i really love Africa

By Suzy Bell

What fresh, beautiful, soulful music from Zimbabwean band, Tanga Pasi, who recently visited South Africa for a series of performances in and around Durban.

Their original sound is warm and melodious with strong cultural roots as ancient as our Baobab trees. Here’s a band that nourishes our hearts with their chilled sonic vibrations and gently arrests our minds with their meaningful lyrics.  Songs are sensitively crafted like poems and vocal harmonies ebb and flow effortlessly like the tide.

I like that Tanga Pasi are seeking a new contemporary African form. They dub their music Nu-Afrow which founding member Pamela Ngwenya describes as: “a fusion of afro-jazz, folk, rock, Kalanga rhythms and traditional Ndebele harmonies.”

The band sings in isiNdebele, chiKalanga and English, but when they harmonise in Ndebele they’re rhythmically at their best with their wonderful energetic harmonising. Tanga Pasi is a band that deserves to be touring all the key music festivals in Africa and Europe to share their healing music, their positive energy and their poignant and skillful song-writing and musical talents.

Spencer (Sinini) Ngwenya is the anchor of the band as a strong lead vocalist and sensitive song writer. He shines in acappella vocals and is undoubtedly a highly skilled rhythm guitarist who as an accomplished and experienced musician has three solo albums under his  belt. His experimentation with poly-rhythms creates an eclectic and stimulating range of sonic art. The band’s gentle energy swims through Tanga Pasi’s music which, as a result, is most calming on the soul.

The duality of light and dark weaves through their songs which can be pure in their celebration of the bliss of the beauty of the future potential of Africa in songs like Ekhaya and Africa, but equally real and honest about the harsh realities with most striking socio-political content in songs like Hard Road, Owami Umbhobho (Music is my weapon) and Lam’lela (Save me: They’re trying to kill me). Their talent is in sharing messages of truth with subtlety and lullaby comfort.

Pamela flick-flacks with ease on stage from lead vocals to backing vocals. She is very adept at playing harmonica, keyboard, guitar and percussion. Her innate grace adds a gentle musical energy to this talented, refreshingly authentic band. Bassist and backing vocalist, Blessing Shamuis a delightful musician. He has a purity of presence on stage and his bass guitar talents shine like the full moon on a still night in the National Botanic Gardens of Harare.

Audience member, Merle Scholtz said after their concert at St Clements in Durban: “Tanga Pasi embodies the Africa I want to belong to. And what I really like is that their lyrics challenge the status-quo moving beyond the revolution with creativity and they really reflect what our children will inherit.” She added that Tanga Pasi’s music triggered wonderful memories of growing up as a child in South Africa. “Our gardeners played maskandi guitar and this brings it all back  the memories of childhood.” Also in the audience, Anton Scholtz, part-time artist and designer said: “This is the music of my child hood. It has tremendous emotional impact. They are truly African in their feel and they have captured the traditional maskandi.”

Tanga Pasi are currently recording their much awaited debut album for an early 2013 release and plan to return to South Africa in March 2013.

·         Demo tracks: www.myspace.com/tangapasi or www.soundcloud.com/tangapasi or www.reverbnation.co.za

Contact:  tanga.pasi@gmail.com

Tel: (+263)77466 6972 or (+27)761011566.

Alchemical Jargon by Andrew Barker

Kalk Bay Modern featuring the first exhibition for The Month of Photography (MOP)

1st Floor Olympia Buildings, 136 Main Road, Kalk Bay (above Olympia Cafe), Cape Town

By Suzy Bell

Africa is not an exotic landscape where one only records the poses of the destitute and the humiliating genre scenes, says artist Andrew Barker.

“I think the viewer has become tired of the next rhetorical pose where everyone looks at the camera or just yonder. Rather for me, Africa is visualised in the landscape of stone rather than the sociological vivacity of the ‘other’ and it is now time that we desperately need this,” expresses Barker.

This photographer is interested in the quiet everyday moments and a landscape that reflects his own dreams, “or less ephemeral events of my everyday life.”

He likens himself to Jules Vern using past jargons to create his own understanding of new histories. “Good enduring photography is those that are not governed by the next fad. I merely use some gold and silver to yearn for past histories to create my own testimony inappropriately defined as a document,” he explains.

