JAZZ: BENJAMIN JEPHTA
BASS guitarists are usually the support guys, but Benjamin Jephta plays things a different way.
This year’s Standard Bank Young Artist for Jazz is a bassist and composer making a name for himself as a highly original electric bass and double bass player.
Standard Bank Jazz Festival director, Alan Webster, remembers Jephta as technically adept and “creative in his improvisation, unusual, especially for a bass player, skilled in a wide variety of music styles, and very importantly, organised”.
Involved in various projects, Cape Town-born Jephta now bases himself in Joburg and is a sought-after bassist who played in the Standard Bank National Youth Jazz Bank in 2011 and 2013 and with last year’s SBYA jazz artist, Siya Makuzeni, earlier this year. He also played a very popular set at this year’s Cape Town International Jazz Festival.
The 23-year-old started gigging young, tagging along when his jazz-loving (and singing) dad jammed at Swingers in Wetton and completed a music degree at UCT. He heads up two projects which play his original music. There is the six-piece African/fusion/funk project, Tribe of Benjamin, and his acoustic quintet who draw on gospel and music rooted in South Africa.
The quintet of 2014 SBYA for Jazz, Kyle Shepherd (piano), Marcus Wyatt (trumpet), Sisonke Zonti (sax), Sphelelo Mazibuko (drums) and Jephta, worked on the Samanominated album, Homecoming. THANDAZILE, aka Sonia, Radebe, 33, is one of the country’s leading contemporary choreographers and dancers.
On her selection as a Standard Bank Young Artist she said: “It is very humbling.
“It is important to acknowledge that the role of artists, dancers in particular, are in the bottom of the arts chain for some reason I fail to understand.
“With that being said, this recognition means I have a responsibility to influence a shift or change in this regard as a young, black female dancer and choreographer in South Africa.”
On what she is likely to bring to stage on this platform, Radebe said: “I am certain that the work that I would like to create is a multidisciplinary dance work which also means joining forces with other creatives and enriching and learning from each other.
“This also affords me an opportunity to bring people with different interests to enjoy a work that speaks to a wider audience and share in on the stories that seeks to celebrate ordinary people that contribute so much in our lives, people who make us shine and never take the glory for it and often are not recognised.
“Will I be dancing in it? Who knows? But what I wish for is to dance till I am 60,” she laughed. – (read Radebe’s full interview at www.tonight.co.za).