The band in Motion is launching their album at Jazz in the Native Yards tonight, and we wanted to have band leaders of vom Ian Levin on guitar. He's not on guitar right now, but he will be later and Theodore Bould on the line to tell us more about the launch and the album and their music. Good morning to you both. Have we got you both hopefully via zoom.
Yes we're here.
Hello, Hello, Hello, morning morning gens.
Listen.
Tell us a little bit about the band, a little bit about your background. How long have you been together and from where do you hail?
Well, I'm from Johannesburg, South Africa, and Tao is from Geneva, Switzerland, and we met in Montroux in Switzerland. We both participated in a guitar competition and yeah, that's how we met.
That was when was that sixteen?
I guess twenty sixteen exactly, and we've known each other since then.
The band's been together since twenty nineteen. I guess yeah. And yeah, so that's how we met and that's how I've been together.
Tayor, I'm so sorry I pronounced your name incorrectly. I do apologize, Tao, not for the tear and then tell us about the album and how long has it been, how long has it been in the works, and obviously now you're ready to launch. What can we expect from from the album.
Well, we recorded this album actually exactly two years ago, so in July twenty twenty three in Switzerland, and it's been out only two days ago, so it's quite fresh and we're pretty proud and happy of it. We all wrote songs for this for this album, A remember the of the each member of the band. So there's like a lot of different influences and vibes and this album, but I think at the end it all comes together
very coherently and and yeah nicely. It also goes in the direction that we we're looking for, which is a blend of many different yeah influences, and yep, we're very happy about it.
Just talk to us about those those influences, because we can tell from your accents that you are you know, you're from You're from around, not necessarily from South Africa. So what are the influences, what are the what what what sounds influenced your sound?
Yeah?
So the idea was basically to transcribe music from what the fourteenth win on madrigals fourteenth century like the Renaissance fifteenth century music, I guess, basically the period of early colonialism from Europe music called madrigals and traditional indigenous South African music, and to try and blend these sounds together
using jazz. South African jazz is the kind of theater or meeting point between these two forms and contemporary giazz as well, because this is the sheard vocabulary between all of us. And it was part of a broader sort of project that we were awarded through prohibits here. The Confluences Grant Proves here is a Swiss funding organization and they basically gave us a seed fund to try and explore this project. And yeah, the result was basically the
compositions that we generated for the album. But there's all sorts of other influences on their rock, popular music, dance music, so it's really like a medley of forms.
I would say in genres, I wonder.
How those different musical worlds that you've just described to us, how did they speak to each other? Is it presumably quite fluently?
Well? The common thing that Woma didn't mention is the improvisation we all jazz musician, and so we share this this love and this this interest in improvisation. So in a way, the fact that we're composing live, let's say, and improvising brings everything together. And at the end we just use different elements of those of those different generals that wom I mentioned to improvise and to bring the music somewhere. But that's what jazz is about anyway. It's
always using different elements and bringing the music somewhere. So we're just doing this again with different elements, and I think that's something interesting in jazz when people bring in some new kind of elements from from somewhere else.
How then do you how then do you balance that improvisation, which is a core part of jazz music obviously, with with historical or archive of material that by its very nature is fixed.
Well, I would say two things.
I would say first of all, that traditional indigenous music has a very large improvisational component, right, So a lot of those forms are rarely repeated patterns, rhythmic, harmonic, melodic patterns, and then people kind of improvise inside of those repetitions.
So already that's a point of I guess, empathetic resonance and then I guess a lot of the composed material takes place during the melodies, during the main themes, so we capitulate a theme and then perhaps have some improvisational components and then recapitulate the theme or move onto another composed section. So this kind of a balance between composed
components and improvised components. And I guess traditional indigenous music, as I said, is again another theater for enabling points of empathetic resonance between all these forms.
Tell us a little bit about tonight's Tonight's launch and more audiences can expect tonight, and also, most importantly, how they can get hold of tickets.
Yes, actually the launches this afternoon.
Okay, it's at Jazz and the Native Yards in Langa, which is a really kind of cool community based project. And yeah, tickets are available on cuicket. They're one and eighty rand and the show starts at three pm, so we al really hope people come out and enjoy the music. It's in a beautiful gallery space that is being developed specifically for these sorts of current sets.
And then in terms of getting hold of the album, it was released a couple of days ago, so presumably available to download on all digital platforms.
Yes, exactly.
We decided to go only digital this time, so it's on every platform and also on band camp if people want to support let's say a bit more than just usual streams.
So yeah, every platforms and band Camp. Okay.
I'm fascinated by by your your your love of jazz. I'm always interested by by people's love of jazz. And we we have such a an incredible talent of young people now, young jazz musicians, particularly in Cape Town, and it's it always interests me because I think people often find jazz or there is a perception that it's maybe not terribly accessible, or it's it's a difficult genre. Just tell me a little bit about your love affair with jazz.
Yeah, it's very interesting.
Last night we were on our way to a concerting Musenberg and we're chatting with an uber driver about exactly this the sort of jazz scene that is very very present in Cape Town and a lot of the horn plays, I guess come out of the cups of klopsa tradition as well as kind of community based.
Brass band traditions. So there's very there's a very very strong brass band tradition in Cape Town, and I guess a lot of people come through the ranks through that brass band tradition, and as a consequence, in Cape Town in particular, we have like one of the strongest saxophone and trumpet sections in the country. And that's really something that develops organically through sort of grassroots intervention, through these brass bands and community based projects. But for myself, it
was already very long journey towards jazz. I mean I listened to it a.
Lot when I was very very young, because my dad played a lot of John portraying John McLachlan, Miles Davis, and then I.
Sort of segued into it.
Did it resonate with you?
Sorry?
So did it resonate with you at that age?
Was that?
Did it?
Did it do something to you at that young mash?
Of course, I mean I was four or five years old. But I think most importantly it left a kind of emotional memory so that when he visited it later on, it was kind of easy to tap into it again. Yeah, And I kind of arrived the jazz indirectly through bands like Radiohead and portous Head and more Chiba sort of pop bands that use a lot of the harmonic, melodic and rhythmic material of jazz, but in a more kind of accessible way.
I haven't heard somebody say more chiba for about ten years, voomas. Thank you for that. That takes me back to a time.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I guess I'm showing my age right now.
No, no, no, no, not at all. I'm so glad that that's that's something to listen to in the car on the way home. Some more Cheba listen. I'm so excited for this, for this launch. The album is called Allegories, right.
Allegories, Allegories.
I'm so sorry. Yeah, Allegory. People can download it. We're looking forward to it. Just remind us again you're going to be at three o'clock Jazz in the Native Yards in Langa today.
Yes, at Jazz in the Native Yards three today. Tickets are available on cicket for one hundred and eighty rand or you can get them at the door for two hundred grand.
Okay, get them run, folks, don't walk. Thank you very much both for joining us this morning to tell us about the launch. A little bit about the background. Voomitian Levin on guitar and Teo Deboule, who was also being guitar. Later, when the band in Motion launches their album at Jazz in the Native Yards,