Bandung city got a very special gift for its 207th anniversary. For the first time Bandung held a grand festival for not a day or two but one full month involving 5 art forms: MUSIC, VISUAL ART, THEATRE, SCULPTURE and DANCE, integratedly. It’s called SENI BANDUNG #1. There are around 2500 artists in 600 events, spreading on 48 different locations around Bandung, both conventional and public areas. The theme is “A Collaborative Arts Event”, underlining the collaborative work ethics which shows the characteristic in Bandung’s world of arts. The title given to this first installment is “Air, Tanah dan Udara” (Water, Earth and Air).

What’s interesting is that the fest doesn’t only cover traditional arts but also contemporary, even those who are originally not from Bandung or Indonesia. Jazz for example, is a music style originated in America around the turn of the 20th century. But as it’s spread aroun the world, this intoxicating music is now belong to the world, especially since jazz has the ‘habit’ to blend with regional, local music cultures everywhere it’s landed. This ‘habit’ has been giving rise to many distinctive style which is still going on until now.

So what about Bandung? Proud to say that historically speaking, Bandung is one of cities where jazz first came in. So, Bandung and jazz has been having historical connection for many decades. Today This city never runs out of jazz players, and speaking of jazz style, Bandung has it all, including the fuse between jazz and traditional Sundanese music or any other ethnics. Based on these facts, jazz is indeed a part of Bandung’s art forms, especially music. The committee and Bandung’s government seem to realize that too as they included jazz in this one full month art fest.

After running a regular monthly jazz community event for more than 4 years with many things to be proud of, we are thankful to be selected as one of jazz representatives for this event. For us it’s an acknowledgement that encourages us to keep going.

For Seni Bandung #1 we were listed as a part of “Musik Interupsi” series. It’s called like that because the committee has the idea of interrupting the daily activities happening in a spot with good quality music. We set the lineup by inviting bands who we think could suit the concept, also those who have unique concept and stand as some of the best we got so far from our regular community events.

We got two schedules, Friday 13 October and 20 October 2017 both took place at the public (hangout) places. For each part we presented two shows that contained traditional Sundanese music inside progressive fusion jazz, and also those who recently have given fine contributions towards Bandung (West Java)’s music as a part of its art world.

Let’s see the part one first, located at Dalem Kaum street. Here we invited a nu soul diva who recently made a remarkable breakthrough with her single after a year of ‘absence’ from wide public appearance and a mind-bending cross Sundanese-Minangkabau ensemble who locked themselves up inside a progressive jazz fusion, featuring an 11 year-old wonder girl on piano.

Appearing first was the no soul diva, Agis Kania. She found success as a part of vintage Gypsy Swing group Satura and even better as a dynamic duo Agis Bape, but her career actually began much earlier when she was still in tender age, not in any modern western music but in pop Sundanese.

After her duo Agis Bape reached the end of the line, she decided to step out off the spotlight for a while. After around a year, one day she was contacted by Ajier T-Five who offered her a composition, asking her to add up the lyrics and sing it. She fell in love instantly with the song. She directly wrote the lyrics and did the recordings, amazingly all was done only in just 2 hours. The song’s titled “Baby You”, made with love within tasty, steamy Nu Soul. This song already has the videoclip (watch it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM3RyTUbMU4) and officially launched in our event Braga Jazz Night #36 (http://jazzuality.com/jazz-event-report/braga-jazz-night-36-ramadhan-edition-the-report/). This song has been doing really, really well over the top digital outlets and received praises from her friends and fans. In just 3 months, 16.000 people have listened, it’s been downloaded by many, with 70% of them were from other countries. That’s a remarkable achievement.

For this event she performed in minimalist formation, together with keyboardist Aria Nugraha. The cool after the rain weather created a perfect atmosphere for Agis’ smooth, mellow soulful selection. Look at what she started with: Brian McKnight’s “Another You.” Don’t you think this song, under the voice of the lady of soul would match? Romantic, relaxing, dreamy, but that’s not all because the audience also admired her voice as Agis and Aria received applauses and cheers.

Then Agis chose two Sundanese (folk)songs for two reasons: one, she wanted to share a part of her career when she sang Pop Sundanese around 2002, and two, she wanted to fit her repertoires to Bandung’s art fest. The songs were Iyar Wiyarsih’s “Mojang Priyangan” and Benny Corda’s “Bubuy Bulan”, rearranged in sweet Soul Jazz by them, played beautifully by Aria.

Agis then sang “You and I”. Some of you might have remembered the Michael Buble version from 2005, but originally the song was written by Stevie Wonder which can be found in his 1972 album, “Talking Book”. She effortlessly built the momentum, climbing the notes until she reached the end with stunning climax. For the last song, she sang her most recent hit, “Baby You” and showed why this song could become a global hit on the digital platforms. This song has everything needed to be a global Nu Soul hit. Catchy melody, cool mid-tempo beat, sexy lyrics, lovely arrangement, it’s current and built within a strong soulful voice with character. She received huge appreciation from the crowds.

Agis is a top-notch jazz and blues singer. She has the old soul just like the jazz and blues ladies in the golden era. That’s true. She even admits that eventhough she could sing anything, jazz always has a very special place in her heart. But when it’s about Nu Soul, this modern soul movement seems to represent her the best at present time. Her voice has a very thick, pure soulful character just like fine singers who were born and raised out there in the land where this music was originated. Even appearing only with a keyboardist is not a problem for her since her voice is already like an orchestra.

This big breakthrough of Agis will make her being exposed not only nationally but also internationally, as we heard she got offers to build her career abroad. It certainly makes us happy when we see a friend finally receives the recognition she deserves after long, struggling years. And if you want to know another important reason of why we invited her to represent our community for Seni Bandung #1, we see her as a perfect example of Bandung’s success story in arts especially music.

The second round was crazy. There’s a group of madmen who played music borderless inside a multi-dimensional horizons. On one foot they embrace the mystical Sundanese world of music, but on the other one they dig modern western music from jazz, blues, rock even rock and roll. The gang consisting of founder Zahar Mustilaq (drum), YD Nafis (keys), Dede SP (bass), Randy Gevenk (traditional woodwinds) and the youngest IpinZbet (kendang), together as West Java Syndicate.

It didn’t take long for them to find the blending formula after they were formed in 2010. But what’s good about this band is, they keep evolving. You can listen to their transformation from the first EP “Album Leutik” to the just-released “Bubuka”. But they don’t stop there, because they also dare to explore another traditional realm from West Sumatra. With Maspon Herizal and his solid team Palanta Line Art, the West Java Syndicate has been having fun in finding the harmony between pentatonic and diatonic, optimizing the role of Minangkabau’s traditional instrument talempong (small kettle gongs) played by Sandy Ndunk and Kiki Septian along with the ancient woodwinds mastered by Maspon. This year this unique combination has performed a couple of times, from the Asian-African Carnival 2017 to our event, the Braga Jazz Night.

For this event, two of the members of West Java Syndicate was missing: Randy is still studying in China and Ipin was having an exam. But that’s not a problem, they even widened the pallette by having not one but two sets of talempongs, sets of Minangkabau traditional woodwinds played by Sandi Ndung and Kiky Septian. If that’s not enough, they also got an 11 year-old wonder girl who has collaborated with them earlier, pianist Nadine Adrianna. This combination created an ace composition and the unique musical texture like no others.

After Agis’ sexy, smooth Nu Soul Jazz music, the mood quickly changed with strong Minangkabau rhythmical patterns. They began from 50 meters in front of the stage, playing some of the kettle gongs and woodwinds as they made their way to the stage. Zahar guarded the steps with strong syncopatic drum beating. Then, when all gathered on stage, they quickly locked with “Bubuka”, the title track of the new album. We have heard the original version which purely made in modern, progressive Sundanese fusion, but here the version got splashes of Minangkabau music. Throwing a killing punch for a start made them quickly gained lots of audience. Many of the audience recorded their performance by using their smart phones/gadgets.

