Cape Town Jazz Festival Recap

Touch down Cape Town and you can smell the Cape Town Jazz Festival vibe building up in the city. 
Our trip started with a bus out to the winelands. My wife was really keen on checking out specific wine farms.  

And wine was had. My favourite farms were Groot Constantia and the Steenberg. 

Back to the recap... 

All the Cape Town Jazz Fest goodness started with attending the Masterclasses. We had our mind made up, we were gonna check out Kamasi Washington, Taylor McFerrin, Marcus Gilmore and The Internet.  

It was dope listening to Kamasi Washington talking about working with Kendrick Lamar and Flying Lotus. Talking about how he grew up with Thundercat.

He called for fellow musicians, in the audience, to join him on stage. I was sitting next to this guy, a keyboard player, who was too scared to join Kamasi on stage. So I put him on the spot, pointing Kamasi in his direction then he had jam session with Kamasi. (How many people get to say that?!! )

I'm a huge Taylor McFerrin fan. He kicked off his session with live beats with Marcus Gilmore on the drums. Playing some of my favorite jams.

Then there was The Internet... A crazy bunch of characters. Sidenote: I've never seen so many girls lose their minds over Syd.

Syd and Martin Martian spoke about how the band started and how they transitioned from Purple Naked Ladies to Feel Good and Ego Death.

The masterclasses are really dope. We left the Cape Sun to get ready for the show.
Friday night was a paaaaarty!

It was dope seeing my brother Kyeezi doing his thing. Hyping us up for Tom Misch's Performance.

Tom Misch was one of the best acts at the Jazz Fest this year. He shut it down. The energy was insane. 

As much as I love The Internet, I had such high expectations for their show. Unfortunately, those expectations weren't fully met. Some of the band members performed songs from their solo albums. Steve Lacy, Martin Martian and Syd did some solo stuff. I felt like i wanted to hear more from all The Internet's albums. It was a dope show though.

There's this thing about Gretchen Parlato. The way she carries herself on stage and her voice. She performed "Holding Back the Years" and I almost broke down. I played that song so many times while trying to deal with my mom's passing. 

Thandiswa Mazwai was incredible. She owned that stage. This was an amazing performance.