From brass to beauty, Marcus Wyatt unpacks art's purpose and his creative influences

The InArt interviews explore culture by asking creatives about their life in the arts, and which artists in other media stimulate them. We spoke to intrepid trumpeter, bandleader and composer Marcus Wyatt about inspiration and amazing beasts.

When did you first identify as a creative artist?

I’m not sure, to be honest, and I don’t necessarily always see myself as such. Throughout my life I have gravitated towards music, firstly I think from a community standpoint as in I grew up playing in bands. Big bands with loads of people, brass bands, wind bands and finally orchestras and then jazz big bands.

I always enjoyed being a part of something bigger, both practically and spiritually (though that didn’t really occur to me until much later in life), and I loved the feelings and emotions evoked through the process of making music with loads of people in large ensembles.

I suppose I became more “creative” as a musician as a result of my own curiosity combined with the struggle for survival as a “professional” or working artist in South Africa. I’ve always wanted to explore music in multiple directions (sometimes simultaneously), which can be problematic in a music scene which is fairly conservative and likes, wants and needs everything to be pigeonholed and genre-labelled to the nth degree.

So the challenge here is to somehow fulfil one’s creativity while balancing it with the needs or limitations of the “scene” you’re making a living from. My own creativity is a result of — and inspired partly by — my own struggles to survive or flourish. And I’ve been doing that, I guess, for the past 25 to 30 years.

Outside your medium, what branch of art most stimulates you?

I’m not too black and white about these things, and I’m moved by beauty in all its different forms (and tend to get hit by that often when I’m least expecting it). The visual “medium” is constantly around us, so that’s almost constant stimulation — whether it be Albert’s Farm in Johannesburg during golden hour, or a really beautifully crafted trailer for some dodgy series on Netflix.

I love photography very much, especially when it explores the human condition in all its multifaceted glory and messiness. Film and videography really do it for me, as do really well-written words on a page — I absolutely love a good story, fictional or not.

Which artists in said discipline have significantly inspired you, and why?

There are people out there who inspire me across the board — including my wife, bassist and designer Romy Brauteseth, who is an amazingly artistic woman, whether it be how she plays, composes, frames or sketches an image, or her eye for detail in and out of design. She truly inspires me.

Then of course it’s so many others — and apologies, but I can’t stick to said discipline, since it’s never just one thing or the other for me: Manu Dibango, Chris McGregor, André Brink, Marc Chagall, Carlos Baena, Bruce Gilden, Maria Schneider, Oriol Paulo, Michael Marshall Smith, Carlo Mombelli, and the list continues.

What, to you, is art’s most important function?

This is a tricky one, but I’m going to go with legendary author Tom Robbins on this question — he puts it a lot more eloquently than I ever could. 

“The great thing about art is that it has no purpose. Its usefulness is the fact that it’s absolutely useless, and therefore it can lift us out of the world of economics and politics, where we experience, however fleetingly, a sense of true freedom — which is the most precious commodity on Earth.”

Local creatives in any medium who excite you?

Romy, always. Ndabo Zulu is a young trumpet player who writes really great music — there’s a new album coming and I look forward to that.

However, I should also mention some of my other favourite writers-musicians from here — Bokani Dyer, Benjy Jephta, Siya Makuzeni, Carlo Mombelli, Shane Cooper, Vuma Levin and Yonela Mnana, to name just a few.

We are pretty blessed with great musicians in South Africa, something I don’t take for granted. Oh, and of course the band BCUC are always a vibe.

Which specific work do you return to, and why?

1 Giant Leap and What About Me? — multimedia music documentary films exploring universal questions and themes and featuring artists from across the globe. The series is a really honest and, more importantly, positive look at humanity, narrated through interviews and thoughts from a wide array of thinkers, gurus and artists, coupled with some really emotive and uplifting music.

We human beings are amazing creatures, capable of so much — so diverse and yet completely same-same. This idea and this project inspire me always.

Terence Blanchard’s A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina) is an album that for me is so deeply evocative and full of hope. It is beautifully crafted music that helped me through a tough time in my life.

Is there any new project you’re unveiling?

Romy and I recently published a photographic book called Silent Treatment. It’s a collection of portraits of South African jazz musicians which we shot while filming our YouTube series House on the Hill. This while embarking on our biggest project yet, called twins. Madness.

Speaking of madness, Bombshelter Beast has also recently released their second album, Listen Properly. Though it was mostly recorded before the world took a collective hiatus, it sounds fresh and suitably schizo and groovy — a long and complicated “Dear John” letter to the increasingly prevalent genre police. It’s not me, it’s definitely you… DM

Mick Raubenheimer is a freelance arts writer.

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.