As a master craftsman of photography, Barker works with old technology as that is what he knows. “I have never thought of myself as Zen, I just work with my heart. Only then do the images become iconographic in their indigenous beauty. I do not own a desktop with bells. Mine is more hands-on with no quick rewards. It appeals to me as it draws me to the aesthetic traditions of image productions. I do not take pictures as such, I feel I construct them painstakingly. The process is using a camera as big as my torso and the effect is making bonfires in the landscape to alarm all farmers kilometres away that there is madman making a portrait, who wants less sun and horizon for his composition.”

Yvette Stephen, Kalk Bay Modern’s Gallery Manager says that Barker is not unlike the photographic alchemists of old. “He explores and reveals the alchemical roots of photography depicted in his sensitive tonal sketches. Andrew’s work represents three photographic processes from his vintage collection of photographs with mimosa type paper toned in gold from silver halide emulsions to contemporary work with silver gelatin through to today’s digital medias.”

In his immaculate printing processes, Barker investigates the chemical processes we have inherited from photography’s histories. “I believe I use them in ways that are not used at this point in South African history. Nevertheless I do not try to mimic the past, but rather to explore past sentiments, and flavour them with my own fantasies and romance.”

In his current work, through the use of photography histories, Barker sees himself creating an investigation to push the more static and lasting crafts towards a more cultured form. “My intention in this current work is to show the use of a range of experimental procedures and ways of looking, which I hope may enhance my work and the medium. It is my personal quest to confront the slowness of my cameras and the working methods I choose. I use older cameras not simply because I have many, but mostly because it teaches me to understand more about my life, my sense of presence, and about the alchemical process of making and changing. To change within myself, and also to change this thing now called photography.”

Barker admits that some may see the act of reviving past styles as a “kind of weakness, because it rivals contemporary trends or thought”, but he says in working this way he can shy away from images that so often reveal the kitsch of retouching splashy techniques, and the contrived rhetorical pose. “I find no reward in other easier applications the medium may offer. What technique do I use? I cannot even spell the word “scheimflug.”

His camera is a mammoth plate camera 10 x12 inch negative which dictates his creative crop to create what he dubs “chemical dreams.” He uses this camera format a great deal as he feels that in photography the craftsman is attached to tradition and big cameras and convention is a sure thing. “I think my assemblages are identical in structure to that of an iPhone. My camera just needs to be born under the influence of a good star that would endow one with the talent of an alchemist. I hope I have that star. I do not consider photography being fresh and funky using the next splashy techniques. Mine are more experimental procedures, which teaches me about suppleness and flexibility in my humanness. The cumbersome and slow equipment teaches me to slow down and enjoy the ‘grand ride’. I believe in that expression that ‘any artist does not know what reality is; let alone how to affect it’. I have a different experience. That is all that matters to me. ”

Barker adds that he does not believe in the ‘quality of a connected narrator but rather in a collection of brilliant individual moments that he has chosen for some reason to stop and contemplate. “Many of my images acquire biographies after they are printed and they become iconic in their power to communicate and influence, and they migrate from one medium to another. I truly hope mine may enter another stage of their life histories, that they will migrate into a book,” he says.

I like that he only took one photo to get his image of the man sweeping. “I compose, I compose direct and then just one click.”

Kalk Bay Modern, Alchemy by Andrew Barker and Jurgen Schadeberg’s The Black & White Fifties is on exhibit at 1st Floor Olympia Buildings, 136 Main Road, Kalk Bay (above Olympia Cafe), Cape Town. Tel:021 788 6571 Fax:021 788 6793 Email:kbmodern@iafrica.com www.kalkbaymodern.co.za  For more info on the entire MOP5 festival find their schedule for exhibitions on www.photocentre.org.za

Media Release

16th POETRY AFRICA 
International Poetry Festival


Durban 15-20 October and On Tour 6-13 October

The popularity of the spoken word is evident in the powerful performance arc that threads through the 16th edition of Poetry Africa. Music is also a prominent presence in this landmark festival organised by the Centre for Creative Arts (University of KwaZulu-Natal) and made possible through principal funding from the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund. Poetry Africa runs in Durban from 15 to 19 October at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre, with the festival finale at BAT Centre on 20 October. Satellite events take place in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Cape Town before culminating at the main event in Durban.

