Vuma Levin Quintet & AM.OK

South African jazz promise presents new album with the strings and horns of AM.OK.

The South African guitarist, composer and thinker Vuma Levin created his new album together with the Amsterdam ensemble AM.OK conducted by Tijn Wybenga. On The Past Is Unpredictable, Only the Future Is Certain (DOX Records) Levin reflects on our shared history and collective memories, inspired by the events in Johannesburg during the first lockdown. Experience a journey through the rural areas and hinterlands of the Eastern Cape and Kwazulu Natal, the townships of Soweto and Khayelitsha, through the filter of contemporary jazz musicians from Amsterdam.

Through his music, Levin references the influence of those in power on the writing of our shared stories. He concludes that it is only in interrogating these stories that we may begin to address imbalances in power. Using traditional indigenous musical traditions as a starting point, Levin explores these stories in a search for a new, equal working method together with arranger Tijn Wybenga, a former new maker of the BIMHUIS Production House. They fuse the musical history of the Global North and South into new music for Levin’s jazz quintet, augmented by the strings and horns of AM.OK.

Vuma Levin Quintet
Vuma Levin composer/vocals/guitar, Bernard van Rossum tenor sax, Xavi Torres piano, Marco Zenini bas, Jeroen Batterink drums

AM.OK
Tijn Wybenga conductor/arranger, Alistair Payne trumpet, Nabou Claerhout trombone, Federico Calcagno bass clarinet, Pablo Rodriguez violin, Yanna Pelser viola, George Dumitriu viola, Pau Sola cello

Special guest
Vernon Chatlein percussion