A Jazz night out with Kampala’s finest

Last Sunday at about 4pm, as I sat somewhere unwinding with my feet up, I received a call from a friend, asking me to show up at the National Theatre in roughly an hour. Normally, that is not how I plan my outings but there was a ring to this one that convinced me to abandon my lazy Sunday plans and get my party shoes on. My friend had summoned me to an evening of Jazz. A member of the faculty at Makerere University was putting on a jazz concert. In almost an hour flat, I was at the theatre, ready for Kampala Jazz Orchestra’s “Around the World in Jazz” concert.

Led by its music director, Polycarp Kyagulanyi, in their first ever production, the orchestra took us around the world; to Africa, the United States of America, the Caribbean and Spain—if memory still serves me right—among other places. There were several striking things about the orchestra; first, it is a collection of very young people, many of them either fresh out of university or students in music school at Makerere University and elsewhere. 

I tried to imagine how the director had put together so many talented people because every single instrumentalist seemed to be bringing their ‘A’ game; from the pianist to the saxophonists, trumpeters, the guitarists, drummer and everyone in between. The music director and conductor Mr Kyagulanyi was another marvel to watch—the way he reels off the music as if by heart. As a conductor, he brought the show to life with how he led the orchestra, leaving no one behind and without stumbling, from start to finish. I took the trouble to look him up and follow him on Twitter and Instagram and found that he is a media composer, a teacher, a music director and a trumpeter, among other things. And he does all this with grace—yes, I also got a chance to meet him offstage.

The other surprise of the night was how the auditorium was not full to the rafters for such a great show. I understand that of the two shows that weekend, the Saturday, April 1, show was better attended than the one I went to on Sunday. Still, it seemed such a waste that this talent was not staged before a bigger audience. 

However, those of us who attended the show mostly left as converts and the orchestra received a standing ovation at the end of the performance. A buzz of disappointment went through the crowd when the orchestra’s director announced that their next show is likely to be staged in December. We had been entertained; the mostly male group had wowed, the two singers, one of them female, had sung their hearts out and after more than an hour of the soulful playing, we still had not heard enough: The crowd wanted more. 

However, as my friend later explained, we needed to take our disappointment and stash it somewhere so as to allow the orchestra ample time to practise and return to us, possibly even better, in December. 

When I find a good thing, I rave about it and so I promised myself that before December comes around, I will spread the word. You do not meet excellence walking down the street on any ordinary day. This kind of dedication to one’s craft by people so young certainly left an impression on me. Some of the people I told this story did not believe me; they said that if was jazz, it must have been boring.  My simple reply was, “you should have been there.”

Angella Nampewo is a writer, editor and communications consultant.  
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