It truly was a case of killing me softly for much feted Lauryn Hill at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival.
|||
It truly was a case of killing me softly for much feted hip hop artist Lauryn Hill at this year’s Cape Town International Jazz Festival.
Grammy Award winning Hill was the last-minute replacement for headline act Jill Scott, who withdrew from the line-up for the sold-out 13th annual Jazz Festival at the CTICC.
Sound problems saw disgruntled audience members stream out of Hill’s headlining set 15 minutes into the performance on Saturday night, after she left the stage to complain about the lack of amplification.
Die-hard fans who stuck it out were eventually rewarded with her most favoured Fugees tracks, performed in frenetic fast forward mode.
But as the complaints on Twitter about the performance suggested, for many it was a serious downer.
Hill wasn’t the only one struggling with the sound – local singer Zahara attracted a large crowd to the Manenberg’s stage outside at the same time as the American hip hop artist, and many at the back struggled to hear her perform.
Hip hop fans who left Hill’s set to go listen to American Pharaohe Monch’s set were mollified by a surprise guest appearance by local icon Abdullah Ibrahim’s daughter Jean Grae, who performed with Monch to much to the crowd’s delight.
On Friday night, Grae’s drummer Chris Eddleton had to contend with problems of his own when the wind played havoc with the Bassline stage and he was literally engulfed by the backdrop.
But the show went on after some minor adjustments.
All of which calls into question: where was the jazz at the two-day long festival?
Purists who waited out American vocalists Patti Austin’s set, which overplayed by 45 minutes, were revived by legendary local songbird Dorothy Masuka, who, at 76, may be plagued by hip trouble but can still bring it.
At the same time as Masuka was getting on with her show, Hugh Masekela’s tribute show to Miriam Makeba was in full swing and he did not disappoint.
The previous night, the American Brubeck brothers played their father’s compositions to the absolute delight of the Rosies audience and SA-born Adam Glasser successfully merged maskandi music with his harmonica jazz when he brought Mfiliseni Magubane on stage to play the acoustic guitar.
Angolan vocalist Gabriel Tchiema was meant to open the outside Manenberg’s stage on Saturday, but a flight delay saw him close the concert at about 2am yesterday.
- Cape Argus