Sunday 12 February 2017

Cape Jazz Band Heading East

The Cape Jazz Band (CJB), a live and recording project run by band leader and star drummer, Jack Momple and producer, Patrick Lee-Thorp, will be making a rare outing in a tropical paradise of Miri on the island of Borneo, in May.

Although they perform from time to time in their home base, Cape Town, the commitments of the all-star line-up rarely allow the band to play international dates. Most of the older members have their own groups and recording projects.

     As a 5 piece live in Cape Town - Pic Geoff Wright 

The CJB as a project has been around for 10 years being was mooted by Cape Jazz guru, Robbie Jansen as an informal jazz school for young players wanting to learn about the genre and a way of keeping the special repertoire alive on stages in the Cape. The project only came to fruition after his own illness prevented him from travelling.

Now the band have been booked to play at the Borneo Jazz Festival in Miri in the state of Sarawak. The festival now in its 12th year presents ethno-jazz from different parts of the world in an open air setting, with something of a party atmosphere. Also one of the features of the festival are the afterparty jams, open to the public, that involve many of the participants who will also be performing on the main stage.

      The tent town that springs up on the island shoreline of the town of Miri - Pic, Niall Macaulay

The CJB released their latest album, Musical Democracy recently and will feature some of the tunes on the record, at the festival. They are also expected to do their usual lively set of Cape songs by the greats in the genre.

On these outings they will perform as a 7 piece, taking a brass section with them.

The dates of the festival are, 12  and 13 May. The line up is - Jack Momple on drums, Ramon Alexander on piano, Spencer Mbadu on bass, Marco Maritz or trumpet, Heinrich Frans on vocals and percussion, Mark Fransman on saxophone and guitar and Shaun Duval on Saxophone.




1 comment:

  1. We had the Cape Jazz Band open our international Human Papillomavirus Conference 2017 in the Cape Town International Convention Centre in early March: they were absolutely brilliant; we couldn't have asked for a better introduction to Cape Town for nearly 1500 international delegates. Thanks, guys!

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