Return to Transcripts main page
INSIDE AFRICA
Cape Town Jazz Festival
Aired April 11, 2009 - 12:30:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to INSIDE AFRICA. I'm Isha Sesay. On the program this week, blue notes, swung notes, syncopation and improvisation. I'm talking about jazz. Over the next half hour, Nkepile Mabuse takes us behind the scenes of the annual Cape Town International Jazz Festival, and explores a special relationship between Africa and this musical art form. Nkepile, take it away.
NKEPILE MABUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, from the 10th Cape Town International Jazz Festival. Especially doesn't hurt, it turned out, to stay during an event like this, in such a scenic place. The Mother City, as Cape Town is known, lies on the peninsula where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic at the foot of the majestic Table Mountain. Back in 2000, the festival got off to a rocky start with slow ticket sales. It has since become a proud tradition and contributes $40 million U.S. dollars to the local economy. Most importantly, it draws top musical talents from around the world.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MABUSE: Five stages, 40 bands, over two days in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The Cape Town International Jazz Festival is rated the fourth biggest jazz event in the world and has become a yearly highlight for both music lovers and performers.
Multi-award winning American jazz vocalist Dianne Reeves says she jumped at the chance to perform here.
DIANNE REEVES, AMERICAN JAZZ VOCALIST: What -- you know, when I was asked to be here, they couldn't even get Town out. They just said Cape, I knew exactly what (inaudible) absolutely. You know, because there is so -- it's so rich, and there's so many great musicians that are from South Africa. I'm very good friends with Jonathan Butler, and I love, you know, last night I got a chance to hang out with Hugh Masekela, and all of these amazing people, whose music, especially Hugh Masekela's music -- that we listen to. We didn't know who he was, but we sure loved "Grazing in the Grass", you know.
MABUSE: In its first year, the festival attracted a mere 9,000 people. This year, 33,000 came, maybe 70 percent were from out of town. Tickets sold out for the fourth year in succession. But despite notices and announcements, people still queued outside the venue, hoping to get in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I should have got my tickets earlier, (inaudible) all of them would be sold out. And now we're hoping that we could get in.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Actually, Dianne Reeves and Mos Def, those are my two main acts tonight.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want to go there and just to listen to South African music, just music.
MABUSE: The secret to its success, commentators say, lies in the diversity of acts added to the line-up each year.
It has also become a place where new sounds of a generation born into a free South Africa can be heard at the same venue as those of legendary performers from the country's oppressive past.
A place where jazz meets hip-hop and fuses with opera, during a weekend where artists from different parts of the globe speak one common language -- music.
But the past 10 years have not been a walk in the park for festival director, Rashid Lombard.
(on camera): Rashid, 10 years ago, when you organized your first jazz festival here in Cape Town, did you even think that one day it will be this huge?
RASHID LOMBARD, FESTIVAL DIRECTOR: It has just grown in control, but out of control, put it that way. I think we've proven a lot in terms of how events of this nature, in any city in Africa can establish itself in terms of empowering people, training people, building up people's skills within this industry, and I think that we take very seriously.
MABUSE: Funding, it's still quite a big challenge every time that you have to put this together, isn't it?
LOMBARD: Yeah, funding is always the -- the issue, you know. The cost of living go up, the -- there's challenge of the rand dollar. There is the -- the issue about sponsorship. We had this year Standard Bank pulling out in August last year, and (inaudible), which was a huge blow to us, to the sum of 4.5 million, and you know, like, where do you go to, you know? You don't want to downgrade, but this is our 10th anniversary, which, you know, just go one step up.
So I had to really look around and try and find a new sponsor, which is very difficult. It was also difficult because of the economic climate. And of course, everyone saying, just talk to me in 2011, because 2010, everyone's putting money into soccer. And so, you know, so there was a bit of a wobble for us, but our neighbors from Angola, from Rwanda came in and they sponsored, as a gold (ph) sponsor, you know, and it's amazing cross- border cultural involvement. And, of course, there's -- their agenda is to create the first Angolan or Rwandan international jazz festival. So that's a partnership, and it's - it's in the spirit of how we cooperate in the region.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MABUSE: So much more to see and hear at this festival, from a musical pioneer of the 1950s to an upcoming local jam. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MABUSE: Welcome back to INSIDE AFRICA from the Cape Town International Jazz Festival. Now, jazz is widely considered an American art form, but its roots can be traced to West Africa, and African musicians have certainly been putting their stamp on it for decades.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REEVES: Jazz to me is simply freedom, the freedom to express yourself in the moment, music that is alive. And right now, music that comes straight from your heart into the atmosphere. I love that.
