Jacques Coetzee, a blind musician, poet and songwriter, will launch his 5th album, These Narrow Songs,on Saturday May 14 at The Reeler Centre at Rondebosch Boys’ High School, at 5.30pm.
Jacques will be joined by a star-studded band of musicians including electric and double bass player Brydon Bolton; drummer Ross Campbell; violinist and violist Terrence Scar; harmonica player, Jamie Jupiter; backing vocalists Mikhaela Faye Kruger and Jamie Jupiter; Rondebosch Boys’ High pupils on brass and well known vocalist, Fancy Galada; and guitarist Jonny Blundell who is also the musical director and producer for Jacques’ album.
“At some point in the middle of 2015 I found myself in Kent, sitting in front of an upright piano in the house of a very good friend. I was feeling weightless in my new surroundings, but also out of sorts. I had unfinished business in Cape Town: a tangled conversation with my beloved. I was looking for the right words to move that cross-continental conversation forward. Suddenly I thought of a moment in Anne Michaels’ Fugitive Pieces, in which one of the characters says to her beloved: ‘If I can’t find you, I’ll look deeper in myself.’ By the end of that day I’d written most of The Deepest Place, and a few weeks later I performed it at a small gig, at the Wallington Festival. Another good friend recorded that gig, and sent a YouTube video of it home to Cape Town.
“That song marked the beginning of a journey that made it possible for this album to emerge, slowly, over a bit more than four years,” says Coetzee.
As a pianist and primary songwriter in the band Red Earth and Rust, he has brought his classically trained vocals and ability as a poet to deftly craft the songs his band performs.
Tickets cost R150 or R120 for students and pensioners. Snacks, wine, and hot beverages will be supplied. Visit https://rootspring.co.za/events/red-earth-and-rust-launches-jacques-coetzees-5th-album/ to book.
