To Breathe into Another Voice

A South African Anthology of Jazz Poetry

by Edited by Myesha Jenkins

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ISBN: 978-1-928341-31-4
Trim size: 230 x 150mm
Binding: paperback
Page count: 144 pages
Genre: Jazz Poetry; Contents; Preface; Power in the Music; On being a flower – MakhosazanaXaba; For Bra Ntemi – KeorapetseKgositsile; Old Sof’town – AfzalMoolla; Dudu’s Groove – Aryan Kaganof; The Where I’m From – Selome ‘Flow’ Payne; Jazz Club – Myesha Jenkins; The Sounds of Exile – Barry Gilder; This Thing Called Jazz; Untitled – Connie Fick; Noted – SedicaDavids; For Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – KeorapetseKgositsile; Rainjazz on the Dune – Harry Owen; Applauding the New – Myesha Jenkins; Jazz – MakhosazanaXaba; A life in pieces – Ayanda Billie; Swing in D minor – Richard QuazRoodt; Jazznight/improvisations/urban vibes – Frank Meintjies; Genesis – KabeloMofokeng; Nostalgic Jazz – XithaMakgeta; My Grandmother’s Hymn – MthunzikaziMbugwana; Mercury/quicksilver – Bernadette Muthien; Self-Medication – Richard QuazRoodt; They Make the Music; Brass – XabisoVili; The now generation – MoAfrika ‘a Mokgathi; Coming out of the closet – Connie Fick; arid – VangiGantsho; Presence of a Master – Myesha Jenkins; Them Jazz Cats – MoAfrika ‘a Mokgathi; hey music man – Natalia Molebatsi; Elegy for Jazz – PhillippaYaa De Villiers; For Gloria Bosman – KeorapetseKgositsile; Some of Them were Special; bhekimseleku remembered – Eugene Skeef; Songbird Traveller – Lebo Mashile; Home Tones – MalikaNdlovu; A poem for Lesedi – Percy Mabandu; In Gentle Light and Heavy Tones – LeratoRatoKuzwayo; Acknowledgement – KeorapetseKgositsile; A Love Supreme – MphutlanaWaBofelo; Coltrane’s Lap – Steve KwenaMokwena; Playing to the Wall – John Forbis; This Blues Thing is Us – K Kgale Re TshwenyehaMphutlanaWaBofelo; Miles – John Forbis; So That Light Would Be There – Ayanda Billie; Portrait of a Cow – Percy Mabandu; MrFunkDaddy – LeratoRatoKuzwayo; Voice – Frank Meintjies; Abdullah’s Top To Bottom Dollar – Allan KolskiHorwitz; Memory of Dollar Brand/Abdullah Ibrahim – Connie Fick; Sikade – LeratoRatoKuzwayo; Tribute to ZimNgqawana – ZaheerKarolia; Is it jazz? – Roux Wessels; Kippies – Steve KwenaMokwena; Horn Screaming – Ayanda Billie; Zimasile – Frank Meintjies; Ways of being free; Steve Newman AndileYenana YonelaMnana – PhillippaYaa De Villiers; your song – Natalia Molebatsi; Double shot – Richard QuazRoodt; All About Living; Rhythm and blues – Noleen Morris; Sax seduction – Lamelle Shaw; Memories of Mannenberg– MakhosazanaXaba; @ Sam’s Tavern – Icebound Makhele; at the jazz club – Raphael D’Abdon; It’s all that Jazz – Mandy PoeticianNdaliso; Thirsty waters – LatiMatjeni; I wish I had known Bob Kaufman – Gary Cummisky; Song – KolekaPutuma; EkVerlangna Jazz; I Miss Jazz (English) – Diana Ferrus; I Am In A Jam – Derrick Newson; the day you left – VangiGantsho; Endless Highway – Myesha Jenkins; If only – SisaNkosi; A Lesson in Poetry Women and Jazz Men – Lebogang Nova Masango; That Tune – MoAfrika ‘a MokgathimZantsi; LeTSdANCE– Linda Ndlovu; There is a train – MakhosazanaXaba; Cassandra Wilson will Sing – KeoropetseKgositsile; Instrumental – Harry Owen; Giving in – Sarah Godsell; Contributors

About this book

Endorsement:

‘Writing about jazz is like dancing about architecture,’ observed Thelonious Monk. It’s possibly one of the few times he was wrong. Jazz poetry is almost as old as jazz itself. Poets such as Thulani Davis, Langston Hughes and our own KeorapetseKgositsile and Mongane Wally Serote have long heard the patterns of the music and its makers and transformed and re-enacted those patterns in compelling words. Given South Africa’s venerable jazz tradition, it’s perhaps surprising it’s taken so long for more fundis to be tapped for their responses to our kind of jazz. But it takes a special brew of ingredients for this kind of book to come together. You need an inspired guiding spirit, such as editor and jazzwoman-in-words Myesha Jenkins, and you need a vat in which the ingredients can mix and bubble. That’s been provided by all those who’ve opened stages for the music to happen, and most recently by the Orbit under the direction of AymericPeguillan where Jazz & Poetry Nights brought words and music together, each a kind of yeast that helped the other to ferment and rise. You’ll find everything here in To Breathe into Another Voice: faithful and fantastical accounts of the jazz life and jazz people as well as reflections on the music as a metaphor for how we live – or, maybe more importantly, how we’d like to live. All you need to do now is open the covers, start reading, and dance joyously about the architecture.

—Gwen Ansel

About the author

Edited by Myesha Jenkins

Myesha Jenkins was a pioneering poet and activist who was born in San Francisco, California and moved to South Africa in 1993.

Jenkins was an anti-apartheid activist for years before moving to South Africa. She was a founding member of the Feela Sistah! Spoken Word Collective, which she formed in 2003 alongside poets Napo Masheane, Lebogang Mashile and Ntsiki Mazqai. From 2011 to 2016, she produced the radio series Poetry in the Air and more recently curated a podcast series called Myesha’s Memoirs – Living with Jazz and Poetry.

Jenkins published two poetry collections, Breaking the Surface in 2005 and Dreams of Flight in 2011, and her work was anthologised in a number of other collections. In 2017, she edited the collection To Breathe into Another Voice: A South African Anthology of Jazz Poetry. In 2013, she received the Mbokodo Award for Women in the Arts in the Poetry category.

Myesha Jenkins died on 5 September 2020 at 72 years of age.