DAVID POOLE, GOLDFISH: We both play jazz instruments, the saxophone, flutes, dombras, a double bass, keyboards. All instruments steeped in jazz history, and obviously we started, you know, jazz on those instruments.
Improvisation, I mean it's obviously the - one of the great things about jazz. And ...
DOMINIC PETERS, GOLDFISH: We're learning that.
POOLE: Something that we've used to huge degree in our music. Not just in a jazz traditional way, with our, you know, with our electronic equipment that we use at the same time as our - you know, no more instruments.
PETERS: You can use a mixing disk as a jazz instrument, we'll use it in a creative way.
JILL SAWARD, SHAKATAK VOCALIST: So, it's so -- it's so mixed, it's such a fusion. I guess now you can't put it into one category, whereas years ago perhaps you could. It was elitist, I thought, years ago.
HUGH MASEKELA, SOUTH AFRICAN MUSICIAN: I've never been able to categorize, you know. But I know that Louis Armstrong also never said he played jazz, you know. He said he played New Orleans music. And he never finished a sentence without talking about New Orleans. And I've never heard Miles say jazz or Dizzy Gilespie say jazz, you know. I guess I just said I don't know what jazz is.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MABUSE: Cape Town is home to its own brand of jazz, simply called Cape Jazz. This musical style mainly depends on instruments that can be carried in a street parade.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MABUSE: The music played at Cape Town's colorful minstrel carnival held every year on the 2nd of January best illustrates the Cape jazz sound. But, other than at the parade, there are very few places in the city where you can listen to this indigenous music.
Cape Town's crawling (ph) jazz bars play everything but the genre that launched the international careers of many of its jazz greats, much to the dismay of musicians like Alvyn Dyers, whose orchestra plays the homegrown sound.
ALVYN DYERS, CAPE TOWN JAZZ ORCHESTRA: Cape Jazz it's -- you know, it's a distinctive sound, and it's an energy that I don't think you'll find anywhere else, you know.
MABUSE: This musical style owes its influence to West African slaves brought to the Cape in the mid-1600s. Dyers says local musicians want to play it, but there's just not enough appetite for it.
DYERS: They don't have enough support where people would go to concerts, you know, like they used to in the old days. You know what I mean, maybe you can put on a concert of just Cape music. Look, it's very much alive. We just need more venues, that's all, to showcase these things.
Cape Town Jazz Orchestra.
MABUSE: Right now, one of the few venues for Cape Jazz is the International Jazz Festival, but that only happens once a year.
DYERS: You must remember this festival. People from all over the world, they come here. You know, and this is an opportunity for these people to hear what we're doing here, and hopefully in the future, get support. Like everything else, you know, if you're not recognized in your own country, you have to go outside of the country. That's the way it is.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MABUSE: A fresh face steps into the spotlight, and a veteran performer dazzles audiences with a tribute to Miriam Makeba and a bygone era.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MABUSE: To South Africans and the world, Miriam Makeba was more than a singer. She was an outspoken critic of apartheid, who was forced into exile for 31 years. Using her music, which was banned in this country, she became the voice and face of the struggle for freedom. Makeba died in November last year, and at the Cape Town Jazz Festival, the icon finally known as Mama Africa was celebrated.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MABUSE: Miriam Makeba famously said she will sing until the last days of her life. And she did. She had just performed at a concert in Italy when she died from a heart attack on the 10th of November last year.
Makeba helped launch the careers of many South African stars, including Abigail Kubeka, who joined Miriam's gold (ph) group, the Skylarks, when she was only 16. Kubeka, who has performed at various occasions honoring the work and life of her former mentor, says Makeba never felt appreciated in her own country.
ABIGAIL KUBEKA, SOUTH AFRICAN VOCALIST: She would always complain. And she was bitter about that, you know. She was very unhappy. She would say, she would always complain that nobody books me here at home. I don't know whether they thought she was too expensive, or what, but Miriam was never given her rightful place here at home. She only got it abroad.
GRAEME GILFILLAN, MAKEBA'S FORMER MANAGER: Those who program music in South Africa, those who control what we listen to on the airways, those are the ones reserved for her huge (inaudible).
MABUSE: But since her death, there have been various tributes. The many faces of the musical icon were exhibited at the Cape Town Jazz Festival, where she performed three times during her long and successful career.
MASEKELA: I don't think there is a tribute befitting her enough that has been conceived yet. She never, ever went after fame. She used her access to the media and to kings and queens to talk about Africa and its difficulties. I don't know an African who's ever done that for Africa.