Saul Williams
Sure to stir up a storm is Saul Williams, whose innovative work as an actor, poet and musician continues to break new ground on arts stages around the world. The proficiency and originality across different artforms which have established Williams at the cutting-edge of creativity provide a riveting fusion of voice and music artistry on matters of heart, mind and social conscience.   Well-known for his breakout role in Slam, Williams has appeared in over ten films and starred in the Senegalese-shot film Tey, which showed at the recent Durban International Film Festival.

Performance Power
Local audiences will be introduced to the avant garde approach of dynamic Jamaican dub poet, prolific playwright, monodramatist and educator D’bi Young, fresh from a TED talk programme in India. Star of the South African hip-hop scene, well-known for imaginative collaborations with artists from a range of disciplines and genres, Tumi will showcase his distinctive individuality, this time without the Volume. There is Cameroon-born Werewere Liking, a legendary poet, musician, painter and cultural activist who established the Ki-Yi artist village in Ivory Coast and top Swedish hip-hop artist Henry Bowers who is also recognized as one of Europe’s leading slam-poets. Bowers is part of a contingent of performance poets coming from Ordsprak Festival in Uppsala, Sweden that includes Oskar Hanska, Sam Kessel, Solja Krapu and Laura Wihlbörg.

Another popular participant is Ewok, not only one of South Africa’s sharpest wordsmiths but also also one of the busiest, active as MC, playwright, actor, teacher, organizer with the LifeCheck movement, and part of hip-hop outfit Illuminating Shadows. The lineup also includes Poppy Seed, a singer and spoken word artist from the UK with a number of cds and poetry publications to her credit; Mbali Vilakazi who won a gold medal at the recent Poetry Olympics; Gouslaye, a colourful performance poet from Reunion Island; Croc e Moses who combines a guitar and voice approach to his poetry; talented Durban poet Tumelo Khoza who is also organizer of the Cup O’ Thought poetry sessions; and the brilliant Niels Hav from Denmark, whose perceptive poetry is lined with delicious irony.

With a background in journalism Tolu Ogunlesi’s poetry offers a broad personal reflection on life in contemporary Nigeria and beyond, while Nii Ayikwei Parkes of Ghana, is a sought-after socio-cultural commentator whose poetry embraces themes of power, cultural conflicts, love, and the friction between capitalism and humanism.

Poet and novelist Philo Ikonya was President of the Kenyan chapter of PEN when she suffered brutal arrest for speaking out against corruption and the clampdowns on freedom of expression in Kenya, and is now based in Norway. A previous member of the Soweto Gospel Choir, the powerful voice of Jessica Mbangeni has significantly contributed to raising public interest in imbongi praise poetry, and from Cape Town comes Rustum Kozain, whose finely- crafted poetry has earned him accolades such as the Ingrid Jonker Poetry Prize and the Olive Schreiner Award.

Music 
Poetry Africa is enriched with an intertwining of music and poetry that sees the participation of people whose reputations are well established in music circles. Apart from the afore-mentioned artists, many of whom straddle a variety of disciplines and genres, the programme also includes Madosini, the foremost exponent of the various bow instruments that form part of Xhosa culture – she is a crucial custodian of these traditions. Originally from Spain, Pedro Espi-Sanchis has become a local (and international) legend for his African story-telling and expertise on indigenous music instruments, especially the Lekgodilo pipe-flute. Very special guest is the legendary Zimbabwean Oliver Mtukudzi - “Tuku” turns 60 this year, which is matched by his incredible output of no less than 60 albums.

The festival finale will feature the mesmeric groove of Vavangèr(s), a music project led by Sergio Grondin with Maya Pounia and Alex Soress, honouring the legendary Reunion Island musician Alain Peters. There are also special cameo performances by Madala Kunene with Zos Kunene, Guy Buttery and Nibs van der Spuy, and Zimbabwean mbira duo of Isaac Machafa and Praise Zinhuku.

South Africa versus Sweden SlamJam
High-paced action is assured in this year’s SlamJam. Now in its 11th year this popular event will see a crossing of word-swords as teams from South Africa and Sweden square off at Bat Centre on 20th October. The Swedish team is represented by Henry Bowers, Oskar Hanska and Laura Wihlbörg ; South Africa by Ewok and Dashen Naicker (both previous SlamJam winners), and PAGE, who won the Cup O’Thought slam-off to earn a place on the team.

