Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
How to capture the essence of jazz
Six-day photography workshop explores concepts of the genre, writes ANDREW ROBERTSON
THERE’S a lot more to jazz than succumbing to the rhythm, and ahead of the already hugely popular Cape Town International Jazz Festival (CTIJF) weekend, photographers, fashionistas, young musicians and music teachers all get a look in.
A six-day jazz photography workshop aims to provide professional photographers with exposure to the conceptual realms of jazz photography.
Participants will have access to international and local jazz musicians on and off stage and will examine the theory, language and aesthetics of jazz photography in Africa and abroad.
They will look at what jazz photographs say about music – and how best photographers can make the images look.
The workshop will be facilitated by photographer, writer and blogger Caroline Mwangi, who has exhibited widely and is a past student of the festival’s Arts Journalism course.
The Duotone Photographic Exhibition this year presents the work of three other graduates of the festival’s photography workshops – Motshwari Mofokeng, Thobile Mathonsi and Justin Smidt – who are sharing their interpretation of “Africa’s Grandest Gathering”.
Images reflecting the raw emotion of the performer and snapshots of the engaged audience will whet the appetite for the weekend’s music festival.
Another highlight is likely to be the festival’s Arts Journalism Public Debate, which will see a panel discussion about the school and tertiary music curriculum and if and how this needs to be reformed.
The discussion will tackle the decolonisation of jazz and is likely to challenge views on the best way to enter the industry: from the bandstand, lecture room or personal digging through a record trove.
The festival’s Arts Journalism Programme director, Gwen Ansell, will chair the debate alongside arts writer Percy Mabandu, who takes the reins from her next year and was instrumental in putting together a guest panel that includes musicians, teachers and scholars.
“The issue we will be discussing is the curriculum and not the jazz industry at large.
“We are talking about the methods of learning and teaching, focusing our energy on intellectual apparatus.
“We are not talking about who owns record companies.We find that much of the jazz curriculum is dominated by aspects of jazz history from outside the country and that is a function of knowledge production as well.
“The challenge is there isn’t much jazz local history produced,” Mabandu said.
“We exist on the southern tip of the African continent where kids are learning jazz at schools.
“However, to teach jazz, you need music as examples and there is also the issue of methods of teaching.
“When you get to university there are issues like curriculum, which is basically set on a particular history.”
Other festival training and development workshops include: music and careers, umculo wan Masiphumelele, Gigs For Kids, master classes, the music business, fashion and music technology.
The Cape Town International Jazz Festival Duotone Photographic Exhibition is at the CTICC on Friday March 31 and Saturday April 1 and is open to the public before 3pm free of charge.
The debate is part of the Arts Journalism programme on Wednesday, March 29 at the Opera Bar at Artscape from 1.30pm till 4pm.