BOKANI MACHA
(solo piano)
Sunday 01 April 2007

I was in the toilet when Bokani phoned. That's always a little inconvenient. When I arrived at the hotel I had spotted this guy at the bar eating chips and drinking tea, and I had figured this to be Bokani. But I thought to let us find each other naturally. We found each other in the toilet. He was calling to say that he had arrived and that he was sitting at the bar eating chips.

This is only to say that Mr Macha is an organised man. He sent the invoice for the gig some weeks before the gig. Somebody else did that during the series, and then on the night of the performance left a critical cable at home that resulted in the performance not happening as desired. It's good to be ahead. It's not good to get ahead of yourself.

Bokani is ahead. The comments from the neighbouring table summed it up: “This was the best possible backdrop to our conversation, who is this guy?!” Bokani was nervous about playing solo, he's used to having a team with him. Yet he played beautifully. Watch our for this young man. He's a lovely player and composer.

This was the last gig of the series. And with the minidisk recorder out of commission we were unable to record this.