The Swedish contingent is coordinated by the Ordsprak Festival in Uppsala, with whom Poetry Africa has had a relationship since 2006. In this year’s exchange Lebo Mashile, Lefifi Tladi, Tumelo Khoza, Dashen Naicker and Ngwatilo Mawiyoo (Kenya) will represent Poetry Africa at Ordsprak in late September.  

Poetry Africa Regional Tour
Following Poetry Africa’s participation in Sweden a series of performance showcases take place in Blantyre (6th October), Harare (8th and 9th), Gaborone (11th) and Cape Town (13th) with workshops, panel discussions and schools programmes in some of the centres. The core tour group includes Pedro Espi-Sanchis, Ewok, Philo Ikonya, Madosini, Nii Ayikwei Parkes, with D’bi Young also participating in Malawi and Zimbabwe, Lebo Mashile in Botswana and Cape Town, and Saul Williams in Cape Town.

Book Launches
Festival book launches include Rustum Kozain’s new release “Groundwork” (Kwela Books/ SnailPress), two books by Allan Kolski Horwitz “Two Birds at My Window” and “Meditations of a Non-White” (both Dye Hard Press), the long due Zulu version of Oswald Mtshali’s “Sounds of a Cowhide Drum”, “Imisindo Yesighubu Sesikhumba Senkomo” (Jacana), and the Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Anthology Volume 2 (Jacana). Book launches take place at the Wellington Tavern Deck, Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre, from 18h45-19h15, prior to the evening showcases. The Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Award will be presented on Thursday 18 October – the finalists are Vonani Bila and Siddiq Khan.

Day activities
Poetry Africa provides a space for intercultural exchange and dialogue in wide-reaching day activities that include seminars, workshops and poetry performances at tertiary institutions and community centres, engagement with local poetry groups, open mic opportunities and visits by the poets to thirty schools in Durban and surrounding areas to exchange poetry and ideas about poetry with young learners.

Visit www.cca.ukzn.ac.za for the full programme of activities, biographies, and photos of participants or contact the Centre for Creative Arts for more information on 031 260 2506/1816 or e-mail cca@ukzn.ac.za. Follow the festival on Twitter @PoetryAfrica.

Organised by the Centre for Creative Arts (University of KwaZulu-Natal), the 16th Poetry Africa International Poetry Festival is supported by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund (principal funder), Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation (HIVOS), Swedish Arts Council, France South Africa Seasons 2012 & 2013, and the City of Durban.

Ends

MEDIA QUERIES: 
Sharlene Versfeld/ Kwazi Ngubane
Versfeld & Associates: The Communication Works
031 811 5628
083 326 3235
sharlene@versfeld.co.za
Twitter @sharlvers
Skype: sharlene.versfeld

FESTIVAL ENQUIRIES: 
Phone: +27 (0)31 260 2506/1816
Fax: +27 (0)31 260 3074 
Email: cca@ukzn.ac.za 
Website: www.cca.ukzn.ac.za 
Twitter @PoetryAfrica 
Facebook: Poetry Africa

FIVE DAYS REMAINING: ACE 2012 Early Bird Registration Closes 30th September 2012 

Remember to register for the 2nd African Creative Economy Conference before 30 September to benefit from a 10% discount. The registration form is available online and includes a programme outline. To register, please visit: http://arterialnetwork.org/form/african-creative-economy-conference

The aims of the conference are to provide practical analysis and reflective overview of the current status of African creative economy. This will help consolidate emergent African expertise in this area while providing critical thought necessary in navigating the unfolding realties the sector is faced with.
The 2012 Creative Economy conference is a rare opportunity that will mark the coming together of powerful debate from across the continent, live and rich provocation from pioneering international practitioners and thinkers, and the unprecedented collaboration of arts institutions from 40 African countries to shape dialogue and a shared experience.

