The Sunday Mail
Takudzwa Chihambakwe
AFTER establishing himself as a jazz musician over six years and two albums, Josh Meck has surprisingly dumped the genre.
The inimitable left-handed bassist who has over the years dazzled audiences in Africa and Europe says jazz music has not done justice to his pocket.
“I faced a lot of challenges in my solo career as a jazz artiste but Zimbabwe is a very small market when it comes to jazz,” Josh told The Sunday Mail Leisure.
“The population of jazz lovers in the country is on the low side; rather the genre is considered to be for the elderly and the learned. Jazz revenue, just like any other genre, comes from concert earnings more than CD sales. Against this background, I needed to be constantly touring the world, performing at different jazz festivals for me to earn a living, which is difficult.”
The musician relocated to South Africa between 2013 and 2015 and his career soared, but he decided to return home to further refine his sound – and that proved costly.
“I felt a change of scenario would work for me, so I relocated to South Africa, a country with a bigger market for jazz. I penetrated the industry and in no time I was performing in the country’s biggest festivals such as; Arts Alive, Soweto Drumbeat Festival and Jazz On the Lake, amongst many others.
“After a two-year stint in South Africa, I felt compelled to come back home, the major reason being that I needed to work with local talent in order to add Zimbabwean traditional instruments and rhythms to my music as I felt my music was getting more and more diluted with Western rhythms and losing the African flavour,” explained Josh.
Things did not exactly work out as planned.
“I returned home in October 2016 and started composing songs for my third album, adding Zimbabwean flavours in the form of mbira, marimba and hosho. I started fusing jazz elements with Zimbabwe traditional elements.
“After I had completed working on the album which was ready for release last year in May, I began to have constant battles within myself as to whether jazz was the ideal genre for me,” recounted the musician.
So he decided to go for world music, “which is basically a mixture of different genres from different ethnic backgrounds”.
“I then decided to change my path immediately and follow this new route as it opens more opportunities for me to collaborate with other local and international artistes. The shift has been easy for me since the other genres also use chords that are similar to jazz music,” he explained.
“I will be able to fully express myself and styles from my homeland. Another advantage is that world music appeals to a larger market locally as people are able to relate to the traditional sounds. The fusions will also bring about a unique sound that can be identified only with the Josh Meck brand.
“As difficult as it was, we had to go back into studio and rework the entire album with my band. We rearranged some of the tracks and added a lot of other elements to our sound. Good news, however, is we are almost done with the panel beating and the album will be released this May without fail,” said Josh.
