Manouche Marries Off Gypsy Jazz to Afrikaans Hip-hop With New EP

Stephanie Katz caught up with Cape Town’s sultans of swing to talk new tracks and old sound

The lollipops are real. I’d been eyeing the candied centerpiece for ages, wondering if the goodies were authentic, too yellow-bellied to see for myself, when Lize Dekker, Manouche’s accordion and keyboard player, plucked up a sweetie as carelessly as if it were a blade of grass, stuck it in her mouth and plonked down beside me like Tom Sawyer after an escapade.

She’s the naughty one. Actually, bugger that. Between drop kicks on stage, funeral marches during sound check and rumours of late-night skinny-dipping, it’s hard to tell who of the Gypsy jazz quintet is most badly behaved. I’ve managed to steal a sliver of their time before they hit the stage to perform for a charity gala dinner (hence the candy-coated décor), and quite truthfully, they all seem up to no good all the time, which is undoubtedly one of their best assets.

Well, that and their knack for pushing boundaries. Most recently the Mother City ensemble frayed the edges with their junior recording, Jazz Education, which released on 3 December 2014, just in time for Cape Town summer.

The new four-track EP veers left, partially away from the hip-swinging, finger-snapping, foot-tapping pure Gypsy jazz that’s made them a favourite at Cape Town markets and private events, to feature two tracks where honey-voiced vocalist Anneli Kamfer raps over their signature sound.

“We just wanted to experiment a little bit,” guitarist Bernard Kotze explains. “We’ve played this music [Gypsy jazz] for many years, and with this EP we’re just pushing forward and figuring out where we want to go next.”

And while Afrikaans hip-hop and Manouche’s typical frenetic uptempo rhythms are an odd couple to say the least, the five-piece has always dabbled on the periphery, playing what they want the way they want it while the mainstream is mapping out little boxes and toeing the line.

“We don’t conform so easily – we’re quite stubborn in that way,” clarifies Lize, making the point extra emphatic with a quick motion of the lollipop. So we’ve always been quite true to who we are and the stuff we want to play - and it’s like fuck the rest.”

Coincidentally, their bread and butter, Gypsy jazz, started in much the same way. The genre, which sounds a bit like what you’d get if American jazz mainlined a bit of amphetamine, dropped its horn section and made love to an accordion, is the domain of a people who’ve always been outsiders.

The sound was spearheaded by a Flemish Roma named Django Reinhardt in Hemingway’s 1930s Paris, a place where the alcohol flowed freely and sensuality dripped from every pore. 

Reinhardt, who was quite possibly never photographed without a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, lived hard but also worked hard to have his music heard. Even with two injured fingers – the result of a fire – he mastered the guitar, becoming one of the first to use it as a solo lead instrument, and toured with greats like Duke Ellington before forming what would become Europe’s first jazz band, Quintet of the Hot Club of France.

Bernard, one of Manouche’s original founders, was the first to have an interest in Reinhardt’s sound, and as he says, “I kind of strong-armed the rest into following.”

Nowadays, the group’s outlasted all of the modish electro-swing artists that monopolized Mother City dance floors for some time and is currently one of only two South African acts to carry on the Gypsy jazz movement. And since forming, they’ve both crafted their own original compositions and perfected twisted takes on classics, like Ella Fitzgerald’s ‘It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Don’t Have That Swing’ and Ethel Waters’s ‘I’ve Found A New Baby’.

At their stage performances, the numbers slide out into the audience with a slippery sort of contagion, the vibe moving from one member of the crowd to the next with the elastic energy of a pulled-back rubber band. They’ve even successfully turned what could have been a dangerously dull pharmaceutical corporate event into a massive dance party – some of the pill pushers even braving the stage for a shimmy.

“It’s a mixture of our personalities gelling and understanding each other musically,” double bassist Sarah Blake explains in reference to their formidable live presence.  “We feed off each other.”

And so it seems. With that comment, they’re off making jokes about being in one giant relationship, taking selfies in the bath tub at a five-star hotel in George and never ever drinking too much – the serious conversation, apparently, done for the day.

Buy Manouche’s New EP or Book Them for a Private Function

You can buy Manouche’s new EP, Jazz Education, book the band for a private function or find out about their latest gigs on their website, www.manouche.co.za. 

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