Its main objective is to assess and share research done to date on the African creative economy in order to inform advocacy strategies in support of the African creative sector, rigorously interrogate the available research on cultural themes, provide a platform for African professionals to share their insights on the African Creative economy aspects and to identify areas of further research, links, opportunities and potential relationships.It offers to researchers, artists, civil society, donors and cultural workers from Africa the opportunity to network, get practical analysis and reflection of the African creative economy from an African perspectives and realities.The African Creative Economy Conference 2012 offers two parallel programmes - one specifically exploring up-to-date researches, experiences and debates, the other is a series of practical know how exchange trainings and workshops. The closing gala dinner will be featuring performances from renowned African artists’ members of Arterial Network.

We look forward to welcoming you to Dakar, Senegal 14-16 November!


For more information please contact:
Nancy A. Onyango
Communications and Marketing Manager
Arterial Network
Email: nancy@arterialnetwork.org
Tel: 27214659027

***************************************

CINQ JOURS RESTANTS: Remise aux premiers inscrits pour la conférence finit le 30 Septembre 2012

Juste pour vous rappeler que si vous voulez bénéficier de 10% de remise , vous devez le faire au plus tard le 30 Septembre 2012. Le formulaire d’inscription est en disponible avec les grandes lignes du programme. S’inscrire ici: http://arterialnetwork.org/form/african-creative-economy-conference

L’objectif de cette conférence est de fournir un aperçu théorique et statistique de l’état actuel de l’économie créative en Afrique comme base qui servira d’interventions de plaidoyer à l’ avenir. Cette conférence devrait aussi servir à identifier et développer une expertise africaine dans le domaine en faisant des analyses critiques nécessaires tout en puisant dans les réalités auxquelles fait face le secteur en Afrique.
La 2eme édition sur l’Economie Créative est une rare opportunité qui rassemblera les plus puissants débats de partout sur le continent, de vives et riches provocations intellectuelles des praticiens et penseurs internationaux. Cette conférence permettra aussi une collaboration à nulle autre pareille avec des délégations et institutions provenant de 40 pays africains pour façonner des débats et des expériences partagées.

Son but principal est d’évaluer et de partager des recherches déjà faites à nos jours sur l’économie créative afin de trouver une bonne base d’arguments pour les stratégies de plaidoyer dans le secteur de la création en Afrique, interroger minutieusement et rigoureusement les recherches disponibles sur les thèmes de la culture, -Interroger rigoureusement les recherches disponibles et la relation entre l’économie africaine créative et développement, la diversité culturelle et d’autres thèmes contemporains sur la culture ; fournir une plateforme aux professionnels , experts et penseurs africains pour partager des idées et perspectives sur les aspects de l’économie créative en Afrique et d’Identifier de nouveaux domaines de recherche, d’interrogation et d’action, sur le plan continental, régional et national – après la conférence et Identifier les liens, opportunités, et relations possibles . La conférence de cette année offre ainsi deux programmes parallèles : un programme spécialement pour explorer les recherches disponibles, des expériences, des débats et l’autre est une série d’échange de sessions de formation et d’atelier de travail sur le savoir-faire pratique.

La soirée de clôture sera dotée d’un diner Gala ou des artistes internationalement reconnus et membres d’Arterial Network offriront un spectacle inédit.

Nous sommes impatients de vous accueillir à Dakar au Senegal du 14 au 16 Novembre 2012!

Pour plus de plus amples d’information, prière de contacter:

Nancy A. Onyango
Responsable à la Communication et au Marketing.
Arterial Network
Email: nancy@arterialnetwork.org
Tel: 27214659027

The people who live in multi million rand so called bungalows in Clifton once lived in corrugated iron and timber clad houses not much different from what exists today in Hangberg says Architect Jo Noero who opened David Lurie’s photographic exhibition, Encounters at the Edge.

“I love the triptych that David has made of the homes in Hangberg, a neighbourhood I know well,” says Noero. “His photographs tell you eloquently all that you need to know about this settlement - the care and attention to the construction of the home - the consideration of the neighbours in ensuring that one does not obscure views or take away from the neighbour the amenity that you might enjoy. Interestingly the people of Hangberg refer to their homes as bungalows and not shacks. This is done very deliberately since they both are proud of their homes and do not like the appellation shack to be attached to their house. But this term also underpins a very shrewd understanding of urban housing dynamics since the view is that as I have expressed, people who live in multi million rand so called bungalows in Clifton once lived in corrugated iron and timber clad houses not much different from what exists today in Hangberg. And the thinking goes quite correctly that what was good for Clifton which lead to hugely valuable houses today could also apply to the houses of Hangberg.”

