Tutu Puoane Quartet - Alternatilla Jazz Festival 2026 - Sant Llorenç

Tutu Puoane Quartet A voice to begin with full force. Some voices seem to come from far away, yet need only a few seconds to feel close. Tutu Puoane’s is one of them. Born in South Africa and based in Belgium for many years, Tutu Puoane has built a career in which jazz has never been a boundary, but a place from which to open up to the world. Her music brings together South African tradition, soul, song and improvisation. Yet beyond any label, there is a warm, powerful and extraordinarily expressive voice, capable of moving from intimacy to momentum without ever losing the thread of the story she is telling. And storytelling is very important in her music. Her most recent work, Wrapped in Rhythm, grew out of poems by South African writer and activist Lebogang Mashile. Puoane had been reading these texts for years and hearing music within them. Together with pianist Ewout Pierreux, she turned that poetry into songs in which jazz, soul and South African memory find a common language. The first volume came out in 2024, and the second, recorded with the Metropole Orkest, in 2025. There is something particularly beautiful about this whole process: this time, the words came first. The melodies followed, some almost spontaneously, emerging from the rhythm, imagery and musicality that Puoane found in Mashile’s verses. It was not simply a matter of setting poems to music, but of listening to them until discovering the music they already held within. In Sant Llorenç, she will be accompanied by musicians with whom she shares much more than a repertoire: Ewout Pierreux on piano, Clemens van der Feen on double bass and Dré Pallemaerts on drums. A quartet accustomed to breathing together, leaving space and making listening an essential part of the music. And we cannot think of a better way to begin our tenth edition. Because before counting countries, stages or concerts, we can start …