A scene from the night
A five-member group of young jazz musicians, known as the Jazz Brothers, will take over Soho Bar every Wednesday with jazz performances to entertain patrons who visit the location.
Their Wednesday performance reflects the growing interest in jazz music among younger audiences in Ghana.
Made up of Bismark Sarpong (drums), Hidenori Matsuo (bass), Elvis Black (trumpet), Ike Ador (piano) and Seth Kendrick (tenor saxophone), the Jazz Brothers played at the official launch of the Soho Jazz Club on April 22 at Soho Restaurant, Airport City, Accra.
They mainly surfed a sea of mainstream standards that roped in pieces by greats like John Coltrane and Lee Morgan.
There were moments of impressive unison play, but each player had solo spots that demonstrated abundant capabilities on their various instruments. The intermittent show of appreciation from the audience obviously pushed the young musicians to perform with a lot of zeal.
The band, ably backed budding Jazz singer, Bentuma Arthur, who rendered well-known tunes by Ella Fitzgerald, George Gershwin, Bart Howard, Erica Badu, Bill Withers and Sting.
There wasn’t much Afro-tinged material on the night but that was understandable because the group came together only this year and is still building up its repertoire. What they put out was stuff they had tightly rehearsed and felt the audience could identify with.
The Jazz Brothers will continue to feature at the Soho Jazz Club every Wednesday. There are several different paths they can take to establish an identity for themselves, but they walked off the Soho Jazz Club stage knowing there’s room to explore more and develop their own voices.
By Ndaye N’diaye