Jazz, hip-hop project launch part of tour
THE Englewood-Soweto Exchange is a collaborative exchange project led by internationally acclaimed saxophonist and composer Ernest Dawkins.
It is a project that involves African-American improvisational jazz and hip-hop performing artists and comparable artists from South Africa.
At the weekend, the launch of the collaborative project took place in Rosebank and Soweto as part of a three-city tour.
Dawkins’ relationship with South African artists dates back to the 1980s when he was still a young musician attending festivals in Europe.
“The first major festival I went to I met the South Africans from the Brotherhood of Breath, Louis Moholo and Dudu Pukwana, while we were hanging out with Salif Keita who were doing the after-parties. We were hanging with the West Africans, going to dance parties at night and here come these guys with hats to the side and they reminded us of us. We had a certain kind of affinity going on.”
Not long after that Dawkins met Zim Ngqawana and the two formed a friendship that would see them travel from the US to South Africa, exchanging music.
Dawkins introduced South African musicians such as Lulu Gontsana, Louis Moholo of the Blue Notes and many others to the stage of the Englewood Jazz festival.
“I met Hugh Masekela and others and they started bringing me over here to start doing workshops and by that time I had my own music festival which they would come to and ever since then the relationship has grown. So, this exchange project is a continuation from the projects that I have done in relation to South Africa.”
In 2015, Durban-based jazz pianist and educator Neil Gonzalves joined Dawkins for An Afro Opera: Homage to Nelson Mandela, an orchestral jazz suite. The Englewood-Soweto Exchange started in 2018 after Dawkins was asked to head up the project.