Accomplished Western Cape jazz pianist, Ramon Alexander, has nourished his musical creativity through an informal journey outside of institutional training. He now teaches and grooms jazz bands using mentors of note.

Classically trained musician and teacher, Felicia Lesch, noted the dearth of jazz studies in a predominately classical-focused University Music Department and set out to do something about this void. Thanks to the emergence of the annual Youth Jazz Festival at the National Arts Festival in Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown) which showcased youth talents, Lesch could start her students’ migration to participate in this popular exposure.

Ramon Alexander chases inner creativities

His artistic childhood veins ran unintended towards a sonic, finger-tapping goal. Shoving aside his viticulture training with a degree from Stellenbosch University (SUN), Alexander preferred to learn, perform, and compose improvisational music using local Western Cape rhythms and sounds. His mentorships with legendary musicians in ‘Cape jazz’, like Ibrahim Khalil Shihab, Merton Barrow at The Jazz Workshop, the late saxophonist Robbie Jansen and others, has paid off. One finds this dynamic pianist establishing and grooming a ‘Maties Jazz Society’ band with SUN music students originally from George and other areas outside of the big bad cities. Fellow team member and head of Jazz Studies at SUN’s Music Department, Felicia Lesch, took Alexander under her wing in 2004 to teach introductory jazz theory and jazz piano in the Music Certificate Program presented at the Conservatory in Stellenbosch, thus swelling jazz tutorials to two full time lecturers.

The team has worked hard over the past 20 years plus, but it hasn’t been easy. Alexander’s story hasn’t been easy, either.

“I did informal music training through my youth. At five years old, I was playing tunes trying to imitate my brother who was my mentor. Then at age of eight, I moved to Mossel Bay, where I stayed with my elder sister and took piano lessons.” When his parents divorced, this small boy struggled with his creativity, even taking up water colour painting for reasons he still doesn’t understand. “The time I should be studying or practicing piano, I’d be drawing!” Maybe migrating eventually to drawing on the piano?

The first music he heard live was from his Moravian church upbringing in Mamre. “The big tradition was the brass band with a Western choral. It wasn’t particularly interesting to me then, because I grew up listening to Bob Marley at home. “ He had fantasized about being a composer. “ In Grade 4, in class, I would write down lists of classical composers’ names, for no reason at all. And I learned the Greek alphabet which I still know today! For no reason at all! Even a top band in America , called Modern Talking, had a hit song called, ‘Brother Louis, Louis, Louis’. I asked my sister, please, for my birthday (a week after Christmas), could I get an LP of Modern Talking?” What was this young boy searching for?

While learning classical music until age 15, Alexander was part of his school’s band which he enjoyed. “That enabled me to go to the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown and be part of the Youth Jazz Festival. But I remember telling my brothers, ‘but I don’t really like jazz’. I preferred classical music.” With admirable perseverance and mentorships, he was selected as pianist for the Standard Bank National Youth Big Band in 2004, and later joined the SUN Music Department Jazz Studies. This, in spite of graduating that same year with a B.Sc. Agric in viticulture and oenology from Stellenbosch University.

With his ESP band, formed during University days, Alexander has produced two albums: Picnic at Kontiki (2011) and Echoes from Louwskloof (2015). These enabled him to perform in 2016 at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival. One notable recording production includes Essence of Spring (2018) by Cape Town jazz icon Ibrahim Khalil Shihab, a key mentor. SUN’s ‘Maties Jazz Society’ now makes the rounds to venues and festivals, even in rural towns as at the May 2023 inaugural ‘Journey to Jazz’ Festival in the Karoo’s little Prince Albert town.

Felicia Lesch, SUN Jazz Studies ¹

Fast forward back to the late 1990s…… Lesch had joined the SUN Music Department with specific interests to introduce ‘jazz’ as a music form, through a ‘bridging’ program with the classical music curriculum.

She remembered ‘that guy’ who was performing in live jazz concerts in and around Stellenbosch, a jazz-absent university town of historical note. As Ramon Alexander passed by her office window in 2003, she raced to talk with him. ‘That guy’ soon became faculty number 2 in her Jazz Certificate-developing program; the rest is history. “In Stellenbosch, there was no jazz around. I took my school kids to Grahamstown at that time, but thought there must be other kids in the Stellenbosch area who would want to go, also. So I found Ramon and asked him to help me with this. We found a few music students to join and that’s how we started getting jazz somehow of interest in the Music Department. “

Together, Lesch and Alexander opened up to those classical music students who were interested in also studying improvisation and music theory, handy eloquent terms to get around the concept of ‘jazz’ in this predominately conservative, classics-centered, music conservatory in a predominately Afrikaans-speaking university and urban territory of the Western Cape. Lesch remarks: “The Certificate program was the easiest way to start the jazz section of the Music Department. In 2005, we offered improvisation and jazz theory, and students in the Degree program (Classical) studied with Ramon as well. In 2009 we got the jazz band installed as the official credit-bearing jazz band ensemble.”

