The Reza Khota Quartet is the next attraction at the Jazz in the Native Yards live gig on Sunday 25 October at Kwa Sec Ny 138 no. 52 Gugulethu at 4pm.
The quartet features Reza Khota on guitar, saxophonist Buddy Wells, Nicholas Williams on bass and drummer Jonno Sweetman.
Supported by Concerts SA in collaboration with The Gugulethu-Seaboard CAN Partnership, one of Cape Town’s first inter-neighbourhood responses to the pandemic.
- Five percent of ticket sales will be donated to The Gugulethu-Seaboard CAN which has supported 2000 highly vulnerable households in Gugulethu through food vouchers, community kitchens, gardens, and the delivery of water, soap and protective gear.
Reza Khota Quartet
The Reza Khota Quartet will play original compositions by Khota.
Over the last twenty years, Khota has established himself as a guitarist with far reaching abilities. In this time, he has played regularly and recorded with the Shane Cooper Quintet and Kesivan and the Lights. The latter ensemble performed at Carnegie Hall, New York in 2014.
Khota is part of the new wave of South African jazz that seeks to think anew, what is possible as a composer and improviser in the post-apartheid. The Reza Khota Quartet released its second album – Liminal, in 2019. Khota was an artist in residence at the University of Western Cape’s Centre for Humanities Research from 2015-2018.
Over the last three years he has collaborated with musicians from Toronto, India and Sweden. He also features on recordings with Mandla Mlangeni’s TRC, Abraham Mennen, and the Insurrections Ensemble. He recently performed with the Insurrections Ensemble in India at festivals in Goa and Kochi.
Buddy Wells, a graduate of the SA College of Music at the University of Cape Town (UCT) with a First Class B.Mus. Honours (Jazz Performer),is also a composer and arranger. He has performed and recorded with many well-known South African and foreign musicians including Manu Dibango, Miriam Makeba, Bheki Mseleku, Moses Molelekwa, Jimmy Dludlu, Joe McBride, Gerald Veasley, Vusi Khumalo, Abdullah Ibrahim, Herb Ellis, Gloria Bosman, Carlo Mombelli, Interzone and Jack van Poll.
His awards including 1994 Adcock Ingram Competition for Best Jazz Instrumentalist, and the 1996 SAMRO Overseas Scholarship Competition.
Although playing bass in this ensemble, Nicholas Williams is a self-taught musician who until the age of 19 decided to take piano lessons. It was at this time he started attending jam sessions in search of a chance to play. He met multi-instrumentalist Mark Fransman who became the biggest influence.
Mentored by Fransman for over a year Williams studied jazz piano from 2007 to 2011 at UCT’s College of Music. In addition to Fransman’s mentorship he had the opportunity to study with Dr Andrew Lilley and Andre Peterson. In 2013 he was awarded a scholarship in the SAMRO Piano Competition which allowed him to study with Swiss pianist Nik Bärtsch (Ronin) in Zurich.
Jonno Sweetman is one of the most original and sensitive drummers on South Africa’s exploding music scene. His sound and approach attract attention wherever he plays and in whatever context he finds himself. Drumming is in his blood. His father, the late Robert Sweetman, was a great drummer who played professionally in the 1960s and 1970’s.
He was reluctant the first time Jonno asked him for a lesson, given the paternal association of drums with sex,drugs, rock and roll. Graciously putting aside his scepticism he gave the 13-year-old Jonno that lesson – and it all began. Having matriculated Jonno attained a diploma in Marketing at Varsity College in Port Elizabeth.
He is currently a member of the Kyle Shepherd trio, Reza Khota Quartet and Buddy Wells quartet, Albert Frost Trio and Karen Zoid. He performed at the 2008 through 2014 Cape Town International Jazz Festivals, the Standard Bank Youth Jazz Festival (Grahamstown) and Joy of Jazz (Johannesburg) and toured Europe with Jonathan Crossley in 2009, 2010 and 2012. The Kyle Shepherd Trio (the iconoclastic Shepherd was Standard Bank youth jazz artist in 2014) recently toured Europe, China and Canada playing at world class festivals including the Montreal Jazz Festival and Tianjin International Jazz Festival.
This gig is made possible by Concerts SA, a joint South African/Norwegian live music development project housed under the auspices of SAMRO, managed by IKS Cultural Consulting, continuing to support live music under these difficult circumstances.
WHAT: Reza Khota Quartet at the Jazz in the Native Yards
WHERE: Kwa Sec Ny 138 no. 52 Gugulethu, Cape Town 7750Â Â Map
WHEN: Sunday 25 October 2020 at 4pm
HOW: Tickets: R100 – Booking: 060 960 8935
INFO: Luvuyo Kakaza – Jazz in the Native Yards T 060 960 8935
The Reza Khota Quartet will also gig a livestreaming performance at the Penny Lane Studios
WHEN: 15 November 2020 at 7pm
TICKETS: R100 Bookings online
@jazzintheNativeYards I Facebook: Jazz in the Native Yards I Instagram: @jazzinthenativeyards
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