For the second song, they played a song written by the 11 year-old Nadine, “Harewos Bulan”. Imagine a complex pentatonic-based song made by a girl so young to honor the late Riza Arshad, then played by a cross ensemble like this, it was totally magnificent. As this is Nadine’s song, she got a lot of space to fly freely, which she took happily with manic improvisations, twists and manouvers. This girl is magic!

Then, it’s time to hear the epic composition from Maspon, “Andalas Raya”. Opening the song with saluang (traditional bamboo flute), this song invited us into a glorious journey through the landscapic hills of Minangkabau land. As usual, Zahar kept on laughing and shouting, boosting the spirit of his mates and made the performance really fun to watch. For the last song, they invited Agis Kania to join them for Guruh Soekarnoputra’s “Zamrud Khatulistiwa.” As the late Chrisye later made the song popular again, the song is still very well known. Many of the audience sang along and in the end gave them loud applause.

Having out of the world collaboration like this shows the creative side of Bandung at max, and for us gives a solid proof that there are still many things to explore in music. This multi-generation team has done magnificent cohesive works that creates a new hybrid. They build the bridge connecting the diatonic land of Minangkabau and pentatonic Sundanese, and let us ride on it with modern, progressive vehicle. That is why we think the West Java Syndicate Collaboration has to mark their existance in Bandung’s grand art fest.

A week later, on 20 October we proceed with the second part of our contribution. Due to some problems, the venue was moved to another location, the Cikapundung River Spot. Eventhough we love the first location, this new one is very interesting due to the huge historical contain this place has. From what we learnt, this is the very spot where the civilization in Bandung began thousands of years ago. We felt happy that we had the chance to bring jazz to where everything started. This time presenting another two bands: the new format of 17 year-old girl’s band and a spontaneous crossover band consisting of youngsters.

Let’s begin with the first act: Nayra Dharma Group. This group is the continuation of Nayra Dharma Trio, the band owned by a young girl talented in jazz guitar playing and sing, Nayra Dharma. She began not that long ago, only around two years earlier but she hatched fast, gracing many stages in just a short time. From appearing alone, she formed a trio involving bass and drum. Then she changed the format, replacing drum with keyboard which for us is a brave move since not many band dare to form a band without having any drummer.

Lately she thought of expanding the concept with more player in. Because of that, she changed the name from ‘Trio’ to ‘Group’, allowing her to have the number of players as she wishes. At present time this group actually grows by adding up a kendang player. We planned to bring this new formation, however, due to some reasons the bassist and kendang player canceled their participation. It’s quite unfortunate, but above all, Nayra Dharma and the expressive key-wiz Jason Limanjaya are the core of the group. That’s what’s important for us.

Just like the first event, we had to wait until the rain stopped to run. People started coming soon after, ready to enjoy the show. The sweet, smooth swingin’ bossa music from the dynamic duo was really perfect for a cool, after-rain late afternoon. Antonio Carlos ‘Tom’ Jobim’s classic, “Wave” was the song. Then they moved way back to year 1934 when a famous jazz standard, “Stompin’ at the Savoy” was made. If some of us are familiar with the grand big band version from the likes of Benny Goodman or Chick Webb, or maybe through the magic hands of Art Tatum, this song is actually nice to play by using the combination of guitar and keyboard. Just like the first song, Nayra demonstrated her ability to sing and playing guitar in fingerstyle at the same time.

Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely” was their next presentation. The more familiar song like this one made some of the audience sang along and swayed gently. Then Nayra and Jason picked a song mostly related to Billie Holiday, “The End of a Love Affair”. Not many people might remember this song nowadays especially in Indonesia, so it was a very nice reminder for us, delivered beautifully by them. They moved back to bossa, playing another Jobim’s classic “How Insensitive” that put us deeper into the chillax mood. For the last song they invited young guitarist Anjuan Julio who happened to be there to join them. From two to three, they expanded their musical canvas to play “Four”, a Miles Davis’ song. Anjuan demonstrated his ability in singing what he plays on guitar. Then, Nayra, Jason and Anjuan did cool three-ways trading that drew cheers and applauses from the audience. With this song, they sealed their performance in such style.

The combination of Swing and Brazilian from two connected young is able to create such beautiful preentation. Smooth, sweet, but clearly contains skill and feel. It’s a demonstration of playing music effortlessly which actually is very important in jazz. Both Jason and Nayra, then anjuan who joined them in the end play as simple and natural as drawing a breath. That makes everyone in there, even those who are not really into jazz could accept and feel their music. For us, they can become an example of how success could happen from such young age. Cute, charismatic, female singing fingerstyle guitarist with his genius compatriote behind the keyboard is a great pairing, full of charm and solid. Nice, really nice.

The second round was a band formed back then by a circle of friends consisting of high school and junior high school students called Sasadana. 4 years passed, the band’s still alive and kicking. With a little changes over the years, the band now keeps its existance by having 4 musicians: the founders Pangestu Hning Bhawana (violin), Rifky Adam Rahman (bass) and Diaz Guntara ‘Digun’ (drum/tatabeuhan), and a cute and beautiful young lady positioned on keys: Ratih Putria. Joining them was a lovely lady with powerful voice, Tiara Effendy.

From smooth, chillax show of Nayra Dharma Group, Sasadana took us into a wild, joyride right from the start. All of them including Tiara delivered a cool mashup of JavaJazz’s “Bulan di Atas Asia (Moon Over Asia)” and Indonesian folk song from Sulawesi, “O Ina Ni Keke”. It’s a surprising blend as these songs are not similiar at all, yet they mashed it perfectly. They bagged loud of applause. Since the praying call was about to come, Sasadana had to pause their performance for a while.

After around 15 minutes break, they came back again and delivered their original composition named after the group, “Sasadana”. Pumped fusion song became a jolly playground for them, which suits the name which more or less means: sounds as free as their wish. For the next song they brought us to the West Sumatra by playing a folk song from that land, “Ayam Den Lapeh”. Again, like a bunch of kids having fun in a park, they played freely with lots of laughters, changing the beat, the tempo, twisted the song up side down, resulting one helluva performance.

Ratih might be petite and cute, but she is wild on the keys. Diaz worked perfectly as the beat factory, throwing all kinds of beat which amazingly locked cohesively with Rifky’s basslines. As for the motor, Gypsy violinist Estu he controls everything to ensure the finest products. He is also attractive and expressive in front.

Tiara was called to be with them for a very interesting cover of “Djanger Bali”. Tiara sang it out loud, capturing all the mystical nuances together with the free-flowing sounds from the band. It looked like they spent all their energy on this song, but it turned out that it wasn’t the last song, because they took us into one last ride, rockin’ and rollin’ with The Beatles’ “Come Together”.

Right near the end came a surprise. There was a lady suddenly arrived on the scene, dancing merrily while holding two koi fish painting. She placed the painting on the left and right side of the stage then continued dancing with scarf. This scene created what the Seni Bandung #1 is all about: celebrating variety of arts collaboratively. With her appearance, we got music, dance, painting and theatrical act altogether. What a scene!

Sasadana is the kind of band that doesn’t like to be trapped in any particular genre. They all have colorful backgrounds which has been shaping them to be explorative (and at times, explosive) musicians. What’s amazing is, their crossover style happens spontaneously based on where their hearts lead them to. In just one solid, clean-cut strike, you can find jazz, blues, rock, Sundanese even Balinese coming out of their instruments in harmony. What’s also cool is that they have high entertaining factor. They like to joke, playing around just like a bunch of kids enjoying their moment in the fun park. That makes their performance often brings laughters, loud cheers and applause as the audience don’t only enjoy the music but also their stage act.

Based on the skill, the multi-colored music style, the fun factor, the energy and dynamics, we just believe we have bring them in our participation for Seni Bandung #1 Festival. People has to know that crossover music doesn’t always have to be complex and difficult to chew, it can also appear as a joyride for everyone. They proved us right. Look at how they gained love from the crowds.

We feel blessed by this invitation to be a part of the Seni Bandung #1. In this very special fest, we wanted to show the rich, multi-colored jazz existed in Bandung, the talented musicians who live in this city to penetrate the public, presented by some of the best performances in our regular community events throughout the years. The combination of experienced musicians and daring young guns, the collaborative acts, mind-bending concepts and fine jazz crafts hopefully would let everyone know that jazz, as a part of Bandung’s creative art is still pulsing and progressing healthily. We hope we have sent the message right.

