Rus Nerwich

Live in Buenos Aires

rus — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 07:53:38 +0000

Under The Poetree

rus — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:56:23 +0000

Under the Poetree is where you find real soul! This new musical offering is gonna have you groovin from beggining to end…..

Mantras 4 Modern Man

rus — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 20:53:39 +0000

Released on the 12th of August 2007, Mantras4ModernMan is a musical force, Comprising of some of South Africas most recognized and celebrated musicians, Mantras brings a unique mix of world music grooves, heartfelt melody and soul searching improvisations. Volume 2 “Live at the Armchair Theatre” will be released early October, taking the groove deeper and the search to new heights.

The Rus Nerwich Trio

rus — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 20:51:29 +0000

As Above So Below

rus — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 20:48:53 +0000

Beyond the Walls

rus — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 13:02:02 +0000

The Flannel slipper, the cabbage in a glad bag n the dribbling jew…..

rus — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 19:17:02 +0000

As if orchestrated by the divine conductor himself I walked down Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle at a little before 11.00 on the night of the 10th of of July, absolutely and completely exhausted, I had arrived in Paris at 4.30 pm, I was on my way to Spain and had stopped over for the night to see my dear friends David and Kristen, as well as meet the owner of a bar called ‘La Pomme de eve.”So after meeting with Prof Derek Lubner and his esteemed wife Janet and enjoying a scrumptious dinner, we headed briefly over to their hotel, I cant quite remember why, but there I was convinced to accept as a gift a pair of white hotel slippers, not wanting to be rude, I popped the slippers under my white and almost porno jacket and made my way to find the closest taxi. Dave and Kristen were having a party at their apartment, Having assured them I would join there party and be as quick as possible, I was already in breach of the generally accepted modus of behaviour when staying in the home of someone who is accommodating you, so I walked briskly toward Republique the area close to where they live.

Having only slept for 3 hours the night before and having spent the day on train after train, I was the kind of tired where dribbling in public becomes a imminent possibility. The kind of tired that brings on a nausea and hallucinations that are usually only induced by strains of mushrooms you mom never puts in your school sandwiches!I needed sleep and I needed it bad, I walked for another 5 minutes, there was a distinct shortage of taxis, n with a sweater, jacket and pack of slippers inside my jacket I was starting to sweat, not nice, having showered last in London the night before, I was beginning to find discomfort in my own company!N then I heard it, the wailing sound of a saxophone, the mysterious resonance of a vibraphone, the cool strut of a solid walking bass line and the pting ting ting of a drum that’s swinging, mmmm, a band, I continued for another couple of large Nerwich strides, n came to a place called Au Petit Duc, I walked inside and awkwardly positioned myself at the bar. Feeling very light headed and with a packet of slippers tucked into the inside of my jacket, I looked like a slim version of the marshmallow man that nearly took out the great Bill Murray in the early 90’s. There I stood, first priority, coffee, don’t dribble in public! After the coffee arrived getting rid of the friggin slippers was next on my agenda! How do you pull a pair of white slippers out of your jacket in a packed and quite sophisticated bar, without looking like some kind of crack addict on the run! Its tricky, so with Zen like execution, I whipped them out from under my jacket and dropped them under the! bar.Disposing of them induced a relief I can only compare to the moment I realised I wasn’t going to be incarcerated for my little misdemeanour at the Atlanta airport a few years ago.Now that I was trippin on caffeine and no longer sweating like a cabbage in a glad bag I could enjoy the music, it was not long before my head was bobbin and my feet were tappin, infectious is the only way I can describe it, not like the herpes, but as life changing, or so they say!I stayed for the rest of the set, and by the end of it, could think of nothing more exciting than playin a tune or two, free of my slippers I made my way to the bass player. Fortunately he was both approachable and spoke English, “ I would really dig to play brotha, my horn is at my friends place, but if its cool with you, ill get a cab, n go and pick it up, come back n have a blow, is that cool with you?”Unlike the spawn of Satan that frequent the Jam session at Ronnie Scott’s, he said “Sure”I rushed out n hailed a cab. Sitting in the cab I once again questioned my sanity, I was completely wipped out, barely keeping my eyes open, I was about to run into my hosts apartment at 12.30 and inform them that I was going back to play a tune with some cats I just met. The madness only compounded by the fact that I had to catch five trains to get to Vittoria in Spain, I would be leaving Paris at 5.30 in the morning and arriving in Spain at 12.30 the following night. All this considered I knew what I had to do.I made my way to up to Kris and Dave’s apartment, greeted all their guests and explained that I was going to play at a small club I had found on my way home. bizarre behaviour, even for a bunch of eccentric Frenchman, I received some strange looks, I grabbed my horn n scooted down the stairs and jumped back into my cab. 15 minutes later I arrived at the club and 20 minutes later I was singing sweet n lovely.The kind of magic that happens when one finds oneself in the company of great musicians, can only be experienced, words fail on every level, and the only way to relate is to listen to the document which is the recording.In this case there was none, but I did have a gig booked in Paris for the last week in September, I mentioned the date to them and given the natural synergy and musical chemistry that existed between us, they were excited at the possibility of playing together, 5 weeks later I arrived back in Paris, and without a rehearsal I met the musicians at La Pomme de eve, we spoke through the music and an hour later the concert started.It was pure magic, this time it was recorded, it might have been done with one microphone, straight to a laptop, but the magic is there to hear, and there to be shared, so if you made it to the end of this, and would like a taste let me know n ill lead you swiftly to the beginning of a musical rainbow.P.s i have recently posted some rather humorous videos and some pictures of the gig, so if you have a moment check them out, they good for a bit of a laugh.

