Abel’s Jazz Takeover

When you listen to a performance by South African cellist Abel Selaocoe it is clear that you are listening to the product of years of classical discipline. Yet this precision is contrasted with the subtle accompaniment style of the string traditions of Africa, perhaps evoking the Malian ngoni master Bazumana Sissoko singing to the punctuated rhythms of the deep-throated jeli ngoni instrument. And then – just when you think you’re listening to a singer cradled by the loving embrace of his instrument married with a virtuoso who can evoke the very depths of the instrument – out of nowhere emerges the throat singing of the Xhosa tradition of the Eastern Cape. How these seeming contradictions could collide not only in one musician, but in one musical composition, is the tantalising life story of Abel Selaocoe.

Abel was born in Sebokeng, a township that he describes as having ‘so much art and liveliness, where people create things out of nothing’. He started playing cello in Soweto in an outreach programme for classical players; classical music was what he and his friends were into, what they discussed and what they lived as their musical culture.  

Abel’s first exposure to playing outside of South Africa was in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, as a participant at the Britten–Pears Young Artist Programme, followed by studies in classical cello at Manchester’s Royal Northern College of Music from 2010 to 2018. 

It was during his two years of the Master’s programme, focusing for the first time on learning improvisation, that his ‘body started to remember the rhythm of African music’.  Aided by his meeting with Sidiki Dembélé, a multi-instrumentalist griot from Ivory Coast, this recollection led to the formation of their trio Chesaba, joined by bass player Alan Keary. 

Reflecting on his journeys between Africa and England, classical music and improvisation, solo and ensemble playing, Abel says: ‘We need to be ready to change our costumes, to change how we listen … be ready for heads to change.’

For Abel the force that connects these worlds is rhythm; this is the unifying force between Haydn, Britten and the many musics of Africa, musics that Abel could now rediscover through the work of Toumani Diabaté, Hugh Masekela, Baaba Maal and others, heard in the concert halls of Manchester. This was an environment to feed off, an environment to reflect on and to learn from.

This rhythmic thread, traveling through classical cello to the music of his home, also returns to the solo cello suites of J. S. Bach, who, Abel says, ‘taught me how you can be everything as a single line, makes you realise you don’t need anybody else – you can be self-sufficient – because it’s all in the imagination anyway’.

Abel talks a lot about imagination. He learnt to sing overtones (separating the ‘fundamental’ pitch from its constituent harmonics) by realising that the harmonic series exists everywhere, that ‘the more I heard it the more everyone heard it’.  This was a tool to expand his voice as a solo cellist, to get the audience to ‘imagine the bass while you do other things, to include imagination and illusion in your playing, which is the hallmark of solo instrumental music’. 

Abel now calls the Peak District his home, where he continues to develop this conversation between the diverse worlds that make him the unique musician he is today. 

^{Introduction © Derek GripperDerek Gripper is a guitarist from South Africa known for his translations of West African kora music to guitar.}

You play and sing, you perform classical and African music and you improvise. How did you come to have these varied talents?

For me, coming from a township in South Africa, music started without instruments. There were lots of songs, lots of storytelling, and all this was part and parcel of our growing up.

When it comes to classical music and African music merging in the same space, that was very much part of our DNA, because my whole family have always been singing in four-part harmony. That takes us back to colonial times and the missionaries. So, when I went to study classical music aged 9 or 10, it didn’t feel foreign. The singing connected the two worlds. I’ve always been singing and, in a way, anything that we play is a translation of our singing.

What access to music did you have?

My brother is a bassoonist and together we used to go to a music school in Soweto, but we couldn’t afford to buy sheet music. So any music we found that had a bass clef on it, we’d read and we’d learn it – whether it was originally for the tuba or whatever.

We’d also record classical pieces from the radio – like a Haydn cello concerto – and I would learn that by ear. It sometimes felt like, if I wanted to learn another piece, I’d have to wait until I could hear it first on the radio. It’s a completely different approach.

Does one type of music-making influence any other in your performances?

I try to better my learning process for classical music with the influence of the oral tradition as well as of African music. A lot of the time we learn things orally, and it’s quite inspiring to translate that freedom to classical music. That’s very important for me.

How easy is it to collaborate with musicians from different musical backgrounds – jazz, classical, improvisation?

I just like to put myself in front of opportunities where good music is happening. And so it’s my responsibility to decide whether I can fit in there. I find that I can fit in with quartet players, with orchestral players, with jazz musicians and with improvising musicians.

I’ve tried to make it part of my practice to fit into these different worlds. I try to listen to and assimilate music from whichever time or genre. And the classical music learning from my early years helps bring it all together.

What recent projects have been especially interesting for you?

Last year, also for the London Jazz Festival, I played with the Art Ensemble of Chicago. These are the great pioneers of avant-garde jazz from the 1960s. I think they threw me in there as a punt but, for me, it really changed my life.

This was different to anything I’d done before because here there were no systems, and I found that really inspiring. The approach was more to just listen and see where that gets you, and exercise your opinion on how to make it good. That was really eye-opening. And to play with musicians of the calibre of the saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell and drummer Famoudou Don Moye – that was amazing.

Also, I guested with Tim Garland’s trio. This was a different jazz language that I was trying to learn at the time, so I was very inspired by that. And the way of music-making was inspiring: the performance was different every night that we played.

What’s the balance between fitting into the group and having your own influence?

It is quite important for me to be to be strong in my musical character, even if I’m playing with musicians with great jazz credentials. But I have my own experiences of being an African musician and improviser. You have to remember that that’s why they called you, because you have a way of expressing yourself that nobody else has. And then we meet somewhere in the middle.

Tell us about this programme you’ve put together for tonight’s London Jazz Festival concert.

In a sense I’m trying to create repertoire for the cello and also for the cello with orchestra, and to begin writing music influenced by pan-African music and also pan-African violins.

The stringed instruments of the African diaspora really inspire me. I wanted to explore playing a stringed instrument in a very rhythmic way, a way that African stringed instruments are played.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Somebody once said to me, when it comes to improvisation, you are never really wrong, but you’re always looking for a certain type of energy. So it’s not about playing the right notes at the right time. In terms of collaboration, it’s more about the people you’re playing with.