

Jazz star Erik Smith in town
Norwegian based jazz star Erik Smith is in town for Jazz and Beats concert at Golf Course Hotel this Friday 27th May 2016. The star will perform alongside other jazz maestros Brian Mugenyi, Joseph Hellon and Banana Zorro. The star will tonight hold his Drum Clinic at Liquid Silk, Village Mall in Bugolobi.


Erik Smith is in town
Artists’ profiles
Erik Smith
From his base in Oslo, Norway, he works in all imaginable genres of music, from jazz via big band to fusion, pop and rock. Erik has worked with many well-known artists, including Michael Bolton, Art Garfunkel, Neil Sedaka, Donna Summer and Randy Crawford, in addition to most artists and entertainers on the Scandinavian scene. In the jazz idiom,
Erik has provided the groove for among others, Frank Gambale, Bobby Shew, Andy Sheppard, Eddie Daniels, Phil Woods, Putte Wickman, Ed Palermo, Django Bates, Bob Mintzer, DeeDee Bridgewater and Gerald Wilson. He is the main guest of the tour.
Brian Mugenyi

Brian is an accomplished young musician, composer, singer/ songwriter, revered as Africa’s finest Saxophonist. He has worked and shared stages with numerous artists and musicians in their own rights across a diversity of genres of Pop, RNB, Afro-Soul, Hip Hop and Jazz, with the likes of Richard Bona, a guest act during the prestigious Safaricom Jazz Festival in Nairobi (2014), Phil Denny during Jazz under the stars (2013), a jam session at Red Monkey Jambiani with Blitz Ambassador (2015), Ugandan songstress Juliana Kanyomozi, Damian Soul, Good Lyfe and Zimbabwe’s Alexio Kawara among many others. Brian Mugenyi is currently writing a movie scroll for a Belgium film maker Kjell Clarysse for his feature film Papi. He released a Brand new single titled, “Dawn” in 2016 on which he has created from a variety of styles ranging from the 80s Funk and soul to the latest electronic dance music and Neo-soul. He has also collaborated with some of the top East African artists.


Brian Mugenyi
Jazz and Beats Tour powered by Afrost Events (www.afrost.events) is an annual event featuring acclaimed jazz artists, percussionists and instrumentalists, with an international headline artist and DJs in each country toured. The tour is held in two sessions: instrumental training and evening musical concerts.
It attracts an enthusiastic fan base with a chance to qualify for an intense drumming competition. The winner gets a chance to perform with the guest artist at the evening concert as well as record a song with local artists, among various goodies.
Tanzania -20th May -23rd May 2016
Uganda- 24th May -28th May 2016
Kenya- 30th May- 4th June 2016
Jazz is a music genre that originated from African American communities of New Orleans in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It emerged in the form of independent traditional and popular musical styles, all linked by the common bonds of African American and European American musical parentage with a performance orientation.
Jazz spans a period of over a hundred years, encompassing a very wide range of music, making it difficult to define. Jazz makes heavy use of improvisation, polyrhythm’s, syncopation and the swing note, as well as aspects of European harmony, American popular music, the brass band tradition, and African musical elements such as blue notes and African-American styles such as ragtime.
Although the foundation of jazz is deeply rooted within the black experience of the United States, different cultures have contributed their own experience and styles to the art form as well. Intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as “one of America’s original art forms.