This genre of music had been around for a long time before a tag was put on it. Perhaps the first real internationally recognised proponent of this music was Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim) and the first popular recording was Manenberg, made in the mid 1970’s. But the “jazzification” of Cape folk songs goes back to the time when troops of carnival revellers, known as the Klopse or Coons began to parade through the streets of Cape Town notably on Tweede Nuwe Jaar (the 2nd of January) to compete in the competitions that surround this event.

Before the idea of this band came into being there was the release of a compilation album featuring a number of recordings under the title Cape Jazz. At the same time there was with the rise in popularity of the music of such live performers as Basil Coetzee and Robbie Jansen and their bands, Sabenza and the Sons of Table Mountain, respectively.

The first compilation album featured the two aforementioned sax players, guitarist Jonathan Butler, Morris Goldberg, the Tony Schilder Trio and others. It collected several lively tunes which were strongly reminiscent of the carnival music but which were all original compositions. This was proof that here was a separate genre of music.

Several years passed and a bunch of new bands associated with the sound appeared. The Goema Captains headed by Mac McKenzie, The Hilton Schilder Group and Jansen’s Sons of Table Mountain were pulling in the fans. Interestingly enough there was a lot of cross membership between the groups. The same performers were performing in each other’s bands. In effect a large pool of players on each occasion with a different leader and composer.

A second collection was released where leading jazz musicians and arrangers in Cape Town’s jazz scene were asked to contribute new works that they thought illustrated the genre. The album included contributions from Merton Barrow, the Schilders and Winston Mankunku.
 
Collection number 3 has just been released and this time the central theme is directly the carnival music, the Goema.  It hit the European World Music Charts in April and has been released in South Africa, Germany and the UK with releases pending in Benelux and France. This is a real breakthrough for this wonderful genre that has not been recognised fully on the world stage because of political and social reasons obscuring its musical and cultural value.


The beauty of the band concept is that their show presents music that is mined from the rich vein of star composers in the genre - Dollar Brand, Robbie Jansen, Chris McGregor; Basil Coetzee, Errol Dyers, Hilton Schilder and his father Tony, Jonathan Butler, Mac McKenzie and more…

The band is managed by Mountain Records who invite different experienced musicians and young stars to take part, very much on the basis that the different groups already do, but with the popular songs and variety of composers at centre stage!