20 June 2023
The Maritzburg College Jazz Ensemble is readying itself for the National Arts Festival in Makhanda. It’s the first time since 2019 that the event, which was first held in the Eastern Cape town in 1974, is back up to full throttle following the Covid-19 pandemic.
The event runs from 22 June to 2 July – known as the 10 Days of Amazing – and the College boys will be in attendance from 26 June to 1 July. Six of them – Judah Conolly (Alto Sax), Zak Benjiman (Keyboard), Zethn Desebrook (Piano), Gerome Maistry (Guitar), Samkelo Mchunu (Bass Guitar) and Isaac Olorunda (Drumkit) – plus Director of Music and Performing Arts, Simon Stickells (Trumpet), make up the Ensemble.
NAF2023 Home – National Arts Festival
Palpable excitement
Watching them practice, there is a palpable excitement in the air. The boys are having fun. They’re enjoying the freedom that jazz offers, and they’re looking forward to the opportunity to share their own take on it at the National Arts Festival
“It has been something I have wanted to do. We were offered it in grade 8, but I don’t think I was ready then. I am definitely ready now to go there and give my best,” Gerome Maistry told Pinnacle Schools.
A musician since the age of five, Maistry had played in a church band, but when he came to Maritzburg College he was introduced to jazz. He loved it. “It was about greater expression. Since I joined jazz, the techniques I have learned, the way I play now, is completely different. Jazz changes one’s expression,” he said.
Brought up on jazz
Zak Benjiman, meanwhile, was brought up in a house where jazz was regularly heard. His father is a jazz musician. Zak was first taken by the drums.
He explained: “I used to watch Toto and watch the drummer. He had a huge drum kit, and I was so excited. I wanted to learn drums, so I spent the early years of my life playing them. Then, around grade 7, I started looking at the keyboard players and I thought they were doing some cool stuff.
“I had a piano at home, and I was trying it out. I wasn’t very good, but I was watching some YouTube videos, learning some stuff. I enjoyed it so much, and I started playing jazz. When I moved to Maritzburg College, Mr Stickells started the Jazz Ensemble and I was keen to play jazz piano.”
“It’s something fun, something exciting”
Zak said the freedom jazz gives to express oneself is very special. “Unlike classical, you don’t play what’s written. You’re free to put your own chords and solos in there. It’s something fun, something exciting.
“Me and our bassist, we work on our own style with our drummer and guitarist. We do our own things together, so it really gives us a chance to express ourselves.”
Watching the Ensemble practice in preparation for their visit to Makhanda, there are smiles all around. It appears as if there is a unified rhythm that flows through their hearts. It’s a means of expression, a way to have fun and perhaps surprise themselves with the sum of their individual inputs.
It’s casual and informal and warm.
Chemistry
Gerome managed to partially put it into words: “The chemistry we have together, especially with this group of guys, someone plays a note and then we just start jamming together on that. I can’t explain it.”
It will be only the second time that Maritzburg College has attended the National Jazz Festival, Mr Stickells said: “When we went there in 2019, they were quite enamoured by what we had done in the Music Department. They were keen to get us back, but then we know what happened in between.”
In the following years, the Festival was much smaller in size, and that meant the school would have had to take a smaller group, which would have resulted in higher costs.
“Absolutely stunning”
“It was absolutely stunning,” Mr Stickells said of the experience in 2019. “So, this year, I decided to take these guys, because they’re our senior musicians. But there are some more jazz musicians… I would normally take younger guys, but because we haven’t gone for so many years, I decided to take this group.”
The National Arts Festival is the biggest annual event of its kind on the African continent, and while there is an opportunity to perform, there is a greater opportunity to learn, he said: “There are classes in the morning, improvisation on learning how to play instruments better. There are example bands. They give classes that play a concert in the evening, and they share how they put their sounds together. It’s a stimulating environment.”
For those who would like to see the Maritzburg College Jazz Ensemble performing before they head off to the Eastern Cape, they will be in action at Coffeeberry in Hilton on Friday, 23 June.
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