‘Cape Jazz’ is an important and unique musical style in South African music generally. Because of the high ethnic diversity of the peoples of the Western Cape, improvised music has crept into indigenous musical expressions, thereby offering an array of rhythms, themes, lyrical messages, styles and harmonies. [Please see article and artist lists under Background]

Jazz in the Native Yards, a small Nonprofit Organisation established to provide spaces for jazz artists, traces its ancestral footprints to the 1960s when impromptu live jazz sessions took place every weekend in Cape Town’s townships and elsewhere. [See more under Background]

Notable South African and Pan-African/World influences are enabling more jazz collaboration to develop and highlight contemporary moods and styles from various sources. THEMES and THREADS emerge with South African styles guiding this journey into other sonic European and global rhythms, while finding a rootedness in African-ness of sounds and message. [See artist and article lists under Background]

Postscript

Foreword

Introduction