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JACARANDA BLUES FESTIVAL

September is the month of the Jacaranda in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare when virtually the whole city is decorated with the purples blossom of Jacaranda trees. It is Spring time.
The first Saturday, of September, a Harare Hotel hosted a mini Blues festival which saw five blues bands performing live in the open air for Hundreds of Fans resting under the jacaranda shed.

The five bands who took part at the festival were Luba Blues band, The Butterfly Blues band, Sound Bank - featuring bassist Rowland Nindi and guitarist Ishmael "Carlos Santana" Shumba, Yon Brothers and Sweet Homes Chicago.

The festival attracted a number of blues revellers and veteran blues/jazz players like Hilton Mambo, Gift Musarurwa, Dave Yon, among others. I was very impressed by the Butterfly Blues band and Sound Bank. The only disappointment came from the Yon Brothers who did not seem to have their act together.
The Butterfly Blues band featured Elisha Josamu on lead guitar, Chex Tawengwa on bass, Moses Kabubi and Bruce Sasikwa on keyboards, Gift Musarurwa on guitars and blues harp and Jimmy on guitar. Musarurwa has an infinite capacity to surprise. He pulled out a wonderful all-new arrangements of his original tracks.

The band leader, Gift Musarurwa (47) is a well rounded musician. He is also brother to the late jazz veteran August Musarurwa, whose Skokiaan song was a hit world wide. His CD, Bourgeois Blues, is a vibrant album, mixing indigenous music colours with elements of bright-hued jazz/blues fusion. It is an album not at all lacking in the jubilant warmth of much of Zimbabwe's modern musical tradition. And a number of these songs off this CD were played at the festival.

Musarurwa, a veteran journalist, now spends a lot of his time playing music. He is a former editor of Zimbabwe News, editor and producer for Voice of Africa in Cairo, founder member and vice-president of African Journalist Union, North Africa and Editor of The Monitor.
Music-wise, Musarurwa has played and recorded with a number of local jazz/blues artists, among them Chex Tawengwa, the late drummer Jethro Shasha, the late saxophonist Simanga Tutani and Moses Kabubi.
The group Sound Bank-Rowland Nindi and Ishmael Shumba produced an expediently subtle and spacious blues sound in an all - star blues jam which also has Dumi Ngulube's keyboard touch sounding a bit out of tune, although tough and rockish. Andrew Nzimbe was on drums.
Shumba was clearly wearing his heart on his strings and played like Carlos Santana on all the tracks.

"This has not happened since the sixties" cried Dr. Witness Mangwende who came out to attend the Blues festival. ‘’We have not seen the Black Community, White Community as well as Asian and Coloured Community get together and do nothing but listen to the Blues and enjoy themselves’’, he quickly added.
Fans flew from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second capital and from across the country to pay their respects to the Blues.

The Host proprietor Oliver Gwaze who was quite pleased with the outcome decried though that Zimbabwean Musicians should play their own music.
Apart from the Butterfly Blues Band the rest of the Musicians reflected copy right music.

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