Better Days with Dianne Reeves at the Safaricom Jazz Lounge

Safaricom Jazz has been on for 5 years and in that half a decade, has been the highlight of the Kenyan jazz circuit. It’s not an overstatement to say that Safaricom Jazz is an amazing initiative. I cannot believe the jazz legends I’ve had the pleasure to seeing live in Nairobi. From Richard Bona, Salif Keita, the late Hugh Masekela, David Sanborn, Jimmy Dludlu among others, the jazz festival has been a gift to jazz lovers. Even better, Safaricom Jazz has introduced great Kenyan jazz talent to a wider audience, with some of my favourites being Nairobi Horns Project, Shamsi Music, The Limericks and Mwai & The Truth.

The headliner for the Safaricom Jazz October edition was Dianne Reeves, with Kato Change, Ad hoc and Double Cut opening. Dianne Reeves is jazz royalty. I discovered her back in 2015 while looking over the list of the Grammy Winners in 2015 and I saw her name under the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female. I looked her up and found out that this was her fifth Grammy and I went ahead to listen to all of her music.

There were 2 shows for this Safaricom Jazz Lounge – one at Uhuru Gardens in Nairobi on Thursday the 18^th of October and one at Hell’s Gate in Naivasha on Saturday the 20^th of October. I attended the Safaricom Jazz Lounge that went down on Thursday October 18^th at Uhuru Gardens. As always, concert goers parked at Carnivore and got a bus courtesy of Safaricom, across to Uhuru Gardens. The setup was beautiful and there was so much to do. I did walk around before the concert began and checked out the Masoko store as well as the Safaricom Platinum stand – there were a lot of giveaways and I got a free cocktail for being on Platinum.

The opening acts for the Thursday show were Double Cut and Kato Change. Double Cut are an Italian jazz band made up of Tino Tracanna, Massimiliano Milesi, Giulio Corini and Filippo Sala. This was my first time hearing their music and their set was a great start to a wonderful evening.

I’ve known Kato Change for almost a decade and followed his career as he’s proven to be one of the best musicians out of Kenya. Kato is a force and I was actually surprised that this was his first time on the Safaricom Jazz stage. Backed up by his band, The Change Experience, his set was fantastic and he’s clearly a fan favourite as there was a lot of cheering when he got on stage. His band included vocals by the talented Idd Aziz and I enjoyed their performance of African Woman off Kato’s album, ‘’The Change Experience.’’

Finally, the jazz legend, Dianne Reeves was up on stage. You know she is truly a jazz diva because they laid out the stage with a red carpet and wine. Her band warmed us up showing off their prowess. She came up about 10 minutes later and it was worth the wait. Her voice is like a glass of Prosecco on a sunny day by the beach. She belted out all my favourites including ‘Better Days’, ‘Waiting in Vain’, ‘I Want You’, and ‘Skylark’. She was graceful and her performance everything I would expect from the pre-eminent jazz vocalist in the world.

I did not attend the Hell’s Gate concert but I heard that it was incredible and yes, I did get a little jealous. I’m sure it was perfect for the love birds and must have been a beautiful evening for all who attended. Nature and jazz is perfection.

All proceeds from Safaricom Jazz go to supporting Ghetto Classics, a music programme for underprivileged kids.

I am excited for the next Safaricom Jazz Festival in February 2019, and it has been confirmed that Marcus Miller will be headlining!