On behalf of Jazzuality.com and jazz in Bandung, we thank the committee for having us in. We hope this event to continue for more years to come. It feels great to see a creative city like Bandung now has its own party that embraces all kinds of arts from music, visual art, theatre, sculpture and dance integratedly. As a part of music, jazz has been doing really well over the years, and we are happy to have the chance to contribute in it. Thank you, see you again next year.

See more pictures:

Reporter/photographer: Riandy Kurniawan
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We began the Braga Jazz Night (formerly known as Braga Jazz Walk) in September 2014, now we have reached the 40th edition. Showcasing 3 or 4 bands in one edition, that means we have featured hundreds of bands and musicians. Some of them started from our stage, we still remember when they were still shy and fought to overcome the stage fright, but now they have succeed in running their career. Some have played alongside mega stars, even top international musicians, gracing prestigious jazz festivals or making their way to perform abroad. There are very young musicians too who now appear on TV shows, commercials and so on.

Everyone can use our stage to practice what they have learnt, try new concept, new band, gain more experience or promoting their movement. It’s an event where everyone can make themselves at home. This event is just a small community event, but it has bore good fruits. This month the Jazzuality Community was also chosen to participate in Bandung’s grand fest, Seni Bandung #1 representing jazz as a part of art forms found in Bandung. We are happy to see jazz is accepted as one of the arts. All of these motivates us to keep going for the sake of Bandung or even Indonesian jazz development.

In this Braga Jazz Night #40 once again we gave support to the young musicians, not only those who live in Bandung but also from the capital city, Jakarta. All young, all passionate, all skillful and has big potential. We wouldn’t be surprised if they stand as the top stars in the near future, we’d be happy that they were once found on our stage.

Performing first is the 11 year-old wonder girl, Nadine Adrianna with her trio simply called after her name, NADINE ADRIANNA TRIO. This girl started from this event, when she was still 8 years old. From playing solo, we encouraged her to form her own group and write songs. She did that in no time, with remarkable result.

If you listen to her compositions, you would be surprised that the songs were written by a little girl. Not long after that, she joined The BFG and landed on the Java Jazz Festival earlier this year. She didn’t just perform but also joined the after midnight jam session where she played with the likes of Maurice Brown. She then went to Bali and mentored by Indra Lesmana. While she was there, she got the chance to perform here and there with Sandy Winarta, Indra Gupta and Kevin Suwandhi. Now she occassionally plays with West Java Syndicate, a band who put their feet on both traditional ethnic and modern, progressive fusion jazz. Isn’t it difficult? She says yes it is, but it’s really fun as well. And she loves it.

What we haven’t mentioned is at the present time she also has her own trio. This latest formation with Jere Fernando (bass) and Shallom Tangki (drum) has been running for a year. This team is rock solid with strong chemistry. Here in this edition, finally we got the chance to introduce them to the jazzuality universe.

We still remember when she did her very first composition honoring Wayne Shorter titled “Wayne Street”. Two years passed, she now has a lot of compositions which are not only improved but also rich in variety, interestingly inspired from everything she found in her daily life. For this gig we got the chance to enjoy her masterpieces, especially the new ones.

Nadine, Jere and Shallom started with “Coconut Jam”, served grand in swing. Starting from the second song “Rabbit”, Gilang joined the trio and added more tone with his tasty trumpet sound. These band which is led by a little girl played like a real jazz pro in the turn of modern jazz era. If you don’t see the musicians, you wouldn’t dare to guess that this kind of music comes from musicians as young as them, and the compositions were made by an 11 year-old girl.

Nadine showed a great leadership to her team, controling the pace, the dynamic, the turn and so on. Such evidence continued to be seen in the next two songs, “30 Seconds” and “New Eleven”. All the way to the end Nadine and her mates demonstrated how fluid they are in playing jazz. All the joy, the fun, the free flowing, the dynamic and fun of improvising were captured from their performance. The audience gave high respect to Nadine and the band by pouring them cheers and applauses.

The Nadine Adrianna Trio speaks pure jazz fluently and played like a pro. The original compositions are so beautiful as if they were made by jazz giants from the golden era. It’s almost hard to believe that it all comes from a trio led by a girl who hasn’t even reached the teenage years. What’s even more unbelievable is that this girl can already play and compose pentatonic-based jazz songs which probably would still be difficult to do by musicians double or even triple her age.

Jere and Shallom are perfect to accompany her. These young musicians know exactly what to do and have strong sense of dynamics. Comparing to how she did back then, now Nadine is much more calmer, equipped with more ammos, really great in controlling the emotion and dynamics. She is much more improved! We love the trio too. We are proud to have her back along with this wonderful formation. We hope to see this trio back again some times soon.

The second session was taken by another trio, this time from Jakarta. The name is J/E/G TRIO, consisting of Joshua Alexander (bass), Ersandy Nasharizky (tenor sax) and Gearda Dewantara (guitar). These are young musicians who just began their journey but surely has everything needed to stand at the top of the game.

This trio was born after these three friends felt connected from series of jam sessions they participated in at the famous jazz community event in Depok, the Margo Friday Jazz. Ersandy has been inspired by senior saxophonist Arief Setiadi and his group, while Gearda is a proud student of guitarist Tiyo Alibasjah. If having these names as mentors is already awesome, they are also monitored by the founder of Margo Friday Jazz, legendary jazzman Benny Likumahuwa every week. These mentors have one thing in common: they play jazz with heart. They are not the kind of ‘show-off’ musicians but those who pour their feelings out into beautiful streaming of jazz. We expected the same from these young guns, and that’s what we really got after watching them on our stage.

Look at how the opened up their gig, swinging with a song from 1968 by Duke Pearson Trio: “Jeannine”. We were directly treated with sheer jazz extacy. Pure jazz played simple, elegant, honest as if it was coming from true jazz musicians who have been active for ages. Then they went on with a more famous jazz standard, “S’wonderful” that interestingly served different than usual. This new treatment makes the song appears as new. They went on swinging with another classic from many decades ago, “East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)”. Up to this point their explorative attempts were appreciated by the audience with applauses.

The next song was an original composition written by Ersandy for her father who sadly passed away just last month, “Kembali Pulang”. According to Ersandy, the song was actually got its titled here in this event. Although the song contained deep emotion, the J/E/G Trio didnt want to make it as a sad song. Instead, they made it sweet and smooth in bossa. For the last song, they covered a song from Nial Djuliarso which was written for his wife, “Hello Gib”. Again we enjoyed their easy going gestures in building up a song. A gentle song full of love landed right on point through the hands (and hearts) of these three young dudes.

Playing jazz is never about showing off your skill but how to make the audience feel what you want to share to them through music. You can play something simple, but when you have your audience feel you, they will remember it and take your performance as something special. The J/E/G Trio showed us the essence of jazz performance. They flew together smoothly and delivered the beauty of this genre pure, clear and bright.

Swing and Brazilian are their forte which they often bring altogether. They are still young, but they play like traditional jazz musicians who deeply depend on their feeling in executing each song. It makes us happy to see a swingin’ jazz band this good coming from the new generation. And for us, the way they play and their music remind us why we love jazz in first place. We really appreciate them for coming all the way from Jakarta, struggling with a terrible jam caused by the development of ‘dystopian’ new city located at the eastern part of Jakarta that forced them to spend more than 8 hours to reach us. We hope they are not traumatized and willing to be back again some times soon.

The soundscape suddenly changed in the third session. Here we featured a band who refer themselves as a cute, relatively harmless but have sharp spikes. This animal is also like a superhero in the legendary Sega games. Yes, it’s none other than THE HEDGEHOG. This band is a quartet consisting of former ITJazz Chairman Mikhael Martin (guitar), Rinomulat Sembada (drum), Leo Hansen (bass) and Ditra Prasista (keys). We haven’t got Leo on this event for almost 3 years since he played with Olteje back then. Ditra Prasista was here a couple of months ago supporting his friend, he also has a band that’s currently working on the studio The Blue Ocean Project.

