Ivan Mazuze

Saxophonist Ivan Mazuze’s music reflects the best of southern Africa's contemporary jazz sounds, with its rhythmical percussiveness, jazz harmonization and the use of vocals together with saxophone which creates a unique Afro-World sound.

Mazuze’s 15 years of experience as a live performer and recording artist, have included collaborations with internationally acclaimed artists such as Jonathan Butler, Manou Gallo, Hotep Galeta (late), Jimmy Dludlu, Tucan Tucan, Loading Zone, Busi Ncube, Silvia Manco, Alvin Dyers, Stewart Sukuma, Barney Rachabane and many more. As a result, Mazuze has been featured at numerous international music festivals in southern Africa, South America as well as in Europe.

Ivan holds an Honours degree in Jazz and a Masters Degree in ethnomusicology, both from the University of Cape Town (South Africa). While studying, Mazuze attended events Standard Bank National Youth Jazz Festival in Grahamstown and the Standard Bank National Youth Jazz Band led by Barney Rachabane, which tuned out to be valuable forums, contributing greatly to his musical development.

Despite having achieved an advanced level within musicological studies, he continues to travel in order to expand his musical knowledge and to interact with musicians (including Zim Nqgawana and Petter Wettre). The result is Ivan Mazuze’s debut album Maganda which was released in South Africa in 2009 (Imazuze Music). The album is a reflection of Mazuze’s musical experiences in jazz and the African "worlds" of music. Maganda blends chopi, muthimba rhythms and styles, marrabenta and maskanda from Mozambique and South Africa, with Latin and African jazz.  This album has taken Mazuze as a solo artist to a broader international market, and has earned him various distinctive awards and recognition.

During 2009/2010, Mazuze worked with institutions such as Arts Council Norway, Norwegian Jazz Forum, FFUK, MFA as well as Samspill International Music Network to promote “world jazz” coming out of Norway internationally.