Kyle Shepherd’s sweet dance

In  his 25 years as a professional musician, Cape Town-based pianist Kyle Shepherd has managed to shed early comparisons to Abdullah Ibrahim, as well as attempts to label him a “Cape Jazz artist”. Instead, he has carved out a corner of his own — and a playing style that sets him apart from the rest.

Yet it’s been a decade since the Kyle Shepherd Trio, with Shane Cooper on double bass and Jonno Sweetman on drums, hit the studio. Dream State, released in 2014, was a double disk of far-flung compositions, astounding and fresh to the ear upon every listen. Songs like “Re-Invention/Johannesburg” and “Transcendence” demonstrate his heightened sense of melody, while others, such as “Xamissa”, exhibit the goema sound he’s explored on albums such as South African History !X, whose underlying theme is a homage to the Khoi and the San. 

The trio’s new album, A Sweet Dance More Sweetly Played, out now on Matsuli Music, eschews the conceptual nature of his earlier work. The cats just wanted to play, and play they do. Over 12 songs, we’re treated to a kaleidoscope of sounds, an expedition into the higher frequencies of imagination and creativity. “Teardrop” re-works the Massive Attack classic; “For Oumou Sangaré” pays tribute not only to the beloved Malian queen of song but also to the West African vocal tradition in general, something Shepherd says he studies and pays attention to; and “Don’t Stop Believing” is a self-love mantra that picks up from where “Re-Invention/Johannesburg” left off and takes flight. The music is as haunting as it is beautiful, a testament to the well-oiled machine that the trio is. The camaraderie bleeds through into the music, and the listener’s all the better for it. 

Our conversation with Shepherd happens after a couple of false starts. He’s been busy tying up loose ends and planning for the year ahead. When we speak on the phone, it’s after a day of him pitching for a film score. Film scoring is what has been keeping him busy over the years — alongside doing work with the Swiss-South African outfit Skyjack and playing the occasional gig with cats like Benjamin Jephta. 

While he was not interested in film scoring at first, Daryne Joshua, the director of Noem My Skollie, persevered until he decided to give it a try.

This was how Shepherd discovered a natural flair for film scoring, and he has since worked on titles such as Fiela se Kind, Savage Beauty, Blood & Water, and Barakat. 

“It’s something I enjoy. It’s a nice contrast to the jazz world, in the same way that the jazz world is a contrast to the film world. It’s a great way to improvise when I’m playing jazz, but the film stuff is also enjoyable. I’m quite happy with the balance between the two,” he says. 

The new album happened as a matter of necessity.

“I really needed to do it. I’ve not written music for the trio in quite a few years, and I got to the point where I was like, okay, I need to do this now. I’m so glad that we followed through, [that] Shane and Jonno were open and up for it,” Shepherd says. 

He first met Cooper and Sweetman at a gig at a pizza parlour around 2007/2008 when they were all living in Cape Town. Those were the years when the city — and the rest of the country — had a vibrant live-music scene in which musicians could earn a living. Venues such as The Mahogany and The Orbit would be filled to the brim nightly with patrons hungry for live music. 

We discuss how the improvised music scene has changed over the years. Shepherd is quick to give props to his generation of musicians — Bokani Dyer, Sisonke Xonti, Nduduzo Makhathini and others. He says that they were deliberate about infusing South African sounds into a genre that is, for all intents and purposes, a US invention. 

“It’s so rooted in South Africa but, at the same time, it’s so global and of international quality. That’s why cats go around the world playing this music now. We can sit on any stage now. It’s become a lot more sophisticated,” says Shepherd.

While more people are getting hip to the sound, the lack of dedicated live-music venues does something to the communal spirit of jazz — a music practically invented in places where people gather. This community is often crucial to the development of the music. 

The songs for A Dance More Sweetly Played were composed back in February, in-between film-scoring projects. The trio hit the studio in May and launched the album in Joburg in the first week of December. The title is a play on one of William Kentridge’s works, More Sweetly Play The Dance. Shepherd has been working with the acclaimed artist for several years and told him it’s been ringing in his head. 

“He changed the words and WhatsApped me back in 10 minutes like, okay, this is the title. I like the title, it’s poetic. In a sense, it speaks to the vibe of the album because the music is not overly complex, it’s got a bounce to it,” says Shepherd.