The Hedgehog is not a new band, it was established last year, but for some reasons they haven’t been appeared that much just yet. We heard about this band around a month ago and knew we really have to feature it in this event.

Being inspired by the likes of John Scofield’s Überjam Band, MMW (Medeski Martin and Wood) also the famous old school funk band Lettuce, this band plays intoxicating music, cored in the groovy funk jazz/avant funk, hardbop/soulbop with strong scent of psychedelic sound from the 70’s. We don’t get to hear this kind of music so often nowadays, so it’s surprisingly interesting for us to have them taking us back to the glorious psychedelic years.

This cool sound appeared first through a song taken from the collaborative album between Medeski Martin & Wood and John Scofield (MSMW) called “Little Walter Rides Again”. Doping funky drumbeat and bass, the graphic guitar melody, the naughty, steamy sound of organ created ‘dirty’ avant-jazz-funk music, so dirty, you could get high and trip over the tune.

These Hedgehogs continued stabbing us with their spikes by going back almost 40 years earlier with a historical gold from The Meters, “Cissy Strut”. Rino captured the high-flying drum sound really, really well along with the chunky, crunchy basslines from Leo. Jazz-rock fusion guitar playing by Mikha and the teasy organ melodies from Ditra blew our mind away.

As we were still like being high on drugs, they ‘tortured’ us even more with Oasis’ “Stop Crying Your Heart Out”. For the last song they kept the psychedelic funk in pocket by covering today’s avant jazz funk band based in Boston USA, Lettuce. The song title is “Reunion”. We still wished for more, and the band actually still had some on their list, but as we still had to showcase one more band while the time was running out, The Hedgehog had to rest their case.

How relevant is jazz funk in modern days? For us, funk has been infecting many musical areas throughout the decades, even rock, and it will continue to live on forever. The Hedgehog captured the rebelious underground form of expression very well. Their psychedelic music gives a strong statement of funk in its finest, fusing sophisticated techniques of playing with strong spirit and creativity by using the right funk idiom. We know we ain’t see nothing yet, we are not satisfied just yet, therefore we are definitely going to invite them again soon. How about revealing the funk side of 70’s rock from a band like The Doors? Well, stay tuned for the updates. One thing for sure, The Hedgehog’s funky spikes are infectious, we want more!

For the final act we introduced a new band in town: THE NEW BLOOD. Although the band is new, it has 5 young wizs with amazing skill. On guitar is Anjuan Julio, a jazz genius who has started his career early. With his band AFA Trio, he has landed on the Java Jazz Festival and currently working on the debut album. Then there is Jason Limanjaya on keyboard. This dude is expressive and brave in exploring the keys. He is active in some other bands too like Nayra Dharma Group and Funktop.

Then there’s a young prodigy, Philip Manfred Pincencia on saxophone. This boy has saxophone as his forte, but he can also play piano just as good. He began his journey right here two years ago, but he’s been progressing fast. So fast that he has performed alongside today’s top stars like Tulus and Isyana Sarasvati. On bass is Ezra Manuhutu, the son of Venche Manuhutu and brother of David Manuhutu who also plays in New Equinox, a band that already has 3 released albums. Then, Sugih Gumilang on drum is no stranger since he is a proud member of Mahagaza, a pop jazz band with a successful single over the radio charts. As you can see, these boys have achieved great things in their career. Formed by jazz/bluesman Hari Pochang, this band becomes the new force in our jazz scene.

These young guns appeared mad right from the start, blazing like a wild fire by serving up a medley of Chad Lefkowitz-Brown’s “Blues for Randy” and Mezzoforte’s “E.G. Blues”. Three frontliners: the bandleader Jason Limanjaya on keys, Anjuan Julio on guitar and the young sax prodigy Philip Manfred worked together in harmony. They knew when to trade punches, when to attack together, when to move in front and when to step back. The cohesive work between Sugih’s drumming and Ezra’s bass delivered rock solid attractive groove. Together they built momentum in such madness.

Just when we thought they were already on the top of the game, they rose the intensity even more. For the last song they threw Michael and Randy Brecker aka The Brecker Brothers’ song, the title track of their album that won the Grammy Awards a decade ago, “Some Skunk Funk”. It was a fierceful execution that kept us at the edge of our seat, or made the standing ones unable to still. Not only us, even the New Blood boys went mad. Jason expressively showed how he couldn’t sit anymore near the end. He stood up, exploded in every key he pressed and led the rest of the boys to detonate the rest of the bombs (and energy) they had left. What a thrilling performance by these funk skunks. Too bad we couldn’t get more since the we have already way passed the closing time of the mall. As much as we still want more, we got to seal this edition right here.

As what we have predicted, this group is a stunner. These young lads played great like a long time experienced pro exceeding their ages. As we mentioned before, all of them have been doing and achieving remarkable things with their bands, they have gained many valuable experiences and made some breakthroughs. They know when to serve, when to guard and when to run wild in front. Each of them can become a vital role even a standout band leader, but what makes this cohesive unit works is that eventhough they are all very talented and skillful, they are humble and happy to work as a unit instead of being individual.

The New Blood shows how intense jazz can be. If some of you still think jazz is only about relaxing tunes, these boys proved that jazz could offer a non stop action that would push everyone to the edge of their seat. If in football there’s something called dream team, the New Blood represents it inside the jazz world. It’s certainly a pleasure to feature the new force of Indonesian jazz in this episode, and we hope to bring them again in more comfortable time in the near future.

The Braga Jazz Night #40 is very interesting for having all high-skilled, hard-working and commited musicians who share the same passion in jazz. Other than that, it’s also a full round showcase of young musicians (starting from 11 year-old) who play by feel. From swing to Brazilian, to hardbop, funk and to fusion, all were heartfelt but also full of action. This #40 edition defines our mission in any way. Words can’t describe how young musicians could bring madness in the name of jazz.

We will be back again next month with a fresh batch. There will be a jazz guitarist from far away city situated in the island between Indonesia and Singapore. Also, there will be a young indie singer originally came from even further island in the eastern part of Indonesia. It’s going to be another interesting chapter before closing the year with a Christmas edition in December. We thank all musicians, partners, supporters, soundman and everyone who came to watch the shows. We couldn’t do it without you! See you again in November!

Watch the highlight of Braga Jazz Night #40

See more pictures:

Reporter and photographer: Riandy Kurniawan
Video editor: Vierna Mariska Kurniawan .

We have presented around 150 showcases in Braga Jazz Night (formerly known as Braga Jazz Walk) since it was started more than 3 years ago. For us, this shows that Bandung, or in bigger scene, Indonesia, has endless numbers of talents, something which we always believe even before we started this event. By collaborating with the happening mall and favorite hangout place located in the historical Braga street, the Braga City Walk, we’re keep doing our commitment in contributing to the jazz development in Indonesia, especially in the regeneration process. In this event we mainly want to provide time and chance for young musicians to gain experience and be known. We want them to know, that when no other place believe in them, we are always here for them. We started simple by supporting the local talents from our hometown, but as the event progressed, we started welcoming musicians and bands from other cities, even nations. Making this event a home for everybody is what we wanted from the start, and now we are very happy to see it happens.

For the Braga Jazz Night #41 we featured 3 groups with different formation and style, ranging from full band, trio and duo. We got one native Flores young man, born in Borneo but now is studying in Bandung. Then, we got a duo to bring the jazzy side of Disney songs, and for the first time welcome a jazz guitarist from a quite far city located in the mid part of Sumatra, near Singapore, the city of Batam. For this event he built a Batam-Bandung Connection by performing with two compatriotes from Bandung. So, from Flores to Batam to Bandung, to Disney, that’s pretty much the plot for this 41st edition.

Performing first was a dynamic, acoustic duo that we invited to bring a specific theme. The duo is called AEL/HARDI, and the theme is “Sings Disney”. Ael/Hardi consists of a young female singer whose voice has a vibe of jazz/blues ladies from the past, Putri Rahel and a well established jazz guitarist and respected guitar teacher, Hardi Suryana.

