JAZZ TRIO THRILLS AT INTWASA - SOUTHERN TIMES

BULAWAYO-BORN jazz diva Dudu Manhenga’s second bite of the cherry at the Intwasa Festival KoBulawayo left an indelible mark on Thursday night as she performed with two other female jazz artistes in a colourful event held at Elite 400.

Luyanduhlobo Makwati
Own correspondent
Southern Eye

Dudu, as she is affectionately known, shared the stage with sibling Zanele Manhenga, aka Uza, and Clare Nyakujara on a night dubbed “Intwasa Spring Jazz Night." The three women performed in the mould of Three Generations and left the audience captivated and asking for more through their sweet and powerful voices.


PAMBERI TRUST PHOTO: BY DENNIS MADYIRA

The performance was the main attraction of the night.

The three talented women who had earlier on promised to put up a scintillating performance did not disappoint as they gave the audience lively entertainment. They treated the audience to an assortment of fun which some revellers termed a three-in-one performance because of their sharp voices that were well varied.

PAMBERI TRUST PHOTO: BY DENNIS MADYIRA

PAMBERI TRUST PHOTO: BY DENNIS MADYIRA
 

The three phenomenal jazz vocalists were led by veteran Dudu, who kept revellers on their toes.
Clare and Uza backed Dudu with their sharp voices that made the performance a gig to remember.


The super-charged stars put up a superb show from the moment they took their act on stage.  Uza and Clare said they were happy to be in Bulawayo and looked forward to be in the city more often.

The Spring Jazz Festival was a successful partnership between Intwasa Arts Festival and F.L.A.M.E(Female Literary Arts & Music Enterprise), a project by Pamberi Trust, a Harare based arts development organisation.

WHAT THE ZIMBOJAM SAID

CELEBRATION The group Three Generations performs at the Book Café, September 12, 2013. The show was themed 'Girls Doing Boys' and featured the three ladies doing a set of songs by the legendary Zimbabwean township music groups, Mbare Trio and Cool Crooners.

With one of the boys. Three Generations invite Friday Mbirimi of the Mbare Trio onto stage. FUNGAIFOTO | FF&A PHOTOGRAPHY

Three Generations is made up od three artists who have made it in their own right; Dudu Manhenga, Clare Njyakujara and Uza Manhenga. They say being in the group allows them to break out of their typecast performances as solo artist and 'just get crazy'.

There was a change of outfits for the Cool Crooners set.FUNGAIFOTO | FF&A PHOTOGRAPHY

Three Generations has another show at the Book Café on Saturday, September 21, where the theme will be 'Girls Bands Bang'. After that they head to Intwasa Arts Festival in Bulawayo for a performance on September 26.

DIVAS Light Up the Book Cafe - The Herald

Tawanda Ngena Arts Correspondent

WHAT do you get when you put three extremely talented divas on one stage and their names happen to be Dudu Manhenga, Clare Nyakujara and Uzanele? The answer is — fireworks!

The three are members of a collaborative outfit called Three Generations and regularly play together when they are not with their respective bands.

On Thursday, the trio was at the Book Café as they kicked off this year’s celebrations of International Women’s Day with song and dance.

“Tonight we are here to celebrate International Women’s Day. The UN theme for International Women’s Day 2013 is ‘A promise is a promise: Time for action to end violence against women’”, she told the audience and challenged the menfolk to deliver on their promises to love, care and cherish their spouses, “not just on Women’s Day, but throughout the year,” to cheers from the female revellers.  But she was not finished yet. “In fact, I think everyday should be declared Women’s Day,” the afro-jazz singer said.

The trio went on to perform tracks from their albums, with Dudu leading the way with her own version of “The Click Song” and Miriam Makeba’s “Pata Pata” as well as various tracks from her three albums to date “Out of the Blue”, “Jula” and “Towards Alignment”.

Nyakujara, who is fast making strides in afro-jazz music, weighed in with “Zvandaona” and the ever popular “Famba Neni” taken off her second album “Unleashed”.

Dudu Manhenga (32) is the “big sister” of the Three Generations, thanks to her vast experience dating back to the time when she was a 16-year-old growing up in Bulawayo.  She also is also the elder sister to Uzanele, the “baby” of the Three Generations.  “Uza”, as she is affectionately known, has performed on various international tours with Dudu. She has also performed alongside some of Zimbabwe’s top jazz musicians, including Mbare Trio, Bob Nyabinde and The Cool Crooners.
During Thursday’s show she performed one of the plug tracks from her upcoming album. Titled “Nginje”, the song is a didactic, jazzy piece in which she encourages people to take responsibility for their personal flaws rather than shift the blame onto others.


“The meaning behind ‘Nginje’ is that ‘I am’ because of the decisions and choices I have made not because of other people,” explained Uzanele.  She added that some of the problems people go through in life are a result of the personal choices they made in the past.


The much-travelled Dudu, Clare and Uza brought the roof down with a breathtaking performance that included a segment titled “Good Girl Meets Bad Girl”, a tribute to two of Mzansi’s biggest music talents Yvonne Chaka Chaka and Brenda Fassie.


No prizes for guessing who the “bad girl” was. It was, of course, “MaBrenda” whose music career and life ended tragically in May 2004 reportedly from a drug overdose.  But the controversies surrounding her life were temporarily forgotten on Thursday night as Dudu and company remembered her with renditions of some her popular hits such as “Weekend Special”, “Vulindlela”, “It’s Good to Be With People”, among others.  “Good Girl” Chaka Chaka, a UN Goodwill Ambassador, was also honoured through such hits as “Umqomboti”, “Let Him Go” and “I’m Burning Up”.

THR3E G3N3RATIONS - THE BEGINNING