Zimbabwe Jazz Community Trust to host festival

Initiated by Zimbabwe Jazz Community Trust (ZJCT), the event will feature an array of local jazz musicians performing from 2pm to 10pm.

The fiesta features jazz artists such as Vera, Frank Mavhimira, Vee Mukarati, Raven Duchess and Africherry. Other performers expected include Rhythmic Pulse, Mbare Trio, Josh Meck, Intotal, Rute Mbangwa and Tanga wekwa Sando.

“The Zimbabwe Jazz Community Trust plans to make Zimbabwe Jazz Festival an annual event for the enjoyment of jazz enthusiasts in the country," said the organisers. "The Festival is unique in that it brings together strictly jazz musicians."

Speaking to Music In Africa, chairperson of the ZJCT Robert Basvi explained what motivated them to host the festival. “This event is a culmination of the weekly jazz shows but most importantly our mission as ZJCT is to revive jazz in Zimbabwe,” he said. “It goes without saying that before the introduction of the weekly jazz shows by ZJCT, there were many places claiming to host jazz shows which would however turn out to be other genres not jazz.

"So on a weekly basis our technical team namely Filbert Marova, Tinashe Mukarati and Clancy Mbirimi identify both seasoned and upcoming jazz artists who they work with and assign a theme for the week featuring the music of international jazz artists, Afro-jazz and local jazz including township jazz.”

Asked why they did not feature foreign jazz acts, Basvi said: “Those are only a few artists we have featured on our weekly Back to Jazzics shows. At this inaugural festival we are not featuring any foreign artist but it is our intention to feature foreign artists from next year going forward as this will be a yearly event.”

He added that the festival will incorporate youths. “We will carry out workshops and school sponsorships. We feature youngsters as opening acts on our weekly jazz shows and once they have proven their worth they graduate to presenting their own full shows.”

Music In Africa also spoke to director of Alliance Française in Harare Frank Chabasseur who described the kind of support they are extending towards the festival. “Alliance is giving its technical support in all aspects of the event, from communication to logistics. The Zimbabwe Jazz Community Trust, recently registered, is our ‘creative’ partner they are responsible for the relationship with musicians and the lineup,” he said.

Commenting on the state of jazz music in the country Chabasseur said: “The jazz scene is a bit over shaded by other more popular music styles in Zimbabwe. When we started our Sunday afternoon event ‘Back to Jazzics’ sessions a year ago, we didn’t think we could attract, in fact, a very loyal and growing crowd, Sunday after Sunday.

He explained why they decided to launch the festival. “Discovering there was a committed and numerous audience for Jazz, we decided to organize a bigger event, this coming festival, to showcase the most talented jazz musicians who have performed at Back to Jazzics and that Zimbabwe has to offer.”

Apart from supporting Zimbabwe Jazz Festival, Alliance Française is instrumental in helping other music events in the country. “Alliance Française de Harare has been partnering with HIFA since its inception in 1997. We present a show every year and sometimes give some technical support. In the 2017 edition of HIFA, we financed a workshop for sound engineers and brought to HIFA an expert sound engineer from Reunion Island.

Made possible through funding from the French Embassy, Alliance Française and Chez Zandi's, the Zimbabwe Jazz Festival was born out of the weekly Sunday Jazz concerts (dubbed Back to Jazzics) hosted by ZJCT, a brainchild of renowned Zimbabwean jazz musician Filbert Marova.

All tickets will be sold at the gate. Entry is $10 for adults and $5 for children.