Jazz fans take note: there is much to look forward to at this year's Standard Bank Jazz Festival. Performing at the National Arts Festival for the first time, Ladysmith Black Mambazo will be closing the jazz festival on 8 and 9 July.
Their Festival headlining show will be just one stop in a major international tour to celebrate their 50th anniversary.
Jazz fans take note: there is much to look forward to at this year's Standard Bank Jazz Festival. Performing at the National Arts Festival for the first time, Ladysmith Black Mambazo will be closing the jazz festival on 8 and 9 July.
Their Festival headlining show will be just one stop in a major international tour to celebrate their 50th anniversary.
The tour also marks the 70th birthday of Joseph Shabalala, now a visiting Professor at the University of Natal, who founded the group in 1960.
Since their 1970 recording début they have released more than 65 albums and have been nominated for Grammy awards thirteen times, winning three Grammys for Best Traditional World Album.
Their collaboration with Paul Simon on his Graceland album in 1985 launched them onto the global stage and they have since worked with many other internationally acclaimed artists.
This year the festival will open with a collaboration between an unorthodox Norwegian trio called Excess Luggage, and two of South Africa’s jazz stars, Buddy Wells and Mark Fransman.
Excess Luggage features Vigleik Storaas on piano, Steinar Nickelsen on a Hammond B3 jazz organ and drummer Håkon Mjåset Johansen. Storaas is considered one of the most important piano players in Norway and has received two Norwegian Grammys for his releases with his own trio. Nickelsen, now based in China, was voted ‘Young Norwegian Jazz Musician of the Year’ in 2002, and Johansen has played with the likes of Chick Corea and Michael Brecker.