We have invited them a couple of months ago. In that edition they wowed us by serving simple but heartfelt performance, taking on jazz standards ranging from the 20’s to 70’s. Ael (Rahel) actually has built a good career upon classical singing. As a part of a choir from her campus, she has reached Italy and won the competition in there. But then, she got interested in jazz and found a good mentor in Hardi. Knowing that one of the reasons for Ael (Rahel) to falling in love into jazz from listening to Disney songs, we thought it’s going to be perfect to let her bring Disney songs in one special session. We also want to remind everyone that there are so many Disney songs built within jazz since the first Disney cartoon appeared in the late 20’s. The soundtrack of it’s first fully animated feature film in 1937 “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, “Someday My Prince Will Come” has even taken as a jazz standard. The newer songs would also be nice to compose with jazz.

Ael must have loved the plan because she wore Mickey Mouse shirt to fit the ‘Sings Disney’ theme. Another thing that we always love from this duo is the fact that they love to think out of the box by picking interesting, unpredictable song lists not many remember anymore. The evidence came directly from the first song, originally sang by Peggy Lee from Disney’s 1955 animated classic Lady & The Tramp: “He’s a Tramp”. Think of it, how often do we hear this classic, jazz-based Disney song nowadays? Slim chance. That’s why we are happy to have this song back alive on stage again, especially when it was brought by a acoustic jazz duo as good as this. If that song is now rare for us to hear, the second song probably is even rarer. They took the theme song of Disney’s The Aristocats (1970): “Everybody Wants To Be A Cat”. Again, it was beautifully delivered.

Ael showed how much she loved Disney. She didn’t just sing the songs but also told us a little story of each film. Next she took a song from a legendary Disney film from 1959, “The Sleeping Beauty” titled “Once Upon A Dream”. “If you remember, the Princess sang this song in the wood.” said Ael. Yes, we do remember that memorable scene, and love the song ever since. Ael/Hardi waltzed throughout the song with a perfect blend of swing.

The next one was more familiar to younger audience, since it was from Pocahontas. Yes, that’s “Colors of the Wind”. It’s just cool to see them keeping the beautiful, earthy feel of it while infusing some jazz not too much but naturally. For the last song they covered a classic song from the 40’s but used in “Finding Nemo” (2003) by the voice of Robbie Williams, “Somewhere Beyond The Sea”. This song gave a perfect ending to their show.

As expected, the full rounded music from Hardi and lovely vintage jazzy voice of Ael over beautiful Disney songs created a fine show. Other than we enjoyed the famous, classic Disney songs in jazz, it became more relevant since we are getting closer to Walt Disney’s birthday which will come on December 5. The world of Disney is the world children grew up with for generations. Besides its famous cartoon characters, the songs have become classics too. In this event we got the chance to listen to them. They cleverly took us into a journey over the Disney World from 1955 t0 2003, from The Lady & the Tramp, The Aristocats, Sleeping Beauty, Pocahontas and Finding Nemo.

All classic songs, we love to hear them again, and how wonderful it is to have it from a duo as good as Ael/Hardi. There are still so many great Disney songs to go with. What about Mary Poppins? Pinocchio? Cinderella? Little Mermaid? Beauty and the Beast? Or the newer ones like Tangled, Frozen and Moana? If they agree, we would love to have the second part of this Disney theme coming from them.

In the second session we featured the young man with lots of talents in music. Like we said before, he is native Flores who was born in Borneo but now resides in Bandung. His name is Marlon Fridolin, and he chose to go only with MARLON to make it easier to remember. In such young age he has been doing a lot of things in music business. He works as a jingle maker, music score for television soap operas, being a judge in singing competitions, music director and mixing/mastering, and on top of it all, he is a singer and musician. Other than teaching, he writes songs for himself. As an evidence of his vocal quality, he has won many competitions and reached the Top 36 at Indonesia Mencari Bakat Season 1.

He has started his solo career some years ago, releasing a successful single titled “Tlah Usai” and gained more than 12k viewers from 2015. He came to us offering his new single “Sewaktu Hujan”. Eventhough he is still trying to find the best arrangement for the song, we think the song has a very good chance to be loved by music lovers so we brought him in. While this is his solo debut for Braga Jazz Night, it’s not his first time because he was here last time supporting his good friend, Antoni Sidjabat.

He brought some of his friends supporting him for this event. They are Boyke Nainggolan (bass), Yabes Ambarita (guitar) and Daniel (drum). Yulius Ferdian (saxophone) was supposed to be here, but he didn’t show up at all until the last minutes. Losing one player could suffer the band, but Marlon led the rest of the team to give their best.

Coincidence or not, the Disney theme continued on with 98°and Stevie Wonder’s “True To Your Heart” which appeared in Disney’s 1998 film, Mulan. Marlon voice suits to sing this kind of soulful, groovy song and his stage appearance is really nice to see too. Marlon knows what kind of song would go well with his high pitched voice as he covered a classic from Daniel Sahuleka, “You Make My World So Colorful”. Daniel, Boyke and Yabes did well in accompanying him. For the last song they took Ruth Sahanaya’s hit “Keliru”. Once again, Marlon showed us that what song would fit his vocal range and pitch. Just like the previous two choices, he nailed this one pretty well.

This man has a forte in ballad and high pitched, wide vocal range, has good stage presence and bunch of talented friends who are happy to support him. He writes good songs, ear cachy melodies and simple lyrics that should connect to everybody’s daily life and experience. He is a fine musician that knows what to do in every process of production. As you can see, this man is a complete package. What he needs is time and more chance to proof himself. We always feel happy to meet a talent like Marlon. Too bad he didn’t sing his own originals because according to him he’s still working to find the best compositions. We hope next time we invite him, he will bring on one or two.

For the third and final session we proudly welcome a swingin’ guitarist from Batam on our stage. His name is Tchepy Wijaya Soekardi. Like Marlon, Tchepy likes to use just his first name in his music career.

We knew him for the first time when we covered the Asean Jazz Festival 2012, an annual jazz fest held in Batam. We still remember how good he was, fusing jazz with Javanese and Balinese ethnic music at that time, even using kendang players instead of drums. He was a fine jazz fusion guitarist, but he told us that right after that performance, he decided to go deeper into the pure world of jazz by focusing on traditional swing, something his teacher, Oele Pattiselano is best at. Other than Oele, he was also learnt from senior guitarist Kadek Rihardika.

Tchepy is active in the Batam Jazz Community and has been spending his nights for many year as an established jazz musicians in his city. To us, this man is a portrait of how jazz is in Batam. He gives a strong statement of the existance and growth of jazz in there.

For this event he appeared as TCHEPY TRIO. We paired him up with two jazz musicians from Bandung: Alman Naufal (drum) and Aries Ardiansyah (bass). These musicians have been playing together many times, including in many gigs of the New Equinox. They haven’t met before, yet they felt connected through chats and phone talks. This pairing creates a harmonious Batam-Bandung connection which we believe will give benefit to both side. At least now Tchepy has a team whenever he has gigs in Bandung or nearby, vise versa.

The beauty of pure jazz appeared right from the start with Cole Porter’s “I Love You”. Not wasting any time, Tchepy gave rooms for his compatriotes to shine by including some cool tradings. They carried on with Richard Rodgers’ composition from 1935, “My Romance”. Tchepy demonstrated how well he could swing. Like an architect, he calmly built each song to perfection. The improvisations were delicious, appeared naturally without any intention once so ever to show off.

The famous jazz standard everyone know “Autumn Leaves” became the next canvas for them to paint. Again, the sweet jazz harmony and chord progression were tasty and charming. The intensity rose when Tchepy pinned the bebop mainstay from Dizzy Gillespie, “Groovin’ High”. If usually we heard this song played by saxophone/trumpet players and the likes, this time Tchepy showed us that this song can be played with guitar just as good. The manic solo drum by Alman was wild on this one.

What’s interesting about Tchepy Trio is that they gained more and more audience throughout the performance. To show that they didn’t want to lose the momentum, they dropped one last bomb, a Charlie Parker’s masterpiece titled “Billie’s Bounce”.

