Vocalist and trumpeter Mandisi Dyantyis’ instruction on a dry, hot Saturday afternoon at the Montreux Jazz Festival Franschhoek (MJFF) was playful but political: “My people are here,” he told the town’s settler ghosts and its contemporary “inheritocracy”. “Please don’t make them shy; let them be here, even in Franschhoek.”
The crowd of about 3,000 people gathered at the festival’s The Arches outdoor stage was mainly black, from Cape Town’s queers to Jozi’s influential media-cool set, from social media “influenzas” spreading sickly superficial hot takes to the well-heeled and politically connected quaffing champagne and single-malt whisky in the VIP section. They were there — and getting down, many line-dancing along to Dyantyis’ direction in a way perhaps unfamiliar to the effortlessly manicured Afrikaner old money with holiday homes and wine farms in the area.
The Huguenot spirits that cling to this tree-lined town under the Wemmershoek mountain range would certainly have been bemused when Dyantyis, his band and the 13-strong female choir broke out into Molo Sisi, a flirtatious, humorous song transporting the audience to township street corners where pavement charmers make their moves on the opposite sex.
Dyantyis’ gospel-propelled music combined with jazz and Xhosa genealogies in a set that had the audience jiving. Yet it also inserted into the topography — and affirmed — the everyday experience of generations of local and migrant labourers from the Eastern Cape who have trekked down to the Western Cape to build its economy.
Musical healing was also evident later that Saturday night when Thandiswa Mazwai commanded The Arches stage — named after the nearby Huguenot Monument’s Holy Trinity marble arches — with a hit-laden set in front of a rapturous sell-out crowd.
A highlight being when photos from Mazwai’s family archive were projected onto the big screen behind her and the former Bongo Maffin vocalist introduced the song Kulungile (I am Okay), which is about survival and continuing to live despite life’s violences, with a reminder: “I grew up black and I grew up female, so there are a lot of traumas, you know?” The femme-presenting in the crowd led the cheer of acknowledgement.
Mazwai’s combination of imagery and lyrics raised powerful questions about the violence women and queers still face and justice unattained in South Africa, while making a poignant statement about healing and closure being a continuous journey, rather than a destination.
Recognition and healing of those that power has sought to erase was something The Brother Moves On frontman Siya Mthembu, who performed as part of the Brother Kujenga “supergroup” on Friday, spoke to: “What was interesting for me was how the people behind the scenes, the workers, the security guards, the black, brown and invisible people at the festival reacted to our music,” he told Business Day.
“People were like, ‘How did they let you play songs like that?’” Songs like Sphila, which are openly political critiques of a disputed Rainbow nationalism, dreams deferred and a socio-economic reality unchanged since apartheid’s legal end for both the historically rich and those marginalised.
Drummer Kesivan Naidoo, who performed with an extended version of The Lights (with an African-Swiss horns section) at the more intimate Jazz Village stage at Franschhoek’s NG Kerk and a big band at The Arches on Friday night before teaming up with pianist Bokani Dyer and flautist Gareth Lochrane on Saturday night for the Bheki Mseleku tribute, reflected on music’s role.
“Musicians are struggling to survive at the moment,” Naidoo told Business Day. “Musicians’ royalties have diminished, and composers are not making money because technological systems [such as AI] have taken over, so the only thing we have left is to play live. It’s where you still have the kind of freedom of expression you do not find online and allows you a connection with audiences directly.”
This communion is especially important, Naidoo says, in an age when people are becoming, through technology, increasingly isolated and othered.
“When someone is hitting the drum skins during a gig and it takes you, you realise that this [drumming and a transcendental experience of music] is in your DNA, it’s intergenerational, and that we are, ultimately, not that different from each other.”
Naidoo’s 26-member big band started their set with the jazz reinterpretations of songs like Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit and Beyoncé’s All the Single Ladies before segueing into an “amapiano” set augmented by vocalists Moonchild Sannely, Boohle and Bonj. It was a highly infectious and danceable jazz exploration of a genre that has been a global dance sensation for several years.
Other highlights on the Friday programme included guitarists Madala Kunene and Sibusile Xaba’s afternoon performance at the Jazz Village in a five-piece that included percussion, flute and vocals. Their set shimmered with ancestral notes as they moved from Zulu folksongs to childhood ditties to original compositions. Former trade unionist and COPE party leader Mbhazima Shilowa was bopping approvingly in the pews.
He wasn’t the only politician or money-maker in attendance. Franschhoek was dripping with the country’s elite. Vodacom CEO Banzi Malinga was in attendance. South Africa’s deputy president, Paul Mashatile, was spotted holding court in the VIP section.
One of Friday night’s standouts was the performance of headliner Roisin Murphy. The Irish singer-songwriter performed with a five-piece band, but her onstage wardrobe and camera set-up provided further accoutrements to a set that demanded attention. Renowned for her outlandishly over-the-top outfits, Murphy moved from top hats and gauze veils to gorgeous bubble dresses.
Murphy’s vocals alternated between emotional haunting and dance provocation, while her on-stage camera setup created another layer of performance conversation between her and the audience. There were close-ups of body parts, a focus on her searching, sometimes playful, often urgent eyes and fresh perspectives of the band on stage and the audience.
Sadly, another headliner, Salif Keita, had to cancel his performance before he was to travel to the festival due to ill health, but his band played on.
The MJFF made its debut in South Africa this year, and as was expected, there were teething problems to resolve. There was a sense that Friday’s programming was geared towards a whiter audience with the inclusion of acts like Wet Wet Wet and American singer Matt Hansen. Saturday, according to musicians and audience members, felt more like the “Black Night”.
Sneaking a glass of bubbles in the VIP section, I bumped into business person Mark Goedvolk who, with his wife, Raffaella, was instrumental in bringing the MJFF to South Africa. The couple own the rights to the South African iteration of a festival that started in 1967 in Switzerland. It was palpable that his vision for the festival cuts across race and sexuality (but perhaps not quite class since daily tickets topped R2,000) and disrupts the sometimes stuffy Franschhoek surrounds.
A view echoed by Ciko Thomas, Nedbank’s group managing executive for Personal Private Banking, who said the bank, a title sponsor for the festival, was “excited about the demographic make-up at the festival. Queer, straight, old, or young, it was a truly South African event — which is something we value greatly — and it happened without feeling contrived.”
The MJFF is also not a strictly jazz festival, as was evidenced by the pop styling of some of the bands programmed, but it has potential for an inclusive mix that can bring together party animals for The Arches and the “serious” jazz listeners to the Jazz Village.
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