Offshore

Offshore was born in 2006 when a couple of avid young musicians and surfers, Jonno Sweetman and Paul Gibbings, had an improbable encounter with Martin Wolfaardt in a village in the Knysna forests. Their shared love of music of all kinds, and their shared desire to contribute to that well-spring of beauty, led to a collaboration that eventually reached the ears of musicians well beyond the Garden Route. The trio recorded an early album and had the opportunity to share the stage with visiting musicians - including luminaries such as Gary Wittner (leading interpreter of the music of Monk on the guitar) and Sam Thomas (PhD) (NYC ethno-musicologist).
In 2008 the trio encountered guitarist and musical visionary Jonathan Crossley. Crossley, following an academic path to mastery, was impressed by the creative freedom of these formally untrained musicians and collaborated with the trio to create a landmark SA fusion recording "Funk for the Shaolin Monk". In 2008 the trio joined South African greats Buddy Well and Marcus Wyatt, along with Crossley, at Sumo Sound studios to produce "Incident". The album was well-received and led to an invitation to play the Cape Town International Jazz Festival in the same year. Performances at the Standard Bank jazz festival followed.
From 2010 Sweetman and Gibbings relocated to Cape Town. Sweetman has pursued a varied and impressive career - touring internationally and contributing to some of the most revered recordings and live performances ever to come out of South African jazz. Since then Offshore take any opportunity to reassemble and rediscover their profound musical synergy - latterly with the inclusion of the extraordinary Reza Khota on guitar, Lee Thomson on trumpet and flugelhorn and Romy Brauteseth on contrabass. In 2016 the band toured SA with the support of the ConcertsSA mobility fund.
Wolfaardt, who composes for the band, has been writing new material and is looking forward to recording a new album as soon as it becomes viable.