If you were driving past in your car, you would have got to see a jazz performance from the comfort of your seat. As motorists got closer to the jazz billboard, they were directed to tune into a specially opened frequency – 100.0Mhz. Once tuned in, they were greeted with the sweet melodies of jazz from the live performance of the jazz band on the billboard.
The two-hour live gig featured some of the best young jazz musicians in South Africa who make up the 2016 Standard Bank National Youth Jazz Band. They were conducted by celebrated bass guitarist Concord Nkabinde.
If you don’t happen to live in Johannesburg or drive that route, you were able to watch a live stream of the performance at
www.standardbankarts.co.za or
www.702.co.za. A live audio stream was also available on the 702 app. This was the very first live stream performance of a band on a billboard in South Africa.
The 8-piece band was selected from hundreds of jazz musicians from around the country at this year’s Standard Bank
National Youth Jazz Festival in Grahamstown. Previous alumni of the Standard Bank National Youth Jazz Band include internationally acclaimed drummer Kesivan Naidoo, and Matthew Field from Beatenberg amongst others.
The live jazz billboard marked the start of the countdown to the country’s premier jazz event -the Standard Bank
Joy of Jazz, which features more than 20 artists from across the world and takes place over three days in Sandton from Thursday, 24 to Saturday, 26 September.
Commenting on the first living jazz billboard Jenny Pheiffer, head of Group Sponsorships at Standard Bank said, “The billboard reinforces our campaign idea “The closer you are, the more you feel” which drives the fact that music is better when experienced live. The live billboard is a creative way of bringing live music to unexpected places.”