Music that matters: homegrown jazz has the power to spearhead social change

'Freedom Blues - A Documentation of Jazz Appreciation as a Cultural Practice.' That is what Muntu Vilakazi called the masters dissertation for his fine arts course at the University of the Witwatersrand.

"At the comparatively tender age of 27, I was by far the youngest member of the Jazz Workshop Club in the year 2000, and I wanted to know so much more about the genre," he says.

"I wanted to know why the guys I hung around with showcased mostly American tracks, why the literature around jazz is mostly by white folks, and I wanted to archive the changing trends in jazz clubs.

"In the '70s, music was on vinyl and jazz clubs would gather regularly and one person's collection would be dissected for hours. As these tended to stretch over an entire day, entire albums from a jazz club member's collection would be listened to. As times changed and compact discs became the norm for digital music, clubs also adapted.

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"They no longer listened to entire albums but would use the 'skip' button a lot. You would think that this meant they were not entirely happy with all the songs of a particular album, but this was not the case at all. CDs meant that they could offer a much more varied playlist, including more artists," he says.

In his 5,000-word dissertation, Vilakazi writes that "jazz appreciation and collection is a colourful but shrinking culture in a democratic South Africa".

Are there any efforts to win over Generation Z?

"I am tracing South African jazz's earlier influences, with the aim of bringing on record what history almost forgot," he says.

"There are far [fewer] clubs these days and it is up to individuals to ensure that the practice goes on. I can tell you that my 10-year-old son's favourite songs are jazz, and I am trying to pass this wonderful music on to him. Lately, he cannot get enough of Nomfundo Xaluva's track Ithemba Lami. He dances to that song on his hover-board," he says, laughing.

block_quotes_start Jazz brings hope, encouragement and warmth to the most hopeless parts of society           block_quotes_end

Just over halfway into reading his dissertation, it becomes clear that jazz is so much more than just another genre. It is more than just a collection of notes, an appreciation of albums and a "pounce of jazz cats". (Apparently the collective noun for cats - which is how jazz lovers still refer to themselves - is a pounce.)

"Jazz brings hope, encouragement and warmth to the most hopeless parts of society," Vilakazi says.

"In his jam We Shall Overcome, Louis Armstrong used jazz to uplift an oppressed people and there are a whole lot more South African jazz artists who did the same. Bassist Johnny Dyani and his jazz sextet the Blue Notes wrote politically charged songs about South Africa's fight for freedom, such as Blame It On The Boers, and made references to Steve Biko. Today, decolonisation is one of the most topical topics on young people's minds, and jazz can help with this."

Vilakazi writes in his dissertation about "the burning issues" that he fears are threatening jazz. For example, "the patriarchal arrangement of many clubs, at a time when many formations acknowledge, celebrate and bring to the fore the importance of [female] leadership, gender equality and representation".

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Does he think that the future of jazz might also depend on women getting with the programme?

"Jazz will never shy away from [contemporary] issues and equality is what we are facing now. We need not only the young, but women as well, if the culture will be perpetuated."

Vilakazi's dissertation focuses on the importance of homegrown jazz. To quote one of the closing paragraphs: "Former president Thabo Mbeki reiterates a stance articulated over 100 years ago by Tiyo Soga," the journalist, minister, translator, missionary, and composer of hymns who was the first black South African to be ordained.

"He insisted that for us, as Africans, correctly to address our historic tasks, we had an absolute obligation to ourselves to discover the truth for ourselves and about ourselves."

•The Cape Town International Jazz Festival is on from March 31-April 1. Book at Computicket.