Peace
Rus

John Koln Train and the day James Brown blew my cover!

rus — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:25:35 +0000

I had attempted at all costs to maintain my anonymity, it had been carefully thought through, executed in the last moments between packing the remenants of my belongings, strewn all over the car that was driven from Alabarracin in Spain to Koln in Germany, where I would get my train to Hamburg, my next destination and consuming the goodness Lukas, Ondra and I had purchased on our way through Holland hours earlier. I had all but managed to make myself invisible, ready to blend in, purchase my ticket and go on my merry way.

I replaced my very loud almost offensive Cousto sequined jersey with a safe dark blue sweater and my red espadrills with a pair of white trainers, glasses off and hair tamed, I entered the Koln train station. I made swift progress, the mission clear, I arrive in the ticket purchasing office, lugging around my Peklach (belongings) is no easy task, the regularity with which I get lost in large public places no laughing matter, the two together, a circus without a theme, onwards. I enter the ticket office and stand in line. An extraordinarily organised and efficient operation, no noise, everyone doing just as they should, shhh , don’t mention the war! I wait quietly, ever so often nudging my goods a little forward and ever so often bumping the Rasta in front of me, who as I could make out was speaking about some large marijuana purchase, I think at one point he caught onto my eves dropping and tried to go all covert, he used the word “this is confitidential mun’ unless that’s how you say confidential if you overstand

Anyways, there’s me, not minding my business, when I think about how much id like to hear some tunes, excited to play my phone, which on this epic journey had a virginal experience of receiving some blue tooth from Ondras blue tooth. I discover my ipod headphones wont fit into my phone, yet another reason to get an Iphone and so I go about the torturous task of trying to untangle my too long and unco operative cell phone head phones, that had spent the last 30 hours getting entangled in my pocket. I insert the phones put them on my ears, and he says it “Fellows im ready to get up n do my thing? I wanna get into it ya know! can i count it off, 1,2,3,4 ga doof doof doof doof doof doof doof doof , Oops ive got the left phone in the right ear n vice versa, goto change, so I put the wire out for mission stereo, and James Brown, at full volume and in one fowl swipe of the funk sword, blows my cover! Get on up, get on up, stay on the scene, get on up, like a sex machine, get on up, get on up like a sex machine! Having had accumulatively 20 hours of sleep over the last six days, my response time was less than sportly, in fact, it took a moment or two to realise that the innovative device from which the sound was coming, was in my hand, I quickly figured out how to turn it off, more difficult than one would like, another reason to get an iPhone, 25 minutes and a chiken Snitzel sandwich later, I was on the train, happily typing away…

Peace

Rus

The Golem, The Groove and The Gypsy

rus — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:36:56 +0000

Happy people, is life good?

