Asher Gamedze
Asher Gamedze is a cultural worker based in Cape Town, South Africa, involved in music, education and history. As an independent musician he works as a drummer, composer and bandleader. A versatile drummer with an open sound and sensibility, Gamedze plays across and between multiple traditions of music including free improvisation, soul music, rock ‘n roll, and many locally situated traditions from Southern Africa. He has performed extensively in South Africa and other parts of the African continent including Egypt, Lesotho and Malawi. Gamedze has been on multiple European tours and has also played in the USA, particularly in Chicago where he has a big community.
Gamedze’s debut record as a bandleader, Dialectic Soul, was released to critical acclaim in 2020. The record received a rating of 8.0 from Pitchfork, was ranked in the New York Times’ Top Ten Jazz Albums of the Year and won ‘Best Traditional Jazz Album’ at the Mzantsi Jazz Awards. His second release, Out Side Work, consisting of two improvised duets with saxophone players Alan Bishop and Xristian Espinoza, came out in April 2022. He toured that record with reedman Xristian Espinoza in Europe in September 2022 and, in November 2022, toured Dialectic Soul, playing venues and festivals such as Jazzfest Berlin, Le Guess Who? and Flagey.
Gamedze’s International Anthem debut, Turbulence and Pulse, was released in early 2023 and featured his quartet of Robin Fassie (trumpet), Buddy Wells (tenor saxophone), and Thembinkosi Mavimbela (double bass), as well as vocalist Julian ‘Deacon’ Otis. It received 4.5 stars and a rave review from All Music: “at once remarkably adventurous and profoundly accessible.
“One of the ideas that I’ve had for a long time is to unsettle the way that people think aboutculture as something static or as something fixed. There’s this tension in Africa, because of the way that the colonists have constructed visions of African culture, where people speak about this need to conserve culture and document it. I think that’s important, but you also have to understand that these things are moving. And we are the people who have to participate in that movement.”
– Asher Gamedze
Now Available
Turbulence & Pulse
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