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Shaun Johannes

My musical career started in late 1996 when I started teaching myself how to play piano and to read music notation. My development on the bass guitar started in 1999. My first ever musical performance on piano was at my high school’s music evening in 1997. I continued to perform at school where I led the singing of hymns at the morning assemblies. I also played extensively for my church at church services where I would play for the Sunday school and on occasion the normal congregation in the event that the organist was late or absent.

My first public performance outside of school was with my piano teacher George Werner and trumpeter Reginald ‘Blackie’ Tempi at the Cavendish Square Mall at some coffee bar in the centre. I went on to gig with George Werner at various weddings and restaurants to gain experience. In order to do some networking to spread my name around town, I would be George’s roadie and set up his equipment in order to just watch and meet some of the artists that he performed with. One artist that I struck up a relationship with was sax player Ezra Ncgukana. I was asked by George and Ezra to become a founder member of a township music group called the Little Giants. The band was established to showcase the talented young musicians that are abundant in the Cape Flats. I originally joined as the pianist but later became the bassist. The only problem was that I had only been playing bass for 3-6 months. My first big performance in my musical career was at the 1999 Jazzathon jazz festival that was held at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, Cape Town. I was very nervous and to top it all off one of my newly formed blisters from practicing bust open and I started playing with bleeding fingers!

The Little Giants went on to perform at numerous gigs throughout Cape Town. In this time I honed my skills for arranging, composing and sound engineering in performances with this band. The Little Giants decided to attend the Standard Bank National Youth Jazz Festival in Grahamstown in 2001. I went through the rigorous audition process and was selected for the newly established South African National Youth Jazz Band (NYJB) which was established to showcase the best students between the ages of 18 and 26 who attended the festival. It was conducted by Marc Duby and we went on to perform at the most prestigious music festivals in South Africa like the Joy of Jazz (Johannesburg) and Awesome Africa (Durban).

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Tags

Primary Instrument

Bass

Location

Cape Town

Willing to teach

Intermediate to advanced

Credentials/Background

Taught at The Jazz Workshop, The University of Cape Town, the University of Stellenbosch, Xulon Music Tech & privately. Rate of R200 for 50min lesson

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