 David Lurie’s  poignant photographs, says Noero, reflect a community of people living side by side in relative peace without having to resort to laws to regulate what you can build. “People here build resourcefully - all the materials are recycled and not one single cent of taxes goes to the cost of the houses. And look at the quality – is it not better than the awful RDP houses constructed by the state at huge cost to us all?”

He adds that a community can build homes for themselves without any support from the state, the banks or any other formal sector institutions. He expresses that given the right conditions people left to their own devices can produce quality environments way beyond the capacity of the state. “This should not be mistaken for supporting the idea that the state has no responsibility in alleviating poverty and unemployment. What is revealed is that when people are free from the tyranny of bureaucracy and regulation they are more than capable of looking after themselves,” says Noero.

“These homes exhibit wonderful variety,” continues Noero. “Each home is shaped in accordance with the family’s needs, in which no two homes are similar and in which the most extraordinary generosity is extended to neighbours where boundaries and public space need to be negotiated. These families have nothing other than the single most plentiful renewable energy resource in the world namely human labour, imagination, ingenuity and creativity to offer. These are the energy forces that make these settlement, not banks or pension funds or bureaucracies, and I might add that these are the life forces that can withstand the most repressive forms of state control.”

David has documented communities living in the so-called informal sector beyond the control of state taxes, licenses and bureaucrats. This group of people comprise more that 70 per cent of our urban populations in South Africa and Noero says that this exhibits an extraordinary resilience and creativity in managing to survive under the most difficult circumstances.

The photographer, Lurie, says that in this exhibition research he discovered that the majority of the world’s population today live in cities. “Out of a world population of 7 billion, 1 billion people live in slums and more than 1 billion are informal workers, struggling to survive. These figures are staggering if you consider that 95% of the future growth of humanity will occur in cities, overwhelmingly in poor cities, and most of it in slums, creating a crisis for this global urban, informal working class, or mass unemployed people – especially, but not only, in the developing world – who have no formal connection to the world economy, and no chance of ever having such a connection. Inexorable forces are expelling people from rural areas, most of whom migrate to urban slums on the peripheries of cities.”

Mass movement from countryside to cities is not new, but what is new – aside from the sheer magnitude of this movement – is how it is driven not by industrialisation or even economic growth but by sheer desperation. Recent studies (for example, The Challenge of Slums by UN-Habitat and Planet of Slums by Mike Davis) have alerted us to the fact that the global urban unemployment crisis is as serious a threat as climate change to our collective future. They have sounded an authoritative warning about the worldwide catastrophe of urban poverty. The informal proletariat constitutes the fastest-growing social class on earth, the truly ‘excluded’. This phenomenon, which has been driven by neo-liberal economic policies and a thoroughgoing retreat of the state, clearly deserves more attention than it is getting from urban planners, sociologists, environmentalists, epidemiologists and demographers.

Lurie says that Cape Town mirrors many of the problems facing other African cities and cities in the developing world. “These photographs are an attempt to distil my experience of these fragments of life – of unfinished stories – on the precipice beyond the edge of Cape Town. It is a study in informal survival, in a world of unstable, sprawling squatter camps, “informal settlements”, garbage hills, and the sand dunes of the Cape Flats, (and more recently, for me, in Hout Bay where I now live) where urbanisation has been disconnected from industrialisation and even from economic growth,” says Lurie.

These images exhibited are from Lurie’s new book to be published by Fourth Wall Publishing in 2013.

• David Lurie’s photographic exhibition, Encounters at the Edge at The Photographers Gallery za, 63 Shortmarket Street, Cape Town. It tours to the Contemporary Art Fair, Zurich 12 - 14 October then the Bekris Gallery, San Francisco 1 November – 31 December and on to Miami Photo, Miami, USA 4 – 9 December. Tel: (021) 422 2762. www.erdmanncontemporary.co.za

MASTER CRAFTSMAN: Epic guitarist, one of SA’s leading musicians, Steve Newman performs at The Mahogany Room Jazz Club in Buitenkant Street

Fellow musicians praise him for his unusual rhythms that tap into a wider consciousness. He is a master of his own unique technique, and his music captures the transcontinental flavours from the Cape to the Caribbean, from the Canary Islands to Cuba, from Asia to Africa.

