Writer: Thami John | Photographs: Supplied
The books will be on sale from 17:30. Some at 40% off, some given away free to those who arrive early enough to claim them. Gianni’s jazz records will soundtrack the early evening, his vast collection spilling out of crates and into the space while pages turn and decisions are made.
At 19:00, the Dawjee Trio takes the stage.
Sound, for Muhammad Dawjee, is not something he performs. It is something he inhabits.
It arrived first as inheritance: his grandfather’s melodic recitations preserved on a reel-to-reel. It arrived again in his father’s unspoken dream, the saxophone bought before a fridge for the house, practised in secret at work.
Today, the instrument is a necessity.
“If I don’t play for more than two days, I feel like I can’t function,” Dawjee says. “The saxophone helps me breathe.”
On Friday, that breath moves through the room. With Nhlanhla Radebe on upright bass and Simphiwe Shiburi on drums, the Dawjee Trio draws from the South African songbook, Johnny Dyani, Mankunku, Galeta, and Dawjee’s own compositions, which he describes as “vessels for the spirit.”
The music moves between grids: the 16th note architecture of Ghoema, the triplet pull of swing, and the space between them.
Dawjee speaks of cohesion not as smoothing things over, but as holding difference together.
“We are touching each other,” he says.
“Your sounds are touching each other and they might be very different. There might be a harsh colour, something cutting. Do you want to round that off? Or do you want to screech through that harshness and take it to its limit? Because we are healing each other. We are breathing together.”
This is the work of the evening. Not a presentation of finished pieces, but an unfolding. Attentiveness to what the moment asks. Mistakes not as failures but, in his words, “a door to a room you didn’t know was there.”
What Dawjee hopes listeners carry with them is a particular feeling. The feeling of a performance where you are taken to the edge of your seat, and when it ends, you cannot move. You sit in the venue, unwilling to rush back out.
“Nothing actually matters,” he says.
“And you get a sense of presence in your life, and stillness back in your life. Ownership of your life.”
You are invited into that space.
The Evening
17:30 – 18:30 | Book Sale & Book Giveaway
18:00 – 19:00 | Vinyl Selector: Gianni
19:00 | Dawjee Trio
Lit.Culture, 29 Chiswick Street, Brixton, Johannesburg
6 March 2026 | 17:30
Muhammad Dawjee (sax) | Nhlanhla Radebe (bass) | Simphiwe Shiburi (drums)
Tickets: https://www.quicket.co.za/events/361635-dawjee-trio-some-lines-other-notes/