I trust the answer is yes, on my side of the street its been sunny, in fact its been extremely hot, Prague has treated me very kindly, the last week opening my eyes and my heart, I sit here at my favourite little café in a neighbourhood called Letna, to have my last breakfast before heading of to play at a Jazz festival in Spain, and with the intention of sharing some of the magic of the last ten days, I arrived here with a completely open mind, one of the positive results of not paying much attention at school, I didn’t listen to what my teachers had to say bout things so I got to discover for myself, im feeling like it wasn’t such a bad thing after all, the down side of course was being held against a cupboard by my mom in standard 6, the second time round, after getting a G for a final maths exam, while she enquired “What the Fuck have you been doing at school the whole year?

It was the only time in my life I heard my mom say the “F” word, I do need to make a blanket apology now, as the spelling in this is likely to be pretty shocking, im typing this once through cos there aint no time for makin it pretty, but youll get the groove.

As I was saying I arrived in Prague last Tuesday, invited here by an extraordinary gentleman named Keith Jones, he had heard my Mantras4ModernMan album and invited me here to try and facilitate some concerts and festival performances for 2009, he had kindly organised me both a ride from the airport and a place to stay, this was to become home for 10days, its amazing how making a real mess of your room in a short period of time makes it homely, so advice for anyone living out of a suitcase, if you feeling a little scattered cos you don’t have that grounded this is my crib feeling, turn your bags upside down n scatter your shit all over the room, its a quick remedy, the cause can be dealt with when you return home, by any reasonably skilled Jungian analyst, any ways this place is fantastic, its run by a very sweet lady, whose name I don’t know cos we cant really talk to each other, as I don’t know Czech n she doesn’t know English, She took me up to my room, which we have earlier established was being taken over by a vicious mould, taken care of by burning copious amounts of incense, but that’s been covered, the joint cost 40 euros which is okay, unless you have to multiply it by 15.

Day one in Prague saw me going to meetings keith had set up, it was incredible how seriously and efficient people were, no flaky over dressed entertainment industry types, these people get stuff done, they are interestead in new engaging new ideas and rekindled my hope in the Music business, of course walking through the Letna gardens which are 300 meters from where I was staying is a glorious experience, it’s a huge garden, with big old trees, loads of cool bugs that don’t bother, people playing all kinds of games, and its totally safe, many nights as late as 2 or 3 in the morning I found myself wondering in the dark through the park, as you leave the garden you head down a long flight of stairs that runs down to a the foot of the bridge that takes you to the old town square, I can only describe the view of the city as breathtaking, I attempted to write a description of what I saw, but its sounding like the cheese, so ill let a picture or two do the talking, the old town as beautiful as it is, is pandemonium, no that’s not a powder bleach that can remove grime from kitchen tiles, available for R99 at you closest glomail, but if you buy it now, ill throw in a vacuum cleaner that can take away the memory of the night before! Pandemonium is every kind of 20 – 35 mashuganah who can afford to get on a plane n have a holiday in Prague, with the primary aim of getting laid n drinking as much as possible without regressing to pre birth state, only to be reborn with fatal alchohol syndrome. These animals are everywhere, day and night, British, Japanese and of course, our favourite, the Americans, My only moment of tension in the last ten days, a little disagreement with a 20 something politics student who was convinced America has sound political institutions, they count votes and that it is the land of the free and home of the brave, I have said it before n ill say it again, stay of the crack!

Back to the Prague, Friday morning saw me doing an interview on Radio Wave, The legendary cat who did the interview was a guy from Scotland, he goes by the name Craig Duncan, I have since decided to give him the title of Squire Craig Duncan, the man is a legend, he dropped 3 of the tunes from my my new album “Under the Poetree” being released in November in SA, we spoke for a while he featured some tunes from Waddy Jones n Tumi, the station has since decided to playlist one of the tracks, which is groovy, mostly cos the track features a Lithuanian survivor rappin in Yiddish, Zol Sheyn Kumen De Geule! Given that I now find myself in a tiny village in Spain, n quite behind on my behind, I will not give you the day by day run down of Prague but rather a couple of highlights.

I had the incredible opportunity to play and record with a North Indian hand drum maestro, we did a short recording session in my hostel room, possible only because im lugging around 15 kilograms of Sound recording equipment, that’s, mikes, cables, sound cards n all the other necessary paraphernalia, any ways the recording came out wonderfully which resulted into going back into a “real” studio on my last day in Prague.

