Jazz soars poetically

"WRAPPED IN RHYTHM": BASED ON LEBO MASHILE'S POEM COLLECTION

- Citizen reporter

Pretoria-born, Belgium-based jazz vocalist Tutu Puoane will be on tour in South Africa this August, presenting the music of her current and award-winning double album project Wrapped In Rhythm. It is based on and dedicated to the poetry of Lebo Mashile.

She will perform two concerts with her full band in Gauteng, and four more in an intimate duo setting with her Belgian pianist Ewout Pierreux in Durban, Cape Town and Gqeberha.

The orchestral Volume 2 of the project (featuring Metropole Orkest) will be released worldwide on 19 September, but Puoane will have limited physical pre-stock of CDs and vinyls available at the shows.

Puoane, who has lived in Antwerp, Belgium since 2005, walked around with the poetry book In A Ribbon Of Rhythm by Mashile under her arm for almost a decade.

Mashile's poetry offers unique and very personal insight into the reality and emotional world of a young black African woman of South Africa's first post-apartheid generation.

The poems made a deep impression on Puoane, and every time she read the poems she heard music.

"I remember how deeply I was affected by the poetry collection. Ten years ago, this book had me in a choke-hold. I often find things about my country so difficult to express.