my next CD due for release later this year.”

As with his first CD, titled Cape Town and released last year, Darryl plans to feature a mix of his own compositions and some of the material of local artists.

Those music objectives could take a backseat though to Darryl’s other passion – fishing!! He is in the process of buying a boat . . . a big boat.

“I’ve got my skippers licence now; I have qualified as a skipper. I am buying a boat – a seven-and-a-half metre fishing boat.

“Fishing has always been a passion of mine. I have been fishing on the beach for years. Now I want to do the real thing.

“I have an E-licence which means I can go out one nautical mile. When I get my boat, an instructor will take me out, log my hours, and when I get to 25 hours, I get an extension to 25 nautical miles out. When I get to 50 hours, I am allowed 40 nautical miles out.

“I’ll see if I can make money selling fish!” I’ll probably sell to fish shops and restaurants. I’ll be getting the craft soon and it will be fully equipped with fish finder, sonar and safety equipment.

“I have an NSRI app on my phone just in case something goes wrong. I’ll do all the right things by lodging my details with them every time I put to sea and if something goers wrong I hit the app.

“It’s not all new to me; my nephew had a boat and I used to go out with him. My love for fishing started when I moved into Plumstead. My neighbours taught me and I got right into it . We used to sit for hours down at Strandfontein.”

He could start a new line of selling . . . one CD with every snoek. And maybe a discount ticket to his next performance with the Darryl Andrews Jazz Orchestra.

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8 July 2019

Jazz guitarist Harry Peacock, singer Zelda Benjamin, keyboardist Ibrahim Shihab Khalil . . . all on one stage. That’s almost 200 years of musical entertainment experience right there!

Throw in bassist Tino Europa and drummer Roy Davids and it’s well over 200 years. No matter how you slice and dice it, you’re going to get good music if you’re listening to that quintet.

That’s is how it panned out for the crowd at Spiro’s Restaurant in Hout Bay last week when they treated the crowd to what one patron described as “real cool jazz”.

It was essentially a diet of mainstream Sixties jazz standards – Stella By Starlight, There’ll Never Be Another You and East of the Sun (And West of the Moon).

Ordinarily, this would just be another jazz gig featuring five local artists. But what is worth mentioning is the fact that two of the five – Harry and Zelda – are in their 80s. That’s right, octogenarians. And Ibrahim (Chris Schilder to those who know him from the Sixties) isn’t far behind. He is 73 tomorrow.

All three have been playing and performing for more than 60 years.

We should celebrate and support the achievements of our “mature age” musicians who are still plying their trade.

According to Harry Peacock, the gig was a one-off at the moment but he is hopeful the restaurant will make it a regular Sunday afternoon event when summer rolls around.

“It was pretty good all-round,” he said. “There was a lot of experience on that stage. We didn’t have to do much in the way of rehearsals because we all know the jazz standards and the crowd loved it. It is good to see that there is still opportunity to play those old tunes.”

For Zelda, it was the “atmosphere” in the place that blew her away.

“There was a such a good vibe and the audience really appreciated what we doing,” she said.

“It’s been a few year’s now since I’ve played with Ibrahim – he was still Chris then – but he is still pure magic, notwithstanding the health issues he has.

“We got together for a sort of rehearsal but we chatted more than we played. We settled on songs that he was very familiar with.”

In the end Zelda had a set of about 15 songs that included Call Me Irresponsible, Day By Day, It Could Happen To You, It Might As Well Be Spring, and But Not For Me.

Ibrahim said it was a gratifying experience playing those old jazz standards for an audience who loved every minute of it.

“I couldn’t believe it, they gave us a standing ovation. It gave me such a good feeling,” Ibrahim. “It’s been many years since I have done a gig like this and appreciated the opportunity of doing it with Harry, Zelda, Roy and Tino.

“I especially loved the improvisation parts. It’s the best I have played in a long time. The drummer and the bass player really ‘cooked’ and Harry was going great.

Ibrahim turns 73 tomorrow and his career is going through a bit of a resurgence of late. In recent months he has released an album, Essence of Spring, with fellow keyboardist Ramon Alexander and also featured at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival three months ago.

After the jazz festival gig, he was interviewed by an American music magazine journalist who was so impressed with his playing that she encouraged him to work on a solo album.

“That’s what I am doing now, putting together some original tunes and interpreting some standards,” he said.

Cape Town may be producing some exciting young talent but we must never, never forget our veteran entertainers. They can still deliver – just ask those people who caught their act at Spiro’s in Hout Bay last week. Let’s hope they can land a regular gig there soon.

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