#HIFA “Non, rien de rien…” the haunting start to Eve Kawadza’s show, a tribute to Edith Piaf and Ella Fitzgerald. Eve Kawadza and her talented jazz band thrilled the packed NMB Recital Room with their soaring sounds, scat solos, and busy jazz lines providing an African interpretation of classics by Piaf and Fitzgerald.
The pace picked up as Kawadza moved seamlessly into the second song, Fitzgerald’s this time, “It don’t mean a thing,” with running double bass, fast conga beats, followed by the piano and sax.
The lovely Eve, with a voice to match her beautiful outfits, took us through an enjoyable set that showed not only the range of the two talented songstresses, but also the scope of Eve’s talent and her ability to give new life and joie de vivre to these songs.
Having asked the band to compete with each other to echo improvised melodies, Eve gave the award to the audience for their impressively accurate response to her calls. Eve was backed by an accomplished team of musicians including Filbert Marova on piano, Othnell ‘Mangoma’ Moyo on percussion, Mats Bengtsson on sax, and Tafadzwa Marova on double bass.
It was great to see so many families in the audience, supporting the arts on a Sunday afternoon, and at one particularly quiet moment in Fitzgerald’s Misty, it seemed like there was a call and response going on amongst the youngest members of the audience!
A beautiful show that hit all the right notes and provided us with a relaxing unwind at the end of HIFA 2014.