Moses Serugo
19 October 2008
Nairobi — Kampala's first International jazz festival mostly sounded like a case of mistaken identity.
The bulk of the local and international acts that performed at the lakeside Commonwealth Resort in Munyonyo sounded better suited to other music genres, not the jazz that fans in the region associate with Miles Davis or George Benson.
There seemed to be a concerted effort to give new meaning to jazz. When asked if his music fitted the jazz definition, Zimbabwean singer/guitarist Oliver Mtukudzi quipped, "To me, jazz is a mixture of sounds," -- an interpretation he lived up to when he had the audience on the lawn eating out of his guitar-playing hand.
Mtukudzi's last Kampala gig was in 2005 and that year the remoteness of the venue shut many fans out of the concert.
It takes just one hit for the Kampala audience to be hooked, though, and once word got around that Tuku, as he is popularly known, was coming, fans of his runaway hit Todi made a mad dash for tickets.
Hearing the ecstatic audience act as the background vocalists on the track must have left Mtukudzi flattered.
The revellers did the same on Neria, the hit song from the movie by the same name that introduced Mtukudzi to Ugandan audiences. Mtukudzi co-starred in the movie as the brother of the movie's widowed protagonist.
The small Zimbabwean community also showed the flag at the Mtukudzi's concert.
The energy from Tuku and his band of young musicians was palpable. Indeed, only the bassist and drummer were of his generation.
The husky lad playing the marimbas, the belle playing the concealed thumb piano and the others on the congas all fed energy into the performance.
They also multi-tasked as background vocalists. Tuku and his band were in other words explosively efficient, shredding into other songs like Wasakara.
Miriam Makeba was the other big international act and although there were worries whether the frail 76-year-old would be able to work up the crowd, she left everyone mesmerised.
To put it in perspective, she had arrived in a wheelchair the previous day and during a pre-concert media conference walked with the aid of a crutch.
But once on stage, the frailty dropped away. Makeba had everyone on their feet with her timeless sound that has seen generations enjoy signature tunes like Pata Pata and a soukouss-tinged rendition of the East African classic Malaika.
Makeba's parting shot was an a cappella chant with her band, before they took a bow after a 90-minute session of stomping music that included a tribute to Dolly Rathebe, a 1950s South African celebrity who was a pin-up girl and idolised musician.
Third World Love, an Israeli quartet was just about the only outfit that came close to jazz in its traditional form.
Their repertoire comprised jazz hallmarks like improvisation and ad-libbing on "traditional" instruments like the trumpet, flugelhorn, piano, double bass and drums.
There were brief forays into Horn of Africa sounds -- characterised by a recurring up-tempo bass rhythm -- and bits of Mediterranean influences in their repertoire.
Sadly for the quartet, playing after Makeba meant that there was only a handful of revellers, the jazz purists to be precise, left around to savour its old-time jazz sounds.
It was important for festival organisers to include Ugandan artistes, but the thin pickings on Uganda's jazz scene saw mostly non-jazz performers chosen and given the exposure that comes with performing on a big stage with a great sound system and dazzling lights. Susan Kerunen impressed with her Ugandan folk tunes set to modern musical instruments.
Herbert Kinobe was the other Ugandan revelation at the festival.
A musical prodigy who likes to play the Kora harp, Kinobe's band comprises high school contemporaries who got together to give Ganda folk music a contemporary feel.
And it all came together when they got down to Lucejjera, a song that chronicles the 1946 invasion of locusts at the Buganda palace.
Joel Sebunjo, another Kora-playing youngster, did not get as much attention though his adeptness at playing the instrument's 21 strings was noteworthy.
Saxophonist Isaiah Katumwa was just about the closest thing to jazz that Uganda had at the festival. He cemented his presence as an emerging "smooth jazz" force in the region, and one with an exquisite technique.
On his debut in 2007, Katumwa sounded more like Kenny G, Dave Koz and Kirk Whalum. His 2008 album was a concerted effort by the self-taught saxophonist to play jazz with an African accent and songs like the zouk-flavoured My Joy now show he is finally coming into his own.
There were, however, several shortcomings on the part of the organisers of the two-day event, over and above the gridlocked road to the venue. The festival atmosphere was just one stage, the whole thing came off as concert. Multiple stages should have been used.
Moreover, workshops are also an integral aspect of a jazz festival. But with Makeba and Mtukudzi leaving at the crack of dawn immediately after their gigs, there was hardly any interaction between the local and visiting artistes.
Segmenting the crowd into VIP and non-VIP sections also killed any festival, where social barriers are supposed to be broken down.
An attempt at adding a tourism twist to the whole concept fell flat although it let title sponsor Warid Telecom join the growing group of Ugandan telecommunication companies attaching their brands to a music concept. Organisers have already received an endorsement for next year's festival.
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