Ingrid Jenen

The Gauteng Jazz Orchestra

2009/09/12
CONVERSATIONS AND AN EXPERIENCE TO BEHOLD

From the first down beat until the final note went silent, the artists performing at the Bassline, entranced and guided an eager and willing audience into a realm where space and time seemed not to exist.

Brian Thusi, The Gauteng Jazz Orchestra, Ingrid Jensen, Bob Baldwin and Marion Meadows each played a part in a marathon of instrumental and vocal story telling on Friday 29 August.
I must admit I have never been a big jazz fan, or rather I have never understood it. On Friday I was ‘schooled’. I heard, felt, observed and almost tasted energy foreign to all my senses.
The Bassline was filled with constant conversational undertones between artist and audience, audience and instrument, instrument and audience.
The audience that was present last night differs to any other musical audience that I am accustomed to. There was no bobbing of the head as you would do to a hip-hop beat, or shuffling of the feet to a harmonic house composition or the silent humming to an RnB love song. The jazz audience listens silently and appreciates.
The artists on the other hand, played the role of mediator between the crowd and their symphonic fulfillment.
The Gauteng Jazz Orchestra played soothing tunes; Brian Thusi won them over with his constant interplay between the instruments and his vocalists. Ingrid Jensen intensified emotions with her conversational style of play. Finally, Bob Baldwin and Marion Meadows dared the crowd to, figuratively, become a part of their performance. How were they to decline this offer? Soon they were clapping along to their harmonies.
My ignorance to this blissful music is regretful but it exists no more. I am converted.
Thank you Miss Jensen!

Issued for:
T-Musicman

Issued by:
Sizwe Mlaba

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