An incredible scene in was, the engineer came straight out of a Cohn brothers film, he was a classic American cat, balding heavily on the forehead, sweated like a lumberjack and drank vodka out of the bottle, that said, he was an amazing engineer and we managed to get a good session together. I was incredibly lucky to be welcomed into Keith and Craigs circle of friends, which is the difference between a great stay and a magic stay, cos it’s the connections and the conversations that make the difference, if you dig? on that note one of the most amazing cats i met n played with was a half Czech half gypsy, i was chiling with keith in the gardens after a meeting and hear a guy praciticing drums, seriously, the dude set up his kit n was getting his groove on in the gardens, anyways, went to talk to him n he invited me to play the next night, it was groovy time, except that the police came and shut it all down cos we were playing to loudly, the cafe was called “The Latino Art Cafe” if you in Prague, check it out its groovy, i hung with this guy, his name is on the 3rd floor, for a while, learnt alot about gypsy culture and some amazing musicians that are apart of their musical tradition, as well as a place called the International School for the Human Voice, i will investigate more n put something up, Otherwise the things that struck me about Prague, aside from the astoundingly beautiful architecture, the river, chilled people and good goulash, was that IT IS SAFE! I forgot what it feels like to walk in a big city at 3 am and not feel anxious and worried that some freak on TIK is gonna pipe you for two dollars and a biscuit, I could go on about this, and I have in my head, but I reckon the point is clear, the next stop on my journey is Alberaccin, which I mentioned earlier, cos im already here, but this joint needs a page all of its own, it is literally out of this world, and finding myself playing on the steps of a 14^th century moore in Moore built village, with cats from Czeck, Belguim, Brazil and SA was one of the most glorious moments ever, but of this you will hear more, till then, onwards and inwards.

On the up n boop di doo…….

rus — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 12:26:48 +0000

Good n groovy Peeps, Prague has been treating me most kindly, been here for the last 4 days, had a great interview on a radio station here that has an hour show of hip hop every Friday, they often feature south African music, so i had a slot, oh, i guess i should mention that im releasing my first electronic project in November, Hip hop beats fused with some of the baddest Jazz cats in SA, got a little Yiddish in that mix, Nerwich is dropping a rhyme or two and im featuring a couple of highly skilled rappers on the album, gonna post a little promo track so you can check out what i been up too, mostly for those who think i spend all day on the beach surfin and smoking weed, which i don’t, at least that’s what i tell my mom.

Back to Prague, what can one say, its both magical and enchanting, the architecture is awe inspiring and now i sound like a bad travel mag, so I’m gonna quit while i’m ahead and say that everyday i see miracles, yesterdays was no less that a 1000 spiders that had made their home, the side railing of a bridge that crosses the Vltava River, this is the river that runs through the city of Prague and separates the old city from the neighborhood that i am staying in, on that note, and a little closer to home, my room is filled with the kind of fungus and mold that makes me very grateful to have a hairy nose, a filtration system that makes it just more than bearable, i did light about 7 sticks of some incense i copped at a fair in spain, in the process nearly setting the room alight, note to self, buy a lighter or matches, lighting incense with paper that is ignited on a medievil stove aint a good idea, okay this is all getting a little crazy, but thats cool, enjoy the weekend, n send me some of the good stuff, so i got some accomplices…….Peace.

Realised i haven’t said much, possibly a consequence of these fantastic brownies i just ate, the rest of the day should yield some more surprises, cos im heading for a second helpin…

P.s some albums to try and find if you up for some new tunes, the jazz freaks already probably know these, so don’t shoot the messenger, this list is for civilians.

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
Stanley Turrentine - Ballads - great if you got some lovin going on.
Achmad Jamal - Live at the Pershing - No he isnt part of the taliban malitia - he is recognised as one of the hardest swinging most articulate piano players in Jazz history.
Keith Jarret - Shit forgot the name, solo album only ballads n recorded it for his wife as a birthday present, anyone remember the name?
Blossom Dearie - compilation - listen to this n u r guaranteed to crack a smile.
Its all easy listening but will have the head bobbin n the feet tappin and in no time you will be listening to Eric Dolphy making fish sounds with the Sun Ra Arkestra

Over n Out
Rus