eJazzNews: Songbirds Chiwoniso Maraire and Kudzai Sevenzo will make a special appearance at this year's edition of the Winter Jazz Festival to be held at Jazz 105, this weekend.

According to Edgar Gumbu, Jazz 105 operations manager, the two singers' appearance is a deliberate move to promote female Jazz artists.

"They are going to be performing as special guests so as to encourage and promote female Jazz musicians who have shown that not only can they do it in this musical genre but they can also be up there with their male counterparts."

Jazz 105, the ceremonial home of Jazz, is situated at the Eastgate complex. This year's edition of the festival will be held under the theme "Five years of warming up to Jazz." Nescafe Zimbabwe will sponsor the event.

The Winter Jazz festival, now in its fifth year, will feature 19 groups. Other female musicians expected to grace the event are Dudu Manhenga of Color Blu, Patience Musa of The Other Four, Prudence Katomeni Mbofana of Jazz Invitation and Selmor Mtukudzi with Jabavu Drive.

Due to the prevailing foreign currency shortages, the organisers will not be able to invite foreign artists who have performed at the festival before.

"We would have loved to bring foreign guests as we used to do but due to the forex problems it is not possible at the moment as they will need to be paid in foreign currency," said Gumbu.

"On average the artists will need to be paid R35, 000 and the money is just not available at the moment." said Gumbu.

South African based Jazz guitarists, Louis Mhlanga and Jimmy Dludlu, performed at the festival in 2000 and 2001 respectively.

Stanley Kwenda, Harare
www.ejazznews.com