A brief history of the festival, it started off in the capital city, Pretoria, and then moved on to the Newtown arts precinct where it developed an unique identity and put Newtown and Johannesburg on the world map. This year was hosted in Sandton for the first time. Over the 16 years it has been running it has featured over 50 local and international artists.
When the festival organizers announced that the festival will be moving from the artistic Newtown to Holliwood-like Sandton in 2014, they were met with a lot of criticism despite promising what has been hailed as one their most impressive line-ups by far - Gregory Porter (2014 Grammy award winner for best vocal jazz album), Dianne Reeves (2001, 2002, 2004, 2006 Grammy Award Winner for best vocal jazz performance), Herbie Tsoaeli (2013 South African Music Award winner for best jazz album) and Kyle Shepherd (2014Winner of the Standard Bank Young Artist award for Jazz ), to name a few, were all on the line-up.
The Sandton show finally happened, from 25th September to 26th September, and all criticism was silenced. The artists put up world class performances one after another. At some point festival attendees were spoilt for choice, with some top jazz acts overlapping - Gregory Porter (23h45) and Christian Scott (00h00) were a classic example of this.
When I asked those that attended for their festival highlights, Gregory Porter, Christian Scott and Billy Ocean's came up many times... and of course, Roy Hargorove singing the blues! All performances were world-class, and the festival left a lot of JOY behind.
The date for next year's festival is already set, Sandton Convention Centre, 24th, 25th and 26th September. See you there ! (www.joyofjazz.co.za)
Some shots from the festival (All pics by Moeti Moumakoe except for Billy Ocean by Karabo Matlala):
