The Standard Bank Young Artist Awards and all that jazz

Multi-instrumentalist and the 2023 Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year Darren English. (Photo: Supplied)

By S’bo Gyre

20 Jun 2024

The Standard Bank Young Artist Awards are among Mzansi’s most prestigious arts awards, and the winners of the jazz category always exemplify the genre’s embrace of metamorphosis.

Art’s fluidity makes it an ideal medium to express the one constant of human experience: change. So why does half the world still prefer its jazz arrangements with the double bass while the rest of it welcomed the electric bass in the 1950s? Get with it!

If jazz, a genre built on improvisation, could take on society’s unfair and prohibitive classifications — for instance, as “dogmatic” — and then shake off those same classifications to prove itself, in the end, malleable, then so can you.

The Standard Bank Young Artist Awards are among Mzansi’s most prestigious arts awards, and the winners of the jazz category always exemplify the genre’s embrace of metamorphosis.

Young artists on the rise

standard bank young artists awards Sibongile Khumalo performs in Soweto in 2020. (Photo: Fani Mahuntsi / Gallo Images)

“The highlight of receiving the [jazz] award is just knowing those who came before me and laid the path,” said the 2023 winner, Darren English. He joins an illustrious group of winners including Sibongile Khumalo (1993), Gloria Bosman (2000) and Abel Selaocoe (2017).

English has showcased his work across the globe and established himself in the Atlanta jazz scene. He described the moment he received the news of his award as “surreal”.

Victor Masondo, the winner in 1996, said that after the award, “You take yourself a little more seriously than you’ve done before.”

standard bank young artists awards Victor Masondo at the 16th Cape Town International Jazz Festival in 2015. (Photo: Veli Nhlapo / Sowetan / Gallo Images)

The winner of the award gets an opportunity to showcase their new work at the annual National Arts Festival (NAF) in Makhanda. This year marks the 50th edition of the storied festival and the 40th year Standard Bank has partnered with it to celebrate the best jazz South Africa has to offer.

The festival is a performing and visual arts extravaganza with a strong curated programme and an independent fringe.

Breaking boundaries is at the forefront of what has kept the festival relevant, according to the NAF’s chief executive, Monica Newton.

“We are not trying to present to the world artistry that we package. We present to the world an experience the artist has designed,” she explained. “We can’t be the same festival we were 50 years ago — we have to change.”

A key instrument in enacting this change is what Newton describes as the NAF’s unique ability to “create a direct interface between young people and professional musicians”.

“It’s great to see that there are youngsters who are still coming up wanting to venture into this art form,” English said.

Breaking barriers

Tutu Puoane, the winner in 2004, is enthused at the plethora of possibilities young women are exposed to through these awards.

“When I won it, there weren’t that many black students at these colleges, but now we are the majority and it makes me happy to see young female instrumentalists.”

Puoane never ascribed to the idea that women musicians can make it only as “pretty singers”. She applauds the strides the industry has made, with women conductors now commonplace. But beyond constantly breaking through stubborn racial and gender barriers, the progressive aspects of jazz are perhaps most exemplified through its ever-evolving sonic identity. “Americans cannot hold claim to it any more,” Puoane said.

standard bank young artists awards Multi-instrumentalist and the 2023 Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year Darren English. (Photo: Supplied)

“Yes, they gifted the world the genre, but today the world has taken it and infused it with its own spices.”

Puoane has created interdisciplinary work abroad, which highlights what South Africa brings to jazz while threading into other musical influences.

“There are purist jazz artists, but I was the opposite,” Masondo said. “I was making sure that I expand my horizon so that I don’t get locked into our jazz circles.”

‘Genuine experiences’

It is this capacity for growth and newness that keeps jazz vibrant and relevant. Newton said, “You’re not cool till you are jazz musician cool.”

When asked to describe his new work at the NAF in three words, English said: “Groove, swing, bam!”

The festival is also showcasing work from seasoned professionals such as Young Artist of the Year music category winner Zoë Modiga along with Mandisi Dyantyis, Gregory Maqoma, Sello Maake ka Ncube and Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuse.

“It’s a festival that presents an unbelievably genuine and unique experience. It may not be the biggest or the warmest, but it is going to be unforgettable,” Newton said. DM

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South Africa

Young artists on the rise

Breaking barriers

‘Genuine experiences’