Cool Collective’s cool jazz stirs Sabrina’s Pub
I must confess, right now I do not go much on our local backyard stuff, I mean our local pop artistes, because there is something very nutritious about what they serve us during their monotonous gigs.
By Joseph Batte
I must confess, right now I do not go much on our local backyard stuff, I mean our local pop artistes, because there is something very nutritious about what they serve us during their monotonous gigs.
They are the same faces, playing the similar sounding, ear-assaulting music every other week.
It is for this reason that I chose to go to Hope Mukasa’s Sabrina’s Pub on Bombo Road not for the temporal pleasures it offers, like food and drinks, but rather because the award-winning Dutch fusion Jazz band, New Cool Collective, was in the house.
One other reason was because I relished the chance of watching a professional band playing live on stage so much more than watching our home boys mime back-up CDs and holler at the top their lungs: “DJ play me track No. 2.â€
When I arrived at Sabrina’s pub, it was far short of a full house for very obvious reasons –– Jazz music is inaccessible to many in this country, a good many fans do not dig it because it is considered elitist or simply because their appreciation of music does not go deeper than the latest Jose Chameleone hit that was released yesterday.
But believe me, the few jazz fans that made it to Sabrina were not disappointed. Neither did the small audience discourage the dudes of New Cool Collective. At exactly 9.00pm, the seven members of the band led by Benjamin Herman on sax and flute filed on stage and took their respective positions — Frank Van Dok on percussion, Alex Oele on bass guitar, William Friede on keyboards, Jos De Haas on percussion, Anthony Goudsmit on guitar and Joost Kroon on drums.
Without wasting time, they immediately plunged into Big Mondays, their first song on their long play list. We knew right from the outset that we were in for a rare jazz treat after discovering to our delight that New Cool Collective are not a band that plays conservative Jazz as we have always known it.
They swing in style, to a cool collection of beats and rhythms ranging from late ‘70s funk, R n B, soul, strong Latin and African flavours. These Dutch folks have brought directness and modernity to jazz music but without necessarily compromising its soul, honesty and resilience.
As the band members strutted and soared to both collective and individualistic stamina and fire, Benjamin Herman dived in with his alto saxophone solo with creeping intensity.
No sooner had he finished than guitarist Anthony Goudsmit walked into the spotlight and took us to heights of pleasure with his electric playing. This he did by extruding tunefulness, spark and precision out of his instrument, joining the playing often with expressive body language.
After lending elegance to the music, Benjamin brought us down by reinstating the theme before bowing out. The multicultural audience welcomed the band’s distinct well-tempered performance with whoops and enthusiastic claps.
All the compositions that followed The Citron, Yaphet, Cheery 2000, Wee, Machowee enlivened the crowd. They had interesting tunes owing to the intriguing mix of styles, but at that moment the audience still remained glued on their seats.
However, after the tunes had hit them so hard, they could not hold their excitement. They poured on the dance floor with the sole purpose of losing themselves in the music.
I did not blame them at all. At that moment Cool Collective were earthy, direct, funky, energetic, playing at dizzying velocity but always lyrical and thoughtful as they dropped Conga Yeye, Perry, Con Que, Weekend Bizar and Lucoolumi occasionally squeezing out vocals in Yoruba language!
All I had to do was to watch as bassist Oele and the 22-year-old drummer Joost Kroon kept the rhythms solid and steady.
All in all, this was an obvious celebration of Jazz, the spirit of live music and free expression if we are to judge by the wide smiles on the faces after the final strains of Lucoolumi faded away.
But the secret that was revealed to me that night at Sabrina is this: New Cool Collective made me proud to be an African. Why?
Because all their rhythms share the same ultimate source –– Africa.
Thanks to the Royal Netherlands Embassy for giving me the opportunity to discover this. Please bring New Cool Collective back again. Hopefully such opportunities will also proliferate in a city, like Kampala, not known for its appreciation of Jazz.
I must confess, right now I do not go much on our local backyard stuff, I mean our local pop artistes, because there is something very nutritious about what they serve us during their monotonous gigs.
They are the same faces, playing the similar sounding, ear-assaulting music every other week.
It is for this reason that I chose to go to Hope Mukasa’s Sabrina’s Pub on Bombo Road not for the temporal pleasures it offers, like food and drinks, but rather because the award-winning Dutch fusion Jazz band, New Cool Collective, was in the house.
One other reason was because I relished the chance of watching a professional band playing live on stage so much more than watching our home boys mime back-up CDs and holler at the top their lungs: “DJ play me track No. 2.â€
When I arrived at Sabrina’s pub, it was far short of a full house for very obvious reasons –– Jazz music is inaccessible to many in this country, a good many fans do not dig it because it is considered elitist or simply because their appreciation of music does not go deeper than the latest Jose Chameleone hit that was released yesterday.
But believe me, the few jazz fans that made it to Sabrina were not disappointed. Neither did the small audience discourage the dudes of New Cool Collective. At exactly 9.00pm, the seven members of the band led by Benjamin Herman on sax and flute filed on stage and took their respective positions — Frank Van Dok on percussion, Alex Oele on bass guitar, William Friede on keyboards, Jos De Haas on percussion, Anthony Goudsmit on guitar and Joost Kroon on drums.
Without wasting time, they immediately plunged into Big Mondays, their first song on their long play list. We knew right from the outset that we were in for a rare jazz treat after discovering to our delight that New Cool Collective are not a band that plays conservative Jazz as we have always known it.
They swing in style, to a cool collection of beats and rhythms ranging from late ‘70s funk, R n B, soul, strong Latin and African flavours. These Dutch folks have brought directness and modernity to jazz music but without necessarily compromising its soul, honesty and resilience.
As the band members strutted and soared to both collective and individualistic stamina and fire, Benjamin Herman dived in with his alto saxophone solo with creeping intensity.
No sooner had he finished than guitarist Anthony Goudsmit walked into the spotlight and took us to heights of pleasure with his electric playing. This he did by extruding tunefulness, spark and precision out of his instrument, joining the playing often with expressive body language.
After lending elegance to the music, Benjamin brought us down by reinstating the theme before bowing out. The multicultural audience welcomed the band’s distinct well-tempered performance with whoops and enthusiastic claps.
All the compositions that followed The Citron, Yaphet, Cheery 2000, Wee, Machowee enlivened the crowd. They had interesting tunes owing to the intriguing mix of styles, but at that moment the audience still remained glued on their seats.
However, after the tunes had hit them so hard, they could not hold their excitement. They poured on the dance floor with the sole purpose of losing themselves in the music.
I did not blame them at all. At that moment Cool Collective were earthy, direct, funky, energetic, playing at dizzying velocity but always lyrical and thoughtful as they dropped Conga Yeye, Perry, Con Que, Weekend Bizar and Lucoolumi occasionally squeezing out vocals in Yoruba language!
All I had to do was to watch as bassist Oele and the 22-year-old drummer Joost Kroon kept the rhythms solid and steady.
All in all, this was an obvious celebration of Jazz, the spirit of live music and free expression if we are to judge by the wide smiles on the faces after the final strains of Lucoolumi faded away.
But the secret that was revealed to me that night at Sabrina is this: New Cool Collective made me proud to be an African. Why?
Because all their rhythms share the same ultimate source –– Africa.
Thanks to the Royal Netherlands Embassy for giving me the opportunity to discover this. Please bring New Cool Collective back again. Hopefully such opportunities will also proliferate in a city, like Kampala, not known for its appreciation of Jazz.