South African jazz: a sound that

Gregory Maqoma reflects on Follow the Blue Note, a journey that discovers the voice of each city and reveals how local rhythms and communities join in the wider harmony that makes the art form great. By S'bo Gyre

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I have written countless articles about jazz and interviewed as many artists, both South African and foreign, but one thing is constant.

There is no other form of jazz quite like what we have cooked up as the people of Africa's southernmost nation.

Around the globe, particularly in the 1920s, jazz musicians were to the public what rock stars were in the 1970s and amapiano artists are today.

In 1922, The Paris Review described the genre as "sex rendered as music" and as a "manifestation of a low streak in man's tastes". Three years later, Liberty magazine would call it "primitive" and "barbaric". Considering jazz's roots in black culture and the historical context of the time, none of those sentiments comes as a surprise.

Over time, the genre has had the most drastic of rebrands and is now seen as a sophisticated art form. Jazz is undoubtedly an enduring soundscape that always finds a way to connect with young people, following its own blue note to relevance and resonance.

In South Africa, each major city spawned unique and refreshing interpretations of jazz, often shaped by the lived experience of people in each city.