Sunday, 23 August 2026

Chantal Willie Peterson said listening underpins her PhD research into the last 10 years of apartheid, focusing on how women composers were heard, archived and understood in jazz studies.

She described bass as a place of grief and renewal after Andre’s death, saying picking up the instrument again became about honesty, service, and making her craft count for her daughter and community.

A listener vote-off pitted Busi Mhlongo’s stripped-back 1999 acapella version of Okam from Urban Zulu against Naledi’s newer arrangement; responses were split, with many backing Mhlongo’s raw power and cultural weight.

The show foregrounded women’s jazz history with Sarah Vaughan, Dorothy Masuka, Sylvia Mdunyelwa, Calablé and Terry Lynn Carrington, and noted Chantal’s upcoming all-women bassist project at Standard Bank Joy of Jazz.