They took on piano student, Melisizwe Plaatjie, who displayed an exuberant talent for improvisation, to help groom the band members. Sure enough, he was chosen to join the National Youth Band formed by the 2023 National Arts Festival in Makhanda. He even won the best student trophy one year.

But all was not smooth. The conservative tastes and preferences beyond foundational training for the Euro-centric classical music art form often took precedence by decision-makers over this free-flow ‘jazz’ which was spreading in training institutions throughout the country, with the University of Cape Town (UCT) down the road quickly expanding its post-94 music curriculum in all musical genres. “ I came in as Orchestra Manager”, say Lesch, “ but my passion was in community engagement. I had the full support of the Director, but it took 3 years to get curriculum established. There were delays, and there were seasons where things delayed, then went forward, like that.” Over time, various jazz teachers came on board part-time: the late pianist Andre Petersen, Melissa von der Spay, Throy Petersen from the Hugo Lambrechts Music Centre. But it was piano student, Melisizwe, who has carried the teaching passion to advance jazz studies and support the 2021-formed Maties Jazz Society band.

Lesch and her team managed to entice academic decision-makers to see value in just what ‘jazz’ means, considering the wealth of music coming from various localities – home-grown music – in the country. Was there a fear of losing an ethnic homogeneity, that the home-grown sound coming from some sections of South African society was not sophisticated enough? That maybe swing and dance music was too pedestrian or ‘honky tonk’, as the Americans would say? Lesch took up the challenge to restore jazz as a worthy music item. “We now have the jazz band accredited. Students playing in the symphony orchestra can also join the jazz band for the experience. This means when they go to teach their own students, they will know how to start up a jazz band which, in turn, will qualify to participate in the Makhanda Jazz festivals. Concerning the curriculum, we have matched what the classical music department is doing, but in a jazz sense, and explained why we were deviating from the set classical curriculum. Also, the classical music students see those who can perform in jazz also have a classical background.”
Upholding a high quality of standards was key for promoting this jazz art form.

Lesch and team hope to start a satellite teaching program in George so that students can do a Certificate program at home before coming to SUN. “We want to instill dignity in all of our students because they come from backgrounds of challenges – socially, culturally, etc .” The classical music students need to see that those who can perform in jazz also have a classical background.

There are still few female students taking up the jazz banner. Insecurities abound. “We need to move into more informal mentoring styles of building jazz musical talents. For instance, we have a male drummer from the Maties group mentoring a lady drummer. She sits next to the drummer, and we see her fears just shred away in place of confidence. The students at the back are smiling because she was known to lack so much confidence in herself.”

While insecurities of a non-musical nature may pervade the souls of female students bold enough to cross over into the improvisational world of jazz music, Lesch and team continue their strategies to bolster confidence. “We try to give the ladies a part in the band, and encourage them not to pass on some of the arrangement parts to a male player. Sometimes I tell a lady horn player who looks flustered to just take a walk; you wouldn’t believe her insecurity . She’s good, but to have her play as though she’s feeling good is a challenge. She played fine at the concert in April.”

Some strategies to build confidence are hard. “I like the Berklee model. …..at the beginning of term, students can choose which teacher they would like to study with. And they can change teachers if need be. Here at SUN, it’s different and limited. Also, I try to split the lady students in class to not sit together, and encourage them to mix with male performers at gigs. If they stay away from class, we will communicate with their parents, if necessary.” Jazz is deemed more difficult to learn, but Lesch and Alexander are seeing the confidence levels growing now. “The younger students are looking up to the older ones now. A lady might have an attitude in class, but will want to sing at the Baxter concert hall, for instance.”

So, how can students and their mentors build a program in jazz that’s sustainable? Even though SUN may be a complicated place, it’s becoming more diverse and upgrading curriculum. Accrediting a jazz band is one way. The annual Woordfees festival in Stellenbosch, which started out as a literary festival, now incorporates the arts and music programs, sometimes going outside the Afrikaans linguistic vein of the festival. Alexander explains, “Festivals are bringing the arts to the people that can open eyes to the outside world. It’s the WAY we bring the jazz to the community; it’s LIVE so people can SEE it!”

Footnote 1: Co-ordinator of the Music Certificate Programmes at Stellenbosch University, and also teaches at the Redefine Western Cape Music Education Project, Serves on Board of Directors of the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra.

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