A light drizzle on a late evening scared fans who had gathered to watch Uganda’s funk master Kaz Kasozi perform live.

Kasozi has come up with the Kaz Kasozi 7 Project — a series of seven musical shows that his Blue Sugarcane band is to perform in Kampala and Jinja over seven months.

The series began in April this year and each show is unique in theme, repertoire, presentation and venue. They revolve around the concept of number the seven — significant in nature, philosophy, science, religion and life in general. They also thematically follow the rainbow colour spectrum.

With the 4th Chapter titled Gravity, the band partnered with the Goethe-Zentrum Kampala/Ugandan German Cultural Society (GZK/UGCS) and Alliance Française de Kampala (AfK).

The show was held at GZK/UGCS/AfK gardens in Nakasero, Kampala on July 10, where revellers were treated to a fusion of funk, blues, soul and jazz with African rhythms.

The songs the band played included My Destiny, Stand Back, Abataka, Nakaseeta, Book of Grovertion, The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful, among others.

Kasozi played the electric guitar and vocals, Timothy Nabulwa trumpet, Gerard Mbuya drums, Ernest Otim bass guitar, Kenneth Komagum keyboards, Herbert Rock tenor Sax and Brian Mulindwa trombone.

The young saxophonist Michael Kitanda joined the band on Cherry Lips, which he followed with his song Grover’s Nation. The poet Rashida Namulondo recited her poem Jonnie and My Father’s Son. The guest artists perform jointly with the band.

“I looked at the fact that in most conventional music scales there are seven notes but from these few notes music can be made, so many genres, emotions, textures and so on. That was the original seed of the concept before I expanded it to wider themes in life and nature. Additionally, our band Blue Sugarcane consists of seven people,” said Kasozi.

Kasozi said his aim is to attract more fans to his repertoire.

“I want to get people to know more about the music we are playing and that an act can deliver a wide range of music and performance style beyond the one dimensional route most expect. So we are a funk band but we play blues, jazz and afro-soul, all with the same aplomb.”

As to the significance of the number seven in relation to nature, philosophy, science, religion and life in general, Kasozi said: “Through the shows and the songs we play we wanted to explore the number seven concept as far as possible. I looked at the big significance of seven in Biblical tales, seven colours of the rainbow (perceptible to the eye), seven days in the week, seven directions, seven modes in basic modal music, seven arts and sciences, and many other aspects. In numerology one can find many connections to any given number that we as humans have decided to stick some significance to and seven is certainly one of these numbers.”

“We have seven notes in most modern music scales and seven modes in basic modern jazz. With them one can create most musical colours one needs to create an emotive experience in elementary composition.”

The first three chapters were titled Genesis (red), E=mc2 (orange) and Enigma (yellow) and were staged in Kampala at the National Theatre, Jazz Ville and Sabrina’s Pub respectively. The final chapter, Revelations, is set for October 30.

“My idea was that once we had started momentum would pick up and things would get heavier…”

Kasozi said they titled the third show “Enigma” because music is hard to describe.

“What it does to the emotions, what it evokes in thought; what it inspires and also quite simply how we all respond so differently to the same piece of music. Music is accessible and elusive that way; it’s a mystery; an enigma. The guests were singer Sandy Soul and hip-hop mainstay Sylvester Kabombo…”

On the fourth chapter, Kasozi observed the project has defined its box, keeping things simple and down to earth.

“No pretence, no frills, no gimmicks, just music. We keep our feet on the round. Also by now it’s getting quite rooted hence gravity…”

Many Ugandans do not appreciate the kind of music Kasozi and other live band musicians play. He hopes that the Kaz Kasozi 7 Project will popularise his music.

“Doing the Kaz Kasozi 7 Project is one endeavour to get people interested in this music. People cannot appreciate something that you don’t present to them. So by playing these shows we are trying also to get people to know it exists and to get them to appreciate it. I do my thing best live and so that is how we getting it out there. We are also recording all the shows and we intend to release a documentary DVD, which will feature some of the highlights throughout the series,” Kasozi said.