Tchepy is indeed a fine jazz purist. He swings ellegantly in humble way. His way of improvising is as wide and clear as the sky, yet as we said before, he brings it honestly without any intention to show off. He takes his time to build any song, embracing the momentum and build each one to perfection. We feel happy to be able to invite him from Batam, not only to show how well jazz in Batam today really is but also to remind us of why we love jazz in first place.

Band-wise speaking, such lovely harmony from musicians who have never even met before is really inspiring. The Tchepy Trio played like they have been together for years, sharing, supporting, exploring, trading to one another. They kept the foundation of each song the way they discussed then joyfully went improvising whenever they could. As a result, we got sheer swing extacy where passion, fun and love to this music filled the air. A successful cross-city collaboration it was, we hope the trio will be kept to strengthen the jazz connection between the great city of Batam and Bandung.

Since we still got a little time left, we opened the jam session. Guitarist/bassist Kanggep Kusuma who came to support his son Alman agreed to join in. The soul diva Agis Kania who soon will release her second single happily stood on stage as well. Alman and Aries secured the rhythm. Voila, a solid team was built. They sang Antonio Carlos Jobim’s evergreen from 1967, “Wave” . It was spontaneous, but they played real solid as if they were a band. “I haven’t shared the stage with Kanggep for so long, so I’m happy that it happened right here.” said Agis to us. Kanggep also shared his happiness to be able to jam at the Braga Jazz Night.

With this 41st edition, the Braga Jazz Night has expanded its wings to support wider areas in Indonesia. This fact strengthen our wish to make this event as the home of everybody. We are never interested in being segmented, nor that we want to be a closed group or circle. We want to open our stage as wide as possible, reaching and welcoming jazz-related musicians from wherever they come from, whoever they are. No discrimination, no different treatment. We want to extend our reach as wide as possible, supporting more musicians even further than we ever imagine.

As we are approaching December, we are preparing a special Christmas Edition and hope to be able to spread the peace and joy to everyone through good quality of jazz music. Thank you everyone, see you again in December!

Watch the highlights of Braga Jazz Night #41

See more pictures:

Reporter: Riandy Kurniawan
Video editor: Vierna Mariska Kurniawan .

Bandung should be proud of having a great big band with international reputation and standard, The Salamander Big Band. Ever since it was established in 2006 by Devy Ferdianto, this big band has boldly set off its course against the mainstream. Like a team of time traveller, they go back in time exploring the beautiful world of swing from the golden era to the way big band sounded in different periods. Like what we always said, the Salamander Big Band is an authentic big band, not a band that’s big. The formation is set to be like Cole Porter or Duke Ellington’s, it has so many high skilled professional musicians who could bring the best out of great compositions. We have been with them for almost 10 years now, covering almost all their performances both their own concerts and when they participated in international festivals like the Java Jazz Festival or Ubud Village Jazz Festival.

Speaking of concert, they always try their best to make two each year: The Mid Year Concert and Anniversary Concert. It’s been a higlight for us for almost a decade. From time to time they bring something different and unique to the table. Letting the fans and jazz enthusiasts taste the grand big band sound capturing different jazz milestones, collaborating with giants and legends both from our own nation and also from abroad. The skill, the harmony got tastier and tastier each time we saw them. Not only the musicians, they have an amazing line of vocals too which we can proudly compare with just about any great ones out there.

The last concert the Salamander had was the Mid Year at Selasar Sunaryo Art Space. At that time they gave tribute to legendary artist Titiek Puspa. You can read our coverage here: http://jazzuality.com/jazz-event-report/salamander-big-band-2017-mid-year-concert-the-report/. At that time, Devy Ferdianto had told us that they would be back again this year for the 11th Anniversary Celebration in November. Entering the month, we noticed that that plan has come into realization.

The thing is, eventhough we have known the plan since months ago, this awesome ensemble were still able to caught us by surprise in their 11th Anniversary. Why? At least because of four reasons:
1. they brought in two of today’s mega-stars: TULUS and YURA
2. they paid tribute to key-wiz, composer Riza Arshad
3. they carried TUNES OF STAGE & SCREEN as the theme, presenting great songs from the movies from the 60’s to now
4. it was held as the program of JAZZ AULA BARAT #5

For you who are still not familiar with the Jazz Aula Barat, this event was started in 2013 as a program of the students’ activity unit (UKM) of Institut Technology of Bandung called ITB JAZZ (formerly known as ITJazz). If you wonder why they use AULA BARAT as the name, this building which was built in 1919 and stands as the landmark of ITB building has witnessed and welcomed so many jazz figures for decades. The Aula Barat is a part of jazz history of Bandung and Indonesia, it’s iconic, legendary and important.

Riza Arshad, who sadly passed away in January 2017 had a vision to make Aula Barat as one of the cultural centers that serve good, appreciative music performance especially jazz. That idea came to life in 2013 and then continued on in 2016. Series of concerts presenting big names (bands and musicians) who have been dedicating their life and career to this particular music we all love. Today, acting as the curator of Jazz Aula Barat is highy respected figure in jazz, pianist/composer Imam Pras. We know in his hands, this Jazz Aula Barat will continue to have a great future.

After an opening speech and introduction by ITB Jazz’s chief Samuel and The Director of Public Relation and Alumni Dra Samitha Dewi Djajanti, Salamander Big Band arrived on the scene under round applause from the audience. Without further adue they energized the audience with the theme song of the second most financially successful tv animated franchise, “The Flinstones”. The Salamander Big Band executed this song very well just like the original version which was recorded with 22 piece jazz band. Dicky Ampouw and Matt Ashworth became the soloist on this one. The curator Imam Pras joined the ensemble on this one. Loud cheers and applauses were poured on them.

Starting from the first song, this event gave more than just a music performance. They provided a big screen behind the band that revealed the title and also scene from each movie they took the song from. They carried on with another animated movie, this time from the Disney’s “Jungle Book” called “Bare Necessities”. It’s cool to see Mowgli and Baloo dancing on the background while they played the song. Andriyanto Haryanto and Recky Darmawan on trombones were the soloist.

Enough with the animated movie, they switched to a famous song written by filmmaker/actor/comedian extraordinaire Charlie Chaplin, “Smile”. You could hear this song in the biopic “Chaplin” (1992). The Diane Schuur of Indonesia, Nenden Syintawati was on vocal with established saxophonist from Jakarta Donny Koeswinarno on solo. Like the previous song, the sound of flutes enriched the song’s texture.

The famous song from a 1956 movie starring Bing Crosby, written by Cole Porter came right after: “Anything Goes”. Imelda Rosalin left the piano and paired with Gail Satiawaki in front. If you remember, this song appeared grand again 28 years later as the opening of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, sang by the heroine Kate Capshaw along with cool cabaret, Broadway style dancing. Imelda and Gail nailed it as before, and Matt Ashworth got his role again as the soloist. Another song taken from the same movie also written by Porter followed, it’s “De-Lovely”. Amalia Ramdhan was in charge with the vocal.

We enjoyed the scene from “Anything Goes” in two songs. Then Salamander Big Band jumped years forward to pin recent time’s popular song of Sam Smith made as the theme song of 007 James Bond movie, “Spectre”. Yes, it’s “Writing’s On The Wall”! As this song is familiar to today’s generation, they received some noise from the audience. Gail ellegantly sang this song the way Sam Smith did, including Smith’s falsetto trademark. Having the English super spy while enjoying real big band gave us chills, it’s something we don’t get to see often.

Then came the amazing vocal harmony group of Salamander Big Band called Salamander Voices. This vocal group consists of Amalia Ramdhan, Sekar Teja Inten, Devi Remondi and Adi Sigerra. Its first appearance was 4 years ago in the 7th Anniversary Concert. This group of 4 singers has a superb vocal skills and harmony. Of course, when they sing a song from “Finding Nemo”, “Somewhere Beyond the Sea”, it works like charm.

Imelda Rosalin was given the chance to sing one of her favorite song written by one of her all-time favorite composer Burt Bacharach: “A House Is Not a Home”. Singing while having her fingers dance over the keys on grand piano is one of the things she does best. Do we love it? Absolutely.

