CT International Jazz Festival – AWESOME!

Posted on Apr 5, 2007

Thanks to PANDA who outdid herself and attended nearly every live performance at the 2007 Cape Town International Jazz Festival on behalf of Represent.  Gel you know you rock! See her stunning pics of the festival in our photoblog here.  In a nutshell, she rated Leela James, Lira and HHP as her highlights… we LOVE them all and wish we could have been there!  Read all about it here: Jazz is an almost useless term to describe the variety of music at this gathering of musicians, producers, media and enthusiasts from all over the world. If music was as popular as cricket, I can guarantee, South Africans would be sitting in bars all over South Africa celebrating the success of our local artists, dissecting each composition and the Cape Town International Jazz Festival would be one of the many music festival events populating everyone’s social calendars. We’d be spared Guns & Roses and the rest of the B-list international acts that come out here, in favour of only the best current and most inspirational music. They’d have to hold all events in stadiums and sell season tickets, and broadcast live for days on our national channels and our musicians will get the attention they deserve. African music has inspired jazz, rock and roll, hip hop and R&B across the world. We have every reason to be proud. I can’t think of anything better than sitting on a fold up chair in the autumnal Cape sun watching the artful string pickings and soulful trumpetings of our countrymen and other international stars sipping on a something something and watching the beautiful people stroll serenely by. The festival kicked off with Concord Nkabinde on the big stage, a difficult thing to do but with his beautiful strong voice and big stage presence, he did a great job. Last time I went to the jazz festival I nearly did myself in trying to see everything. Ladies, a tip, don’t wear heels if you can possibly help it, I saw many a footsore woman walking around later in the evening, stilettos in hand. I saw Ester Miller featuring Jeremy Pelt next, a beautiful voice from PE, now living in the UK. Alongside her was a very debonair Mr Pelt. The MC announced that all the beautiful ladies should check out his website and let him know if they’re available – and there were very many beautiful ladies, beautifully dressed. The CTIJF has become as much as a social and fashion event as a celebration of music. The Rosies stage kicked off with Vivid Africa, they’ve found a lot of success in the “world music”...