Standard Bank Jazz Festival producer Alan Webster is the man with the velvet voice who introduces the jazz programme at DSG and the passion for his subject – and students at Stirling High School in East London, where he teaches – is legend.
Alan is also the director of the Standard Bank National Youth Jazz Festival, which means he gets the chance to give youngsters a slot on the same stage as top international acts.
In his words:
FIVE WORDS THAT SUM UP YOUR JOB
Stimulating, exhausting, fulfilling, frustrating, exciting.
TOUGHEST PART OF THE JOB
Turning people away who really deserve to be in Grahamstown! Every year we have an enormous number of musicians apply to perform at the Standard Bank Jazz Festival and we can only feature a small percentage of them. – there could be so much more music!
We also have hundreds of students applying to attend the Standard Bank National Youth Jazz Festival and we have to turn away almost half of them because of logistical constraints.
We know that being in Grahamstown changes lives and therefore we thus truly feel for everyone who is not able to be there.
WEIRDEST REQUEST EVER
Every year we get unusual requests from musicians, especially if master bassist and composer Carlo Mombelli is playing.
This year it’s a typewriter and a full orchestral marimba, neither of which are easy to source in the Eastern Cape!
BEST PART OF YOUR FESTIVAL DAY
We spend 18 months preparing for the festival and working most days of the year on the detailed planning of everything, so when it arrives, it’s a real pleasure to see all of the planning manifesting as it should.
So I tend to enjoy the most of each festival day, especially with the strength of the team we have implementing it.
But, of course I also love jazz, so listening to snippets of these world-class players a couple of times a day is a really cool job.
MOST MEMORABLE MUSICIAN OR SHOW
I’ve been attending the NAF since 1988, and have brought students to the Standard Bank National Youth Jazz Festival for 24 years, so I have seen an enormous amount of impressive art.
But my personal favourite was the sense of triumph in 2014 to be able to present Maria Schneider, one of the world’s best composers and conductors, on a school stage in a little town in the Eastern Cape.
I stood tearfully at the side of the stage with my daughter, watching a South African and Norwegian band playing the most exquisite music to a hall full of entranced jazz lovers.
As I said, quite a cool job!