As they were also tributing Riza Arshad, the brain of this event, Devy Ferdianto announced that they would play two of Riza’s compositions, and since both songs were arranged by Imam Pras, Devy gladly gave his position to him as the conductor. Imam Pras stood up facing the big band and let them on “Black Hole”. We still remember this song was played by Imam Pras and his group TCP/IP in 2010 edition of Serambi Jazz (http://jazzuality.com/jazz-event-report/serambi-jazz-2010-tcpip-the-report/). Dicky Ampouw flew up high in his solo run, as this song got richer sound by the additional clarinet and flute. Riza’s other composition “Empty Room” hit our emotion. The complexity and feel of emptiness made us realize that the master composer is no longer with us physically. We believe those who know him could shed a tear listening to this one.

For the last song of the first session, they flipped our mood back up again with Gordon Goodwin’s song “Backrow Politics”. This song offers a trumpet feast where the straight eights groove and funky punch rules big time. Not only the magical sound of 6 trumpets altogether, 4 trumpeters (Oki Dirgualam, Ujung Sitorus, Wisnu Maulana and Brury Effendy) also got their solos. Devy made them run solo in order from left to right, giving us some visual action along with the playful music. This song was the real kick both for the Salamander and audience, making us unpatiently waited for the second part of the concert.

After 15 minutes break, everyone outside rushed in to enjoy the rest of the show. They made a very interesting open up by taking Quincy Jones’ 1962 gem “Soul Bossa-Nova”. This song was used as the theme song of comical 60’s hipster, psychedelic secret agent movie starring Mike Myers, “Austin Powers”. As we said before, the Salamander Big Band doesn’t only play traditional swing from the golden era, but they also capable to bring the scene of big band sound from later years. In this song we enjoyed the 60’s feel created effortlessly by the ensemble.

If you already watched movies in mid 90’s, you should remember there was a rom-com movie with the late Whitney Houston and Denzel Washington as the lead stars. The movie’s titled “The Preacher’s Wife”. There’s a Whitney song within the soundtrack that’s not only became a top five hit in the USA at that time but also nominated for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance at the 40th Grammy Awards: “I Believe In You and Me”. Perhaps no one’s better to take on this song than the runner-up of The Voice Indonesia season 2 (2016) who is also a proud member of The Salamander Voices, Sekar Teja Inten. This young lady has an outstanding soulful vocal quality which is perfect to sing any R&B songs including a difficult ones like Whitney’s. Sekar took her time, connecting her heart with the audience until she completed the song. Rika Andryani was the only pianist playing in this part.

Gail was back on stage to sing Oasis’ “Wonderwall”. As shown on screen, this song was featured in the final scene of an episode of Smallville season 3. We have heard some jazz versions of this song before (including by Brad Mehldau), but now it’s arranged for big band. Cool arrangement, nice vocal work. The blind lady with unbelievable voice Nenden Syintawati replaced Gail to cover “People”, a Barbra Streisand’s hit from her movie in 1968, “Funny Girl”. Dreamy-flowing melody and strong vocal blew our mind away.

Imelda Rosalin got her second round leading in front. This time she sang not other but her own song, “Hidup Ini Indah”, a hit from the soap opera “Strawberry” in 2002. “Life is beautiful”, that’s how she sum up the character who has honest and sincere personality. Many of the audience still remember this song as we saw happy smile rose upon many faces. A hit circa 1970 from the late Chrisye, “Badai Pasti Berlalu” sounded beautiful in vocal harmony style by the Salamander Voices.

Then came the time for Salamander to bring in the guest stars, starting with Yura. Yura (Yunita Rachman) is a very talented lady with unique beautiful voice that is following Tulus’ footsteps as popular artist. It’s no secret that she gained popularity after being the contestant of The Voice 2013. Eventhough she didn’t win, Glenn Fredly knew that she’s different offered to make her album and signed her in his label. Their duet “Cinta dan Rahasia” topped the charts of many radios. True, but her own songs have the power to be hits too, like “Balada Sirkus” and “Berawal dari Tatap”. Another interesting fact, before she competed in that mentioned talent search above, she was already active as the keyboardist of Risa Sarasvati. She was also existed as a backing vocal, for example in Tulus’ “Konser Diorama” in May 2013 that we still remember clearly.

Yura has just made a wonderful achievement by winning the Best Song for AMI Awards 2017 and Best Female Solo Artist with her album “Intuisi”. Huge pops from the crowds were heard as she walked in. “I’m going to sing the song as requested by Salamander”, she said. And it turns out to be the another James Bond theme, “Skyfall”. It’s kind of surprise us since we didn’t expect her to sing this one, but Devy seemed to know Yura’s indeed the right choice. Her strong voice, steady vibe and clear pronounciation made the song served grand.

Yura carried on with her own song, “Kataji”. “Since I perform here in Bandung, I’m going to sing my own song written in Sundanese”, she said. So there, we got the chance to hear the song in big band fashion. Imam Pras joined Rika on keys. She involved the audience in this one.

Then came the phenomenal star of the decade, Tulus! On the surface, people would think that Tulus rose to fame over a night with his phenomenal first single, “Sewindu.” Although the single and the debut album was really a bullseye in hitting people’s hearts, Tulus has worked hard since at least 5 years earlier to establish himself in this business. He can make catchy melodies and smart lyrics. It can be poetic, it can be simple, but these lyrics which give portraits of what we all experience are made with class. No wonder all his album, from the self-titled debut “Tulus”, “Gajah” to “Monokrom” are all very well-received by fans. He is also a great example of how a musician could achieve success from the community. We know how serious and committed he is, so we are happy to see him being on top today.

At the AMI Awards 2017 (16 November), Tulus wins big by sweeping 5 awards in categories: The Best Album, The Best Production, The Best Soul/R&B/Urban Album, Best Male/Female Soul/R&B/Urban Singer also Best Recording Producer, all for his album Monokrom. We have listened and loved his songs from the albums and concerts, but as we wished, this time we got the chance to hear some of the hits in Big Band arrangement.

Thunderous cheers and applause filled the hall when he came in and waved. On stage, he told a little story that eventhough he wasn’t studied in ITB, he actually came there often, sitting in one corner to write many songs. The third track from the phenomenal first album, “Kisah Sebentar” was the first choice. Many of his fans sang along with him. Some girls moved to the front of the stage so they could snap some photos with their gadgets. Tulus’ crooning voice suits to go with big band. Maybe he doesn’t get much chance now since he has so many invitations from everywhere, but lucky for us, we could see it in this event. “I was so happy and excited when I was asked, I said yes right away.” said Tulus while smiling wide.

For the next song, the audience already knew when he gave a little introduction. It’s the title track of his latest album which swept the AMI Awards, “Monokrom”. We guess nobody in the room are strangers to this song. They sang along and did even louder when Tulus led them from the stage to be a giant choir. The curator of the event Imam Pras took part in Tulus’ performance.

Just two songs from both guest stars, but for us it’s already enough to create something special. Watching Yura and Tulus singing with the big band, for us it’s like a dream come true. We send respect to them both for being a part of this event and for making up such charming, energetic and memorable appearance.

Salamander Big Band still got one last song to deliver. Behold, the force was felt so strong because they played John Williams’ “Star Wars” theme. We have heard many version of this song from classical to disco to even jazz, but we never heard a fully jazz version like this. The song gave a perfect ending after we all got wonderful treats from the combination between lovely big band tunes and visual scenes from the movies.

So there, it was a blast, more than you can imagine. This is what’s funny about the Salamander Big Band. Everytime we saw them performing, we thought we have seen the best, but they kept on topping their previous ones with even better play. Plus, they never stop surprising us. Tonight they brought in two mega-stars to join their cruise, for a tribute to a highly respected figure in music particularly jazz, for an important event like this, it was wonderful!

Based on this and how we have seen the Salamander, we know that they can achieve much bigger things in the future. It’s far from over, the best is yet to come. We are always proud of the Salamander Big Band. As for the Jazz Aula Barat, we believe this event is important and have all the right to be one of the milestones of Indonesian jazz history. We wish ITB Jazz, the stakeholders and the curator, Imam Pras the best. Long live to you all, we enjoyed it, we loved it, we hope to see you again soon!

