TRANSCRIPT 🔗
00:00:00
Speaker 1: The Money Show.
00:00:01
Speaker 2: The Friday File.
00:00:02
Speaker 1: The Friday File.
00:00:04
Speaker 3: Well, 16 minutes now to 7 the time. The Sankai Jazz Series at the Sankai Restaurant and Lounge got another episode this weekend in Morningside. And they've put together a series of events on Fridays. They've got a Thursday edition ahead of the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz. And Sankai Conti is the jazz saxophonist and the jazz curator at the Sankai Jazz Series. Before we hear... And before we talk to you, Sisonke, we thought maybe we should just listen a little to your latest offering, just to get us in the mood a little bit.
00:00:39
Speaker 1: Sisonke The sounds there of Kanya by Sisonke Conti, who is, of course, the saxophonist and the jazz co-curator at the.
00:01:15
Speaker 3: Sankai Jazz Series. He's on the line for you now. Sisonke, good evening. I really appreciate the time. I know Fridays are very busy for you. I'm a bit of an outsider to jazz, I must say. I didn't grow up in the tradition, but the market to me, and I say this as an outsider, seems to be incredibly strong at the moment.
00:01:36
Speaker 2: Good evening, Stephen, and thanks for having me. And good evening to all the listeners as well. Yeah, I think jazz and 5K is in a very good place. It's in high demand. So we as musicians, yeah, we're all working. We're happy. Yeah.
00:01:53
Speaker 3: It's good to hear a musician working because that's often not what we hear.
00:01:56
Speaker 2: Exactly.
00:01:58
Speaker 3: I mean, there are massive festivals. There's the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz coming up. And I get the attraction of that. I mean, you know, to have thousands of people in one place, to have, you know, several hundred people listening to one artist. And I think for the artists, that must be such a moment. But isn't jazz better in a more intimate venue? You know, maybe fewer than a hundred people.
00:02:24
Speaker 2: That's why people should come to Sankai. Our capacity is 90. It's intimate. You get to really be up and close and personal with the artists, which is something that audiences love, you know. Festivals are great, but you don't get that intimacy. Usually the stage is a massive stage and they feel like they're far away from you. So yeah, jazz clubs have that intimacy and that closeness to the musicians, yeah.
00:02:51
Speaker 3: And I mean, it must, when you're on stage performing, the reaction of the crowd, the vibe of the crowd, and it's not like you're a stand-up comedian and you react to the laughter, which is very explicit. You must be getting a cue from the audience in an incredibly subtle way.
00:03:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it depends where you are in the world. I mean, I play a lot in Europe. You don't get much reaction. You'll get a congratulations after the gig. People will come up to you and tell you that was wonderful. So that can be intimidating. But the South African audience, they'll let you know if they love it immediately. We are rather on the loud side, which we love, you know, because you get to feel it. You feel the reaction there and then. Whereas in Europe, you can be confused at times. You don't know if they like it or they don't. So yeah, I love playing in South Africa.
00:03:44
Speaker 3: It's really interesting that. I'm sure other performers have a similar story. The way that you've set things up, so you'll have several performances on one night, several different performers, and you actually have a break between sets of half an hour or so. I mean, maybe there's a technical reason, but I was also thinking about being a jazz performer, taking over immediately from another performer because the vibe of the audience must be so important. Whereas it's probably much better to have a gap like that because you're creating your own vibe fresh. You're not kind of inheriting a vibe. I hope I'm putting that accurately.
00:04:21
Speaker 2: Well, at Sankai, we have one artist performing per evening. So they'll do two sets of 45 minutes. So we'll perform the first set and then have an interval for half an hour for people to get some refreshments, get some food, and then do the last set. So we don't have two performers at a time. It's always one performance at a time.
00:04:40
Speaker 3: Okay. Is there something about age in jazz? Do you find younger people are as interested as older people?
00:04:50
Speaker 2: I think after COVID, there's been a lot of youngsters actually playing jazz. I don't know if that's because there were a lot of jazz performances online during COVID. So there were a lot of performances on YouTube and Instagram and TikTok took off as well. So a lot of performers went online to sort of get a following and to remind people that they're still there even though they're not on stage. So a lot of youngsters, I think, picked up instruments, you know, after that. And in South Africa right now, there's a massive, massive, massive following of young artists who are in jazz.
00:05:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so... It's so interesting to think about it because I think some people kind of appreciate jazz, the live experience of jazz, a little more as you sort of get older. I mean, I thought maybe it was a life stage thing. So I'm intrigued to hear what you say. Is there something about the physicality of it, the being there, the fact that every performance will be completely unique, especially in jazz, that maybe is the attraction in a kind of post-COVID world where where I think we actually are craving something that's natural and organic rather than something that's virtual and artificial.
00:06:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the attraction is the live instrumentation. I think from the 90s onwards, there was this fascination with electronic music, hence the rise of house music and hip-hop DJs. But as I said, with COVID, a lot of us went online and started getting followers, you know, and there was an attraction to the fact that people can create music with just instruments and not getting help from a computer. And so I think a lot of kids started picking up instruments from that.
00:06:44
Speaker 3: And having big events, you know, big names behind big events, that must help the entire industry. You're able to do things with them. You're able to, you know, get excitement, get people talking about it. That must be a huge help.
00:06:57
Speaker 2: No, it definitely is. I mean, I mean, festivals like the Cape Town Jazz Festival and the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz, they've got this great balance of bringing very popular artists, which obviously will bring in the audiences. And then they'll get the people who are less known also performing. And from that, they get followed by those people who are following the popular people. So it's always important to strike that balance between the people who will bring revenue in terms of ticket sales and also upcoming artists.
00:07:31
Speaker 3: No, sure. Do you find that someone maybe comes to your club sort of brought with friends or something and comes back of their own accord? I mean, to get people into it once they've had a taste of jazz?
00:07:46
Speaker 2: Yes, we've had a lot of people come back. I think there's this perception that jazz is, it's boring and it's, it's for old people. It's slow music. Um, but you know, there's, there's lots of different kinds of jazz, you know, um, uh, there's African jazz, there's American jazz, bebop, swing. Um, so, you know, and the artists that we have at Sankai, we make sure that, you know, we have a broad, um, lineup of musicians who, who have different sounds so that we can attract different audiences. Um, So that's how we approach it.
00:08:22
Speaker 3: I'm always intrigued by, it seems to me that jazz artists can really go for a long time. You know, they can be performing into their 70s, which is probably difficult to do with all other types of music.
00:08:35
Speaker 2: Even 90s. I mean, there's a lot of jazz musicians, legends. I mean, Abdullah Ibrahim recently passed away. I think he was 91, 92. So yeah, there's longevity in jazz. I think because we are always trying to reimagine the music, reproduce the music, play it fresh. I think that keeps the spirit going, keeps the mind going, keeps the body going. Whereas not to look down on other genres. I mean, I love hip hop. I love house. It's sort of standard. You know, the feel is the same. You know what I mean? But with jazz, it can always just be reimagined. And every time the musician gets on stage, it will sound different. You know, so that's the beauty of this music.
00:09:22
Speaker 3: Sisonke, really good to talk to you. Good luck with the series. Thank you so much. Sisonke Koonti is the jazz saxophonist and jazz co-curator at the Sankai Jazz Series.