Jazz Lovers get your JOJ tickets… fast!
This years Standard Bank Joy of Jazz looks to be sexying up jazz in SA as a slick array of global jazz favourites are jetted in to perform in the heart of Johannesburg city. Think other great Jazz festivals like Montreaux, North Sea Rotterdam, Montreal and of course New Orleans ongoing jazz extravaganza, they all started somewhere; but their defining features have to be the quality and range of Jazz muso’s in the lineup as well as the tight organisation that goes into running world class music festivals. It looks like JOJ is on it’s way up there, lets hope it becomes an international attraction. But for now, all you local Jozi people that love Jazz, hurry up and buy your tickets, if you don’t know where to start, we’ll tell you what we’re excited about and MUST NOT be missed: Roy Ayers, Joy Denalane, Asa from Nigeria, Simphiwe Dana, Max Wild and Sam Mtukudzi, RJ Benjamin, Ringo Madlingozi, Abigail Khubeka and then we’d probably really dig hanging out with the ‘developmental and emerging bands’ to spot hot new talent, like the Central Johannesburg College, George Tabor School of Music, Music Academy of Gauteng and The Tshwane University of Technology’s School of Music and bands from the Puisano Roving Jazz programme. Anyways, whatever you do, GO GO GO. The international language of jazz will see the stages of downtown Jozi go global when the annual Standard Bank Joy of Jazz runs in Newtown from August 28 to 30. Some of the world’s top jazz artists will be providing a musical mélange of sound at this not-to-be-missed jazz-travaganza. With its truly international line-up, the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz will incorporate all jazz styles – from Afro jazz and fusion to Latin rhythms, bebop and straight-ahead. Artists from America, Japan, Norway, Spain, Israel, Germany and Holland will be joined by top performers from South Africa and Nigeria. Giants of the jazz world include Japan’s Keiko Matsui who recorded her last album Moyo in South Africa; the Original Superstars of Jazz Fusion featuring Roy Ayers, Tom Browne, Wayne Henderson and Lonnie Liston Smith; American saxophonist Joshua Redman; guitarist Doc Powell from the US; Israel’s Avi Lebovich and the Israeli Jazz Orchestra; Spain’s Sedajazz; Holland’s Denise Jannah; Germany’s Joy Denelane and Norway’s Tord Gustavsen. Performers from the African continent include South Africa’s Abigail Kubheka, Pat Matshikiza, Mark Fransman, the 2008 Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner for jazz, Simphiwe Dana and Yvonne Chaka Chaka as well as Asa from Nigeria. The Mbira Stage will showcase the opening night bill on Thursday, August 28, with the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra (JPO) paying tribute to...
We will be back!
