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Mac McKenzie
Hailed as the unofficial ‘composer laureate’ of Cape Town, Gerald ‘Mac’ McKenzie is a jazz guitarist par excellence and a long-standing luminary of the musical movement known as ‘goema’. Having toured internationally in the eighties with his band The Genuines, the Bridgetown resident has recently burst back onto the scene in the New South Africa as frontman of all-star jazz/goema outfit The Goema Captains of Cape Town.
As quintessentially Cape as smoorsnoek and korrelkonfyt, goema bears the mark of just about every culture that ever dropped anchor in Table Bay. With Malay, English, Dutch, Congolese, and Mozambican influences, as well as a generous helping of American jazz, the style’s oldest tributaries stretch some 40, 000 years into Cape history, harking back to the rhythms of South Africa’s indigenous nations, the Khoi and San.
Most recognisably, it is the music of the ‘Cape Minstrels’ (formerly the Kaapse Klopse or ‘Cape Coons’), whose annual New Year’s carnival parade is itself a tradition of almost 200 years standing.
As such, one could say that goema runs in the McKenzie blood. Mac’s father, ‘Mr. Mac’, was a leading light in the carnival scene of the fifties. A tireless performer, bandleader, choir-leader, and carnival-troupe coach, the great banjo player dedicated himself to bringing the goema beat out of the townships and into the city streets each January.
McKenzie fils was convinced that goema could find a wider public, with some tweaking and the right team. In the mid-80’s he joined forces with Hilton Schilder, Ian Herman and Gerard O’ Brien to bring the music to the stage and studio with their band The Genuines. The vibrant ‘goema rock’ outfit released five albums and wowed audiences across South Africa and Europe before parting ways in Amsterdam.
In 2002, after a long period spent in relative obscurity in the Cape’s underbelly, McKenzie finally re-emerged on the Cape jazz scene, back at the place where it all began: District Six.
Having reconnected with Abdullah Ibrahim’s old friend Vince Colbe, he became involved with the Composer’s Workshop at the District Six Museum. Along with old kindreds such as Hilton Schilder and trumpeter Alex van Heerden, Mac has become an indispensable force in the museum’s mission to preserve and develop the Cape’s unique and multifaceted musical legacy.
Now back on the performing circuit and at the top of his game, McKenzie is taking goema into the 21st century with his new band, The Goema Captains of Cape Town, which features a stellar lineup including saxophonist Robbie Jansen. Their debut album, Healing Destinations, is McKenzie’s first commercial release since the days of the Genuines, and the first to see him on lead guitar rather than bass.
Meet Hilton Schilder personally on the Cape Town Jazz Safari.
More articles on Cape Town Jazz:
The Custodians of Cape Jazz
Robbie Jansen
Hilton Schilder
Jazzing the 7 seas
One Jazz riff after another in Cape Town (New York Times)