MABUSE: Makeba may have felt unappreciated by her own people, but she can rest assured she's not forgotten.
GILFILLAN: She made a concerted effort to put all of her stuff together, to make sure that her legacy was in order, and to make sure that this type of exhibition could happen. I think that she would be very pleased, because she would see this exhibition as being assuring that she's part of our cultural -- our history.
KUBEKA: It's so bad, man, this thing always happens -- when somebody is no longer there to see for herself or for himself. But (inaudible).
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MABUSE: The Cape Flats are notoriously known for gang and drug- related violence, but it is also here that some of South Africa's greatest musicians have come from. 24-year old Jonathan Rubain is hoping to join the league of international success stories produced by this impoverished neighborhood. The young bass guitarist was happy to play a free concert at last year's festival, but this year he stepped up to his very own stage at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MABUSE: Jonathan Rubain grew up surrounded by the sound of gunfire. But at the age of seven, he started creating his own sound, first by playing drums, and later, the bass guitar. Hanover Park on the Cape Flats is one of South Africa's most dangerous areas. But it is also where this up and coming musician finds his inspiration.
JONATHAN RUBAIN, BASS GUITARIST: Sometimes (inaudible), sometimes we would play soccer, football, or cricket over here, and then the guy started shooting, you know, gangs start shooting, and all of that. We'd have to get down in the house because of the shootings and all of that. It's violent, but it's vibrant at the same time, you know, and it's -- that is where I most when I'm -- when I'm not here, when I'm somewhere else in the world, you know, the big hotel with a big -- with a big bed and all of that, and glamour. But you know, I miss this -- I miss this liveliness. I miss the kids all around you. I miss - there is a vibe here, you know?
MABUSE (on camera): And it inspires you music, doesn't it?
RUBAIN: It inspires my music, you know, and the way I bring it across, I think it speaks of a lot of - it gets a lot of emotion involved.
MABUSE (voice over): Rubain has taken the local music scene by storm, and has already launched his newly formed band on the international stage.
RUBAIN: I never knew it would come so soon. We're playing at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, and we're performing on the same stage as Jonathan Butler, Dave Koz, the Spineless Peaks (ph) and all of the guys. But especially for me, what very emotional is Jonathan Butler, because he comes from the same area as this, and I got my name from Jonathan Butler, because my dad is a huge Jonathan Butler friend.
MABUSE (on camera): What do you think you represent to the young kids here, growing up in very -- under very tough circumstances, and seeing somebody like you making it on the international stage?
RUBAIN: I always want to inspire them to -- to find a thing that you are best in and go for that, you know, and I feel that is why I'm here, to -- so they can see it's possible. It's not impossible, but it is possible to go for the dream and to reach for the dream.
MABUSE (voice over): At the age of 24, Rubain has fulfilled many of his dreams.
(MUSIC)
MABUSE: And if the reaction from the crowd at the festival is anything to go by, this Hanover Park-inspired sound may be part of the international jazz scene for many more years to come.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MABUSE: Generation after generation, jazz continues to thrive as an art form, and organizers of the festival are doing their best to keep it going by going to (inaudible).
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MABUSE: Welcome back to INSIDE AFRICA. I'm Nkepile Mabuse reporting from the Cape Town International Jazz Festival. Now, organizers and supporters of this event are deeply committed to nurturing talent and inspiring musical appreciation, particularly in poor areas. We sat in on a session at a local school, where students enjoyed an interactive musical experience with the pros.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DOVINO PRINS, SAXOPHONIST: This is good to be here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah!
PRINS: But this is actually very good initiative (ph) for you guys to try and learn music. (inaudible). OK. Now, when (inaudible) - can anyone tell me what kind of saxophone this is?
This is an alto saxophone.
So now I'm going to -- I'm going to show you how to play saxophone with a guitar player.
(MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why do you play with your eyes closed?
PRINS: Because I'd like to feel what I'm playing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (inaudible)...
(CROSSTALK)
PRINS: Good question. Very good question. It's called circular, circular breathing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why did you start playing the saxophone?
PRINS: I like the sound. I like the sound of the saxophone.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MABUSE: Maybe some of those young people will perform here in the not so distant future. Well, that does it for our coverage of the 10th Cape Town International Jazz Festival. Back to you, Isha, at the CNN Center.
SESAY: Investing in tomorrow's musicians, even in a tough global economy, it's good to see. Thanks, Nkepile, for that.
We'll be back next week with a brand-new INSIDE AFRICA. We'll leave you now with some of the sights and sounds of the Cape Town Jazz Festival. Thanks for watching.
END
