By Tyron Devotta
Sunday’s jazz session the week before at the Barefoot Garden Café was more than just another laid-back afternoon of music. The regulars were treated to something special when David Sansoni, visiting from Australia, joined Jerome Speldewinde — one of Sri Lanka’s finest jazz and blues musicians — for an impromptu set that filled the space with that easy going feeling that’s all a part of the Sunday afternoon experience of this restaurant.
Sansoni, a relative of the family that runs Barefoot, is on a brief twelve-day visit to Sri Lanka. He and Speldewinde made a remarkable duo, trading verses and harmonies as if they had rehearsed for weeks. Yet, as they later revealed in a chat with Community.lk, there had been no rehearsal at all.
David Sansoni at the Barefoot Garden Café
“It’s just instinct,” Sansoni smiled. “We go back a long way — to our school days at St. Thomas’ in the late sixties. Jerome was 'Hooker' in the Thomian Pack and I was Prop Forward. I suppose that rhythm, that sense of timing, never left us.”
“It’s like a telepathic thing,” added Speldewinde. “We grew up singing in family gatherings — part-singing, harmonies, cousins picking up each other’s cues. It was our entertainment, and it stays in the bones.”
Their easy camaraderie on stage reflected more than musical understanding; it was a reunion of kin. As it turns out, both men share a common great-grandfather — Miliani Henry Sansoni of Negombo — whose descendants include many of the well-known Sansoni and Speldewinde families, chief of whom - in the context - is Dominic Sansoni, 'Barefoot's' Proprietor.
Now based in Sydney, Sansoni is an active member of the St. Thomas’ College Old Boys Association of New South Wales, preparing for the annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. “We’re in our seventeenth year,” he said. “It’s become a tradition that keeps us connected to home.”
Reflecting on the Burgher community’s presence both in Sri Lanka and abroad, Sansoni struck a hopeful note.
“People may think the community is disappearing, but it’s not. It’s evolving. Many of us have gone abroad, but there’s also a quiet return — people coming back to contribute, to reconnect. The tradition continues, just in a new generation’s hands. Just look around you...look at this place 😀”
Sunday Jazz at the Barefoot Garden Café
Speldewinde nodded in agreement.
“Our strength has always been in mixing, in adapting. We’ve never lost our roots — we’ve just learned to play them in different keys.”
As the final chords faded and the Barefoot crowd lingered over coffee and conversation, it was clear that the afternoon had been more than music. It was memory set to rhythm — a celebration of heritage, friendship, and the timeless joy of singing together.
Click on links to listen to the songs:
