Josh Meck had Londoners burning!

Hordes of fun lovers had come to watch Oliver Mtukudzi play unplugged, alongside Josh Meck, according to information on the posters. But the night did not belong to Tuku. He chose to take the curtain raiser’s role to introduce the 28 year-old musician to the Zimbabwean audience. What a humble man!
Those who had not seen Tuku playing solo before would have been disappointed, but I wasn’t. The Zimbabwean music ambassador really showed us that he could still convince a wildly imbibed Harare crowd to sway their hips to his guitar and vocal tunes from days gone by.
Going by the thumbs rule, at least half of the audience had never heard Josh before and yet, he has been been making waves  outside Zimbabwe.
Born Joshua Meck in Harare in 1983, the musician attended Prince Edward School, well-known for its grooming of younger generation musicians such as the late Sam Mtukudzi. He has toured Europe, America and Africa doing collaborations with international artists over the past six years. Now, the musician feels he must introduce his music to his own kinsfolk.
Josh started touring as a sideman in 2006 with different artists like Chiwoniso Maraire and Comrade Fatso. In 2010 Josh did a collaboration with US-based jazz saxophonist, Max Wild, at the prestigious Africa festival Held in Wurzburg, Germany and went on to do a collaboration tour of Germany, Estonia, United Kingdom, Netherlands and Czech Republic with Max Wild in 2011. He has also collaborated on a tour of Zimbabwe with Kenyan jazz sensation Asali who performed at the Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA).
He has two albums to date, Wanetsa, recorded partly with help of Steve Dyer in 2008 and Time, recorded during his international tours and launched at the Book Café, Harare this year.
“I am a product of the Prince Edward Jazz Band and have been fortunate enough to be recognised at a tender age. Now I must push to have local recognition though shows such as these and also a lot of airplay and record sales,” he said at the sidelines.
His manager and spouse, Siphiwe Ndlovu was all smiles about the progress undertaken thus far and thanked the Londoners’ ma-nagement, especially Debbie Pet-ers for giving her husband such a rare opportunity. Siphiwe is also a backing vocalist in some of the recorded songs on the two albums.
Tuku introduced the young guitarist as soon as he started his last song, Muromo Chinyarara, an oldie from yesteryear.
Before the show, some murmurings were heard: ” . . . excuse me, Josh who?”
Clad in a metallic grey suit, matching blue tie and top hat, the dreadlocked and left-handed musician made his grand entrance during the bridge of Tuku’s song, strumming an acoustic guitar. This is  the part where drums, percussion, dance and song all meet. It was a timely moment for Josh though, as Tuku had a few people on the dance floor already. Now it was time for him to show his prowess in collaboration with the grandmaster before saying “Adios!”.
From the few encounters I had had before with the young musician, I knew him only as a bass player. This was the first time I had seen him take another instrument, apart from the mbira and the West African kora (a muti-stringed traditional instrument), we hear he is also good at.
On his playlist, Mazambiringa – a rhtymic tune that many in the audience mistook for a Tuku beat – was the intro. His mellow and mellodic guitar, guided the backing vocals and instrumentation to the song.
By the look of things, Tuku hadbeen the Josh’s mentor for many years judging by the song selection  and performance. It can only be fair to suppose so, as Josh played three or four more songs of the acoustic guitar much in line with Tuku’s strumming style with an added feel of his.
Someone in the audience was heard saying the young musician had taken a leaf from Victor Kunonga on Hoyo Mwana, a song that he aptly played on his nylon-stringed guitar coupled in the middle fret, to produce a unique sound that he describes as “my own creation”.
I was convinced though, that Josh Meck has been experimenting with different Zimbabwean beats to come up wit his own, and is surely on the right path and he does concur when he says:
“When I play, I play my own songs and fuse in with what I have learnt during my growth as a musician. I have played with musicans from Zimbabwe, Africa and Europe. That experience has helped to shape my music.”
Later in the act, Josh traded the six-string acoustic guitar for his trademark instrument – a six-string left-handed electric bass, fitted with a cordless apparatus so he could play it while walking into the amazed audience. He was backed by female vocalist, Fatima Katiji and Hebert Kampaundi on the tenors. This was the finest I had ever seen him perform.
The first song on bass, Vonabata Zvakawanda, reminds any good afro-jazz listener of the Senegalese maestro, Baaba Maal whose west-African beat seemed to have been interfused with our own at this juncture. When compared to the title track of his second album, Time, the song could have fared very well as a top contender for the accolade. 
Great effort though, from all he baking musicians, who included a supporting bass, lead, drummer and keyboards. I can best des-cribe his music as Zim Afro-fus-ion , and for me the most notable songs are Chipo Changu, Wakakosha, Maurenge from the second album and Mharadzi, Saruraude, Shingirira and Mawonero from the first album.
A few notable ideas though: Josh is still growing in music, he needs to work on his vocal chords so they can be at variance with the heavy bass that he plays and be able to move from a low to a higher octave of the same key.
Being an afro-jazz musician, he should use more “blues”type of voice as backups, the likes of Prudence, Chiwoniso and others. Perhaps, Fatima could also work on that. A lot of percussions and stage choreography are also needed during a live performance and more importantly Josh, being a proud African, a little more work on your stage attire is necessary. Just my assessment!
Rating: “Five-Star performance” by a young and promising artist.