A Night With Gregory Porter
Would it be unfair to claim that Kirstenbosch’s Botanical Gardens is the world’s most beautiful concert venue? I don’t think so. I can’t think of a better one.
The Gardens are one of Cape Town’s gems. Cape Town is one of the world’s most beautiful cities. Those who live there say that it is the most beautiful.
Its mountain, the mountain that dominates the cityscape like no other on the planet, Table Mountain, is iconic, one of the new Seven Wonders of the World.
Table Mountain is the backdrop for the Kirstenbosch stage.
Although, it’s important to say that this isn’t the flat-topped, sheer cliff, framing-the-city version. The version that dominates every panoramic photograph ever taken to capture Cape Town’s beauty.
This is its wilder, more rugged side. It is the side that reminds you that it is an elemental being that has stood above these lands for millennia.
Forests swarm up sides so steep that they can only be travelled by beings that walk to the beat of centuries. Cliffs break through the tree-line, sandstone buttresses that speak of ancient power.
This is Hoerikwagga, the home of the supreme god, Tsui//Goab.
It is not a postcard place, it is a place for respect, a place to be with the ages.
On this side of the mountain, it reminds you it lives, that it was born long before our kind was here. That it is a place of worship, a place to know the universe. That it is Hoerikwagga, the home of the supreme god, Tsui//Goab.
From the second you are seated you are connected to far more than the music and the moment.
Here you know that you are but one being in but one moment of history.
Here, unlike many moments in our modern life, you know your privilege, you are humbled by the fact of your life and the miracle of the planet on which we live. You are but one being in this creation.
That is what it means to listen to music at Kirstenbosch’s Botanical Gardens.
This Saturday, the promise of An Intimate Evening with Gregory Porter took us there.
Let me tell you about it.
Two forces danced through the night. The music and the people.
I will try to tell you about both.
South Africa was once known to the world for a hope and a dream. A dream that has long since faded. We’re now known for more for our travails. Yet, in these moments, we remember what might be possible.
In a country where the fear of crime is never far from its people’s minds, strangers hand each other newly minted cell phones with a polite request. Selfies make no sense in this temporary community. Your new neighbour will do a better job.
We’re a country traumatised by the centuries. Its pain is ever-present, making us quick to anger.
On Saturday night, in that garden, watched by Hoerikwagga, we remember our generous side. We shuffle to create space for latecomers, we wave away the apology for an inadvertently squished toe. We’re patient and in love.
Africa Melane, the mc, a man, who like the mountain gets more alluring with age, asks who is from Johannesburg. Half the crowd roars. Tonight, Cape Town’s languid beauty is spiced with Jozi’s urban energy.
Throughout it all I thought of you. I wondered what words would help you feel what was there. On occasion, my musing muted the music, but the virtuosity always pulled me back.
The evening started with The One Who Sings.
She walked on stage. Pink, pink dress. Bright! Contrasting with yellow. Yellow earrings, yellow ribbons, yellow eye shadow. A wonderland of colour. Perhaps a happy Tim Burton styled her. I don’t know. He could’ve. He’d approve, that’s for sure.
Against Hoerikwagga’s enduring energy, we are butterflies. And yet, what beautiful butterflies we can be. Achingly beautiful, should we choose to be. Our brief moment on this stage can be beauty-filled. She showed us how.
My mind wandered. How does one capture the power of small people?
Tolkien gave us Hobbits and Dwarves. Dahl, the Oompa Loompas. Swift, the Lilliputians. None are right. None capture the power that is Zolani Mahola. She is an elven warrior, a magic maker, a dream weaver.
Perhaps then I needn’t speak of size, although we do. I know that I will be tempted to tell you of Gregory Porter’s line-backer size, many others have.
Perhaps it’s in contrast that our imagination fires.
Perhaps it is because Mahola’s energy pulls big men to their feet and cracks open stoic faces, because Porter can be gentle, delicate even, reaching carefully into our deepest pain, that we are intrigued.
Perhaps our souls are relieved to remember that we are always more than we appear to be.
Perhaps we love that they, just by being, shatter stereotype, defy expectation, just are, just are so wonderfully themselves. No cliché can capture them (nor you, you too are free).
Mahola calls her collaborator onto the stage. That’s what she calls her. A collaborator from Feminine Force. Put together like that it evokes powerful possibilities.
If The One Who Sings came to us from Wonderland, then Genevieve Lee is from Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock.
It’s a little overwhelming. Again, there is no easy way to hold the contrast, no neat phrase to hold the elven warrior dream weaver and her folksy collaborator in flowing dress (did it have embroidered flowers? Maybe, it spoke of them) and their acoustic guitars. They found an easy rhythm that brought smiles to the dusk sky.
The crowd called for an encore. The opening act. An encore. No protocol observed. South Africans having fun.
They obliged and took us to West Africa. They reminded us that there was a time, not so long ago, when we all sang “Waka Waka Aye Aye”, believing we could do it and we did. That this was the time for Africa. And it was. We remembered with pride and tears.
A man sprang to his feet, a dance filled with joy. His t-shirt pronounced, “Africa Your Time is Now”.
We cheered with hope. Perhaps it could be again.
Mr Gregory Porter. Let me tell you about his band.
He has an organist.
Yep, a full-on churchgoing Hammond Organ is on stage.
The organist, Mr Ondřej Pivec, might lead you to salvation. Could equally lead you to sin.
The play between Pivec and pianist Chip Crawford would be enough. In any world, you would die happy having heard them. There are three decades between them. You wouldn’t know it. Pivec’s skill keeps up. Crawford’s energy keeps up.
And I still haven’t told you about that whirling dervish of a saxophonist, Tivon Pennicott.
I can’t think of a way to describe the intensity that is him.
South African jazz heads will understand if I say that he plays sax like Kesivan Naidoo plays drums, but that doesn’t help the rest of you.
How do I do it? I don’t know.
I can’t capture the pace of his playing, the way he moves as if he and the sax are one, the sheer wall of sound, the complex tapestry that he creates. Words don’t do it. Some things need to be felt. I wish you had been there.
Ah yes, Mr Gregory Porter. What can I tell about Mr Gregory Porter?
I have to tell you that that big man shambled into dance, slow, a touch of playful clumsiness that melted into an easy rhythm and then, out of nowhere, an explosion into the high kick of Zulu dance. The crowd roared their approval. He saw us and he cared.
In front of us sat a beautiful woman. If I were an artist, I could have shaped her cheekbones with my charcoal. If I’d packed my pastels, I could’ve told you how her skin enlivened the vibrant yellow of her dress. I might have captured the silver glint of her nose ring, the width of her shoulders, the languid power of her limbs. But I am not and so I can’t.
Mr Porter sang, she rested her head on her lover’s shoulder. Easy and gentle. Their hands found each other. Fingers intertwined. Easy and gentle.
Then he took us into his hit “1960 What?”, a tribute to the giants of the Civil Rights Movement. Elsewhere he has said about the song, “Songs about romantic love are important but there’s also the love song for mankind”.
He reminded us that sometimes love must be fought for.
We needed to hear it.
He paused and said “I don’t know if I’ll make it through this night without soaking my clothes with tears. It’s so beautiful.”
It was.