JAZZ FESTIVAL
From trauma of assassination to recreating tunes that count
Valeria Geselev: What has this postapartheid attempt to reconcile SA have to do with a jazz festival?
As the audience settles in their seats at the Rosies stage of the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, the MC says, "Please give a warm round of applause to TRC". You don’t have to be South African to feel the weight of the abbreviation signalling the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. What has this postapartheid attempt to reconcile SA have to do with a jazz festival? TRC band leader Mandla Mlangeni has an interesting answer. The trumpeter founded Tune Recreation Committee (TRC) with a conscious and somewhat humorous wink to history. "The name of the band is based on my experience of living through the TRC, which was traumatic in many ways," he says. His grandmother testified at the commission how her son Bhekisizwe died when he opened a parcel with a tape player that turned out to be a bomb. Mlangeni was four years old when it happened and the assassination has become a guiding line in his path as a musician. "Establishing the Tune Recreation Committee was an answer to that, c...
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