“When I am playing jazz, I like using the acoustic guitar as it brings out a natural sound in melodies and it sets me apart from other musicians when I use it as the lead guitar,” says jazz musician Pablo Nakapa.
He is part of the new generation of jazz artists, founder and leader of the band Pablo and Friends and a lecturer in jazz guitar at the Zimbabwe College of Music.
His real name is Master Nakapa, but growing up he was given the nickname “Pablo” for his exceptional talent and skill on string instruments. He has star quality and can easily migrate from lead guitar, to rhythm and bass.
Pablo has a passion for jazz and expectations are high he would make valuable contributions to the genre for some time to come. He has so far released one album, Now is the Time a remarkable piece of work.
With the exception of My Brother and War, most of the songs on Now is the Time are instrumentals. The album includes refreshing tracks Song for Paula, Home Drive, Sound Check, Samba in D and Sound Check Unplugged, which is an acoustic interpretation of the tune Sound Check.
“With this album, I wanted to explore the instrumental space, express myself through sound and to showcase our capabilities,” he said in an interview recently.
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Born and raised in Mabvuku, Pablo Nakapa learned to play the guitar using tin guitars from friends in his neighbourhood. He first joined a Mabvuku-based reggae band Clash Gang at age 18 and in 1991 he enrolled with Zimbabwe College of Music, attending the Saturday Pop Workshops, a College of Music programme that was sponsored by the Swedish government.
During this time he met fellow Zimbabwe College of Music students the late Dumi Ngulube and Clayton Ndhlovu, artists he was to work with later in his career.
In 1995 Pablo joined Uya Moya as lead guitarist. This was a popular jazz band of the time that boasted talents of Chirikure Chirikure, Ray Mawerera, Ngulube, Fred (Sanchez), Jill Diesel and Katrina Fountain.
“We never recorded as Uya Moya, but we were very active with live performances on the jazz scene. We took part in many jazz festivals and I had the opportunity to meet and share the stage and experiences with some great musicians — the likes of Louis Mhlanga, Ray Phiri and Courtney Pine,” said Nakapa.
With friend Ngulube, Pablo was one of founder members of the band AmaGents in 1999. He recorded three albums; Tshona Langa (1999), African Motion (2001) and Zvinhu Zvangu (2002) with the outfit.
Pablo said he particularly enjoyed recording the album African Motion with AmaGents as he worked with a very talented crop of musicians including Blessing Muparutsa, Dudu Manhenga, Emmanuel Thomas and Jairos Hambahamba.
He left AmaGents in 2003 with Willis Watafi and Tazz Moyo to form the group Africa Revenge. The guitarist stayed with this outfit for two years; leaving during the recording of Africa Revenge’s popular album Qaya Music.
Nakapa then had a short stint with The Frontline Crew where as a bassist he contributed to recording the crew’s reggae album called Out of Africa.
In 2006 he formed a jazz outfit called Band Six together with Ford Dhliwayo, Elisha Manyau, Dave Moyo, Owen Chimuka and Funny (Cox) Dzinduwa. The band played mostly cover versions and was a regular feature on the live performance circuit in Harare.
Driven by passion and love for the genre Pablo wanted to be in a jazz environment and in 2007, he joined Rute Bangwa’s band Jazz Sensation. He was one of the recording artists on the album Rute Goes Kumanginde and he toured with the group to Algeria in 2009 and to Grahamstown National Youth Jazz Festival in South Africa.
As an emerging jazz personality, Pablo Nakapa would like to contribute to the development of the genre, see more audiences grow, more artists recording new material and the opening up of the scene with more clubs and festivals.