Perth Voice Interactive

HE’S been dubbed “the African Sting”, but is Richard Bona really “one of the planet’s five revelations of the past decade”, as claimed in an international music magazine?

“I’d agreed with that, he is a sensational musician, one of a few in a generation who will make his mark,” Perth International Jazz Festival artistic director Graham Woods opines.

Bona is the headline act in the third annual jazz festival: in Melbourne or Sydney his show will set you back $100 or $150 but you can catch him, and a swag of other great musos, for a mere $25 at the Perth Cultural Centre.

PIJF’s manifesto is to take jazz to the masses, Woods says. “We are making it easy for people to come and see these people.”

Hailing from West Africa’s Cameroon, Bona was playing a balafon (a sort of oversized xylophone made from wood and gourds) aged four; by 13 he’d put together his first ensemble performing at a French jazz club in Cameroon’s port city Douala.

By 22 he was studying music in Germany and France before moving to New York’s Greenwich Village jazz scene, where Harry Belafonte’s mate spotted him in a club and a couple of weeks later Bona was Belafonte’s musical director, bassist and arranger.

These days he’s in demand with artists such as Paul Simon, Chaka Khan and Harry Connick Jr.

Bona will be joined by be a swag of international and home-grown talent at this year’s festival including Polish pianist Artur Dutkiewicz.

Barney McAll still calls Australia home but the Grammy-nominated pianist, keyboardist and composer lives in the Big Apple these days.

“He’s doing great things over there,” Wood says.

Perth-born Rachel Claudio is making her mark in Paris with her “blues and roots and soul lines” style, and local jazz diva Jessie Gordon won a “bunch of gongs” at this years Fringe Festival.

PIJF collaborated with Celebrate WA to jazz up the three-day long weekend (May 29–31) and with 52 performers at a string of venues the city will swing.

There’ll be a heap of music in the Perth Cultural Centre’s Urban Orchard and PICA stage, and Brookfield Place, on St Georges Terrace, will turn the usual Sunday sleepiness of the business district into party central, Wood says.

“There will be a New Orleans carnival atmosphere…a blues-based party with a Cajun feel.”

Things kick off Friday, May 29. Check out Perth International Jazz Festival’s website for the full program, including a swag of free shows.

by JENNY D’ANGER