Steve Newman, a highly respected musician and lifelong yogi spent time in London in the late 70s and lived in Walthamstow in a folk-house which often hosted UK folk-legends when they performed around London. “I lived in a tiny room which was previously occupied by Martin Simpson, a great British guitarist. I have been playing Mervin Davis guitars since 1979 and Martin saw my guitar at a folk club and asked me lots of questions about it and about SA. He reviewed my album and raved about my playing and this brought lots of gig and festival enquiries,” says Steve.

He spent five years performing either solo or with British cellist Kathryn Locke doing the folk and acoustic music festival circuit from Glastonbury to Womad. “The first song I learnt was the intro to Surf Instrumental Pipeline by the Ventures,” saysSteve. “In my mid-20s my music interest was expanding with exposure to World Music and not having much interest in just American and European music. One needs to be interested in world culture, not just Hollywood.” As a result his music interests are many and varied, mainly acoustic and unique, Egberto Gismonti, Abdullah Ibrahim, Hermeto Pascoal,Toumani Diabate, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Busi Mhlongo, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Zakir Hussain, The Goema Captains, Hozan Yamamoto and Keith Jarret.

“Music technique is not essential but if one has an arsenal of techniques to play with, there’s lots more colours to paint with,” says Steve known for his incredible range of rhythms. He describes being a musician as being more fun than work and like being on permanent holiday. “It’s also about meeting new friends, re-connecting with old ones, touring this country and taking in the beautiful scenery, seeing wildlife and hearing fascinating stories. I do love collaborating with people I meet along the way and I love playing solo. Playing with others, one learns to leave space for them to play.”

Some of Steve’s legendary collaborations include Yeast, a bluegrass line-up with banjo, guitar, fiddle and mandolin, The Biscuit Raiders, The Road Warriors with Tony Cox and Tananas, Man Walking with Wendy Oldfield, Kaolin Thompson, Elad Neeman, Mondetta with Gito Baloi, Wendy Oldfield, Julia Kim & Elad Neeman, In the Clouds with Greg Georgiades and Ashish Joshi, Jika Nelanga with Greg Ashish, Lu Dlamini, Godfrey Mgcina, Zamo Mbutho and All in One with Errol Dyers & Hilton Schilder. With Tananas Steve has played concerts and festivals in the UK, USA, Australia, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Spain, France, Sweden, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Namibia. Solo, Steve has performed in the UK, Holland, Germany, Norway, Belgium, India, Botswana and the Seychelles.

The Mahogany Room is where Steve will be performing this weekend. It’s a brilliant concept celebrating South African music. It was started by Kesivan Naidoo, Lawson Naidoo and Lee Thomson, three individuals with a singular vision and objective, to create a home for jazz in Cape Town. “What I like about this venue as a concept is that it gives artists great creative freedom. It really encourages a listening culture in audiences as it’s a very intimate space. It attracts some of the best local musicians like Feya Faku, Hugh Masekela, Larry Willis, Louis Moholo, Kyle Shepherd and Bokani Dyer. Chris Letcher and Benguela perform the weekend after us on September 7. The Mahogany Room I rate as a classy international standard performance venue in the tradition of such legendary rooms as the Village Vanguard and Ronnie Scott’s,” says Steve who is currently finishing off a new album titled, All Living Beings. “It is mostly multi-track with a couple of solo tracks reflecting world flavours.”

Steve collaborates as All in One performing with legendary SA composer, Hilton Schilder on piano, bow, flute, percussion, guitar and melodica with Steve on guitar and percussion and Errol Dyers on guitar, flute percussion, harmonica and vocals.

·         Steve Newman collaborates with Errol Dyers and Hilton Schilder as All in One at The Mahogany Room Jazz Club, 79 Buitenkant Street with two shows per night at 8pm and 10pm. Doors open from 7pm.

Booking is essential. Tickets: Cash only. Single show: R60. Both shows: R100. Student rates (single show): R40. Both shows: R70. Student rates only apply 10minutes before a show. Student ID’s required. Contact: info@themahoganyroom.com Tel: 076 679 2697.