Cape Town International Jazz Festival 2025: A Sacred Gathering of Sound, Memory and Spirit

It’s been a week since the final note rang out beneath red lights and ancestral drumbeats at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival 2025, but the feeling hasn’t left.

This was no ordinary weekend. No fleeting Instagram highlight. What unfolded at the Cape Town International Convention Centre was not just a music festival—it was a sacred gathering. A communal remembering. A soulful reckoning.

A People’s Prelude

The festival opened its arms on Thursday evening with the beloved People’s Concert at Greenmarket Square. The warmth was instant, familiar. Hugs replaced handshakes. Conversations flowed like melodies. British acid jazz pioneers Incognito lit up the stage, their performance threading nostalgia with groove, setting the pulse for the days to come.

Friday: Voices That Healed and Challenged

Friday night shimmered with light and depth. Inside the CTICC, Lira gifted the audience more than music. She offered affirmation, healing, and joy. Hits like “Feel Good” were more than songs—they were permission slips to feel alive again. When she sang “Let There Be Light”, it was less of a lyric and more of an invocation.

Over at Manenberg, the Ramon Alexander Trio wrapped the crowd in ghoema rhythms, evoking memories of Sunday afternoons on the Flats, mosque calls, and steaming pots in Cape homes. Their set was Cape Town—unfiltered, rooted, and real.

Then, Nubya Garcia transformed the Kippies stage into a spiritual plane. With a saxophone as her weapon, she played not to please but to awaken. Her sound carried diasporic defiance, ancestral mourning, and cosmic reach. It wasn’t entertainment. It was testimony.

Malcolm Jiyane Tree-O followed with a raw, unflinching performance that confronted rather than consoled. His experimental jazz moaned with grief and rage, summoning ghosts with each haunting note. “No More” wasn’t a track—it was protest, pain, and prophetic warning rolled into one.

The Kyle Shepherd Trio closed the night on the Rosies stage with sacred stillness. Shepherd’s unconventional piano playing—plucking strings with bare hands—transcended technique. It was a language of silence, space, and memory. His music held ancestral echoes and future dreams in tension.

Saturday: Spirit, Resistance and Radical Joy

Saturday brought healing in rhythm. DJ Masoodah turned vinyl into ceremony, blending jazz with street soul and spirit. Her set reclaimed space for Black, Brown, Queer and Woman energies—reminding all that jazz belongs as much to the streets as to the stage.

When Thandiswa Mazwai took to the stage, the festival shifted again. This was not a show. It was a ritual. She wore her beadwork like armour and her lyrics like sacred scripture. With “Nizalwa Ngobani?” she called us to remembrance. With “Amanz’ Amanzi”, she mourned stolen futures. Her entire set was a spiritual awakening, a political statement, and a deeply African reckoning.

Later, under quieter skies, Bongisiwe Mabandla reminded us of the beauty in softness. His whisper-like vocals, wrapped in isiXhosa, carried both veld solitude and urban spirituality. From “Zange” to “Ndiyakuthanda”, he didn’t just sing—he blessed.

Sunday: A Celebration and a Farewell

The final day was a celebration of memory and movement. With thousands in attendance from across the globe, the CTIJF felt like the heart of Cape Town had opened wide. TKZee brought explosive energy, igniting the crowd with nostalgic kwaito hits that reminded us of where we’ve come from—and how far we still dream to go.

More Than a Festival, a Lifeline

This year’s Cape Town International Jazz Festival wasn’t about big names or flashy moments. It was about collective remembering. About joy as resistance. Pain as truth. Music as medicine.

Through every note and nuance, we were reminded of who we are:

• A people of rhythm and resilience.
• A community that remembers through sound.
• A city that sings its own story, again and again.

Gratitude for the Vision

A heartfelt thanks to Dr. Iqbal Survé and the Survé family, whose unwavering support helped birth this moment. CTIJF 2025 wasn’t just funded—it was nurtured. Their belief in African stories, in South African talent, made it all possible.

Until We Gather Again

As we await March 2026, we carry this year’s melodies within us. We left the Cape Town International Jazz Festival not with wristbands or playlists, but with hearts reawakened and hopes recharged.

We danced, we cried, we remembered.

And next year, we’ll return.

Not just to hear music—but to become it.