FREE JAZZ CONCERT ON GREENMARKET SQUARE

Written 29 March 2012

I went to the free jazz concert on Greenmarket Square, last night, mainly to give my 13-yr-old a taste of the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, as she hadn’t ‘graduated’ to the main festival yet. It was a beautiful Cape Town night, and the Square buzzed with its special aura. The stage set-up and the colourful lights in the trees created a magical atmosphere, and we waited….. and waited….. until the first band started, about an hour after the advertised time. But the band was worth the wait: a band comprising high school learners from the WCED Jazz Development Programme. I’d heard them at The Fugard last Sunday and was excited that my daughter would get to experience them, too. Their three items went very well, and I was happy for them, imagining what a wow it must be to perform at such an event, so early in your music career.

And then we waited…. and waited…. until the second band appeared. I can’t remember the name of the band, but I recognized the vocalist as a UCT School of Jazz graduate, Spha Mdlalose: she has an amazing voice and a bubbly, engaging stage personality. (At the end of her set, she did an original, and I wondered why jazz vocalists don’t do more of their own compositions, as I know many of them write really good songs.) By this time, however, despite the fact that the sun had set and the evening had all the potential to be utterly wonderful, the magic had started to wane. Significantly.

I’ll make my point, then make some suggestions, which I will also communicate to the organizers, ESP Afrika. All around me, on Greenmarket Square, were people smoking. If I looked to the left, I inhaled smoke, if I looked to the right, the same, etc. This morning, I have all kinds of symptoms associated with having inhaled second-hand smoke, and I feel terrible. But that was just one half of the problem: everywhere around me, people were consuming alcohol, getting steadily drunker and forcing me to deal with the fallout - quite literally. For some reason or other, beer is sold in huge plastic cups, which people insist on putting on the cobbled ground, and which invariably get knocked over by others walking past, in the increasingly-congested space. Judging by the numbers of people who arrived with their cooler boxes, it was clear that watching live jazz on one of our city’s most historic and unpretensiously beautiful spots was not the main priority for the night. The smoky environment and the obnoxious behaviour of the drunks – both the ‘bergies’ and the well-heeled - created such an unpleasant atmosphere, that we left before the third band started, but not before we’d waited about 45 minutes for the crew to set them up!

Browsing through a pamphlet for Kirstenbosch Summer Sunset Concerts, I was delighted to see a clear, no-nonsense list of “Do’s and Don’ts”, which includes this simple, direct instruction: “Don’t smoke in the audience.” I live in a country that has made excellent provision to protect me from second-hand smoke wherever I go, and I feel proud of the progress we’ve made in that area. ESP Afrika needs to move with the times. Create some way of cordoning off the Square, and put signs everywhere that say, “Don’t smoke in the audience.” Even better, enforce a clear distinction between the drinking areas and the audience. An outer perimeter with tables and chairs should do the trick. Or, better still, keep the whole Square smoke- and alcohol-free, and let the roads leading off the Square be designated areas for those activities.

It’s advertised as a family event, and many people had come with young children, wanting to share a live jazz experience with them. The organizers need to create the space, in our beautiful Mother City, for families to do so in the healthiest possible way.

We’re South Africans – why should we follow, when we can lead?!