Salamander Big Band are:

Conductor: Devy Ferdianto
Saxophone: Matt Ashworth (tenor), Joseph Sinaga (alto), Dicky Ampouw (alto), Donny Koeswinarno (tenor), Bonny Buntoro (baritone)
Trumpet: Brury Effendy, Oki Dirgualam, Andri Hadiyono, Wisnu Maulana, Ujung Sitorus, Diana Saralely
Trombone: Agus Suherman, Andriyanto Haryanto, Afdhal Zickri, Arief Budhiyana, Recky Darmawan
Keys: Imelda Rosalin (+vocal), Rika Andryani, Imam Pras
Guitar: Bramania
Bass: Roy Bimantoro
Drums: Augustinus
Percussions: Adya Dhivara
Vocal: Nenden Syintawati, Gail Satiawaki, Salamander Voices (Adi Sigerra, Sekar Teja Inten, Amalia Ramdhan, Devi Remondi)

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Reporter: Riandy Kurniawan
Photographer: Mia Damayati Sjahir & Riandy Kurniawan .

In a fine morning on the 1st of November we got a sad news. Widyasena Sumadio, a communications strategist, independent creative development collaborator, a storyteller, hosting a radio program at Demajors’ Radio who for us is like a brother, buddy, mentor, motivator, passed away at the age of 51 due to a heart attack. He has helped not only us but also a lot of musicians/bands/groups in his life. Helping to connect the dots to achieve bigger and better things, helping with ideas and moral support. A very kind man with a big heart, always placing himself as a close relative who knew what we were struggling with and care enough to give solutions. That’s why many of us grief over his passing.

When we heard about this, we knew that we just had to make something special to remember him. We wanted to bring some of the musicians that he was always proud of and sent our respect through one thing we were connected with: jazz. As we had that plan, we were told that The Papandayan Hotel wanted to share its amazing TP Stage to us. The Papandayan has been successfully running its TP Jazz for around 4 years. Not only it’s served weekly, they also have the grant festival every year and consistently held knowledge sharing with clinics and talks. We feel honored that they wish to support the movement and effort made by a jazz community. We believe this will give benefit to the process of jazz development and regeneration that we have been working on for the last 5 years. We named the event as JAZZUALITY @ TP, set to run on the fourth Sunday of each month.

We respectfully dedicated the first edition for him and gave the title: “In Memory of Widyasena Sumadio”. As soon as we set the theme and date, we started inviting some musicians that we know he always proud of and directly got positive response and support from them. From Bandung are the Manuhutu Brothers (David and Ezra Manuhutu), Tesla Manaf and Grace Sahertian. Then, from Jakarta are Rafi Muhammad along with two friends: ex-BLP keyboardist Doni ‘Don Joe’ Joesran and Taufan Wirzon. As you have probably seen in the flyer and article, a senior guitarist/founder of Ligro whom Widyasena interviewed just a couple of hours before he passed away, Agam Hamzah was supposed to join the lineup, but unfortunately since he catches a bad cold he had to cancel his participation. We hope we could have him in this event some other time.

Performing first was a young jazz genius, Tesla Manaf. Tesla is different. He thinks differently, he executes differently. If you wonder how he could be so different, probably the music environment he grew up with contributed in some ways. Look, he was raised in 60’s-70’s rock progressive styles from the likes of Mahavisnu Orchestra, Gentle Giant, ELP to Soft Machine, but also embracing contemporary music from maestros like Debussy, Bela Bartok and Krzysztof Penderecki. Being fed from these two sides of musical sphere gave him inspirations especially in terms of composing with odd melodies and open-minded, even wild music imagination and exploration.

He has taken his journey one step at a time, which we feel fortunate to be able to witness right from the beginning of his career not long after he moved to Bandung. From a duo with Bayu Kristanto, with Ivan ‘AJ the Real’ Jonathan, with Grace Sahertian and even his successful trio G/E/T to his awesome project combining progressive jazz with traditional Balinese music, instrument and dance, the Tesla Manaf ft Mahagotra Ganesha, he showed tremendous progress. It wasn’t easy, he got to fight all obstacles and kept on sailing through stormy weathers. He caught the attention of MoonJune with the cross-progressive Balinese ensemble who directly signed him, resulting his solo debut album built upon progressive acoustic experimental music that placed him among the world’s top guitarist at recent time.

It’s not Tesla if he stops doing something new. Last August we covered his performance at the Ubud Village Jazz Festival where he played all by himself. He did efforts of connecting ears and eyes to heart in his performance resulting a new experience of enjoying his music. It continued on by collaborating with Mia Damayanti’s photo slides tributing the late key-wiz Riza Arshad a month ago.

Before he begin, he took his time to share his memory with Widyasena. “He loved to give advices, he often said things that I couldn’t understand at first, but when I think of it later, it all made sense and became really important to my career.” Tesla also reminds the audience of something we tend to forget or ignore. “Our works as musicans can be seen through our songs, whether in physics or digitally. But don’t forget that there are people behind the curtain. They might be unseen but we can’t be who we are without them. We have to remember and appreciate them too.” Well said, Tesla.

This time he did another new thing. We were surprised when he told us and the audience that he wouldn’t use his guitar this time, because he wanted to send his respect in special way. “I took my guitar, I played, but for strange reason it didn’t feel right. So I decided to do it in another way. I want this to be special and not like just another gig. I’m sorry if the sound would disturb you later, but this is how I feel for losing him.” he said.

If watching him on stage without guitar is already strange, what he did and the sound he made were much more bizzare. Using his Noise Box/Modular Synthesizer, he created a fully improvised soundscape in such dimension we have never been in before. It’s like he was trying to establish connection to the other world by using the sound of frequencies, sound clips from the movies and songs. The sound of people talking, the disturbing distortion, broken and chaotic, the space-y noise, all were produced from the panel by him.

Throughout the performance everyone were in total silence as Telsa dragged everyone into the tragic realm beyond sadness. In the last 5 minutes, suddenly we heard the voice of Widyasena doing the interview. And yes, it was taken from the last one he made with Ligro just a couple of hours before he died. We could still hear his excited voice, his way of laughing and so on. Then it started to get broken and slowly faded away. Empty, quiet, dark, until the applauses being thrown at him.

Mind-torturing, heart-tearing, provocative, unfamiliar sound to catch, especially on jazz stage. So unfamiliar that we might never understand what he made. But we are sure everyone who listened would get his feeling of pain, anger, sadness and every mixed emotions he has deep within.

Our fellow photographer, Kherisnawan said that Tesla’s play reminds him of Jonny Greenwood, the guitarist/keyboardist of Radiohead. It was like fully improvised bizzare experimental post rock with no pattern or steady beat even melody. This shocking start allowed us to feel the other side of music far transcending whatever we know about it. None of us predicted him playing this way, but after seing it, we realize that another form is existed, and there will be more to discover in other periods of time. And what’s also important is, we can see Tesla now not just as a young guitar virtuoso but also a true artist who know what to do and use in order to deliver his feeling. Simply magnificent.

The second session featured an artistic soulful diva who started her career around the same period with Tesla. She is none other than Grace Sahertian. We have also seen her growth from the start, when she was still with her band Palm From Moodytunes. She began wish soulful, jazz influenced groove, but later on she went on digging wider, reaching the world music as a duo with Tesla and even the urban jazzy hip hop with Circle O’Fifth which has one hit single “Honestunes”.

At a certain time she realized that she had to proceed with her solo career. At first it wasn’t easy for her to find the concept especially since she listened to what people said, but when she decided to listen to her own heart, she finally knew what she wanted and needed to do. After three years in the making, she has released her debut solo album titled “Hela”. With this album she’s taking the listeners into her life process, the highlights of her musical journey (you will find soul, gospel, blues, jazz and world music throughout the tracks) and amazingly brings us into the voyage of finding her roots, using the nearly extinct language of Yamdena. (Read the story about the album here: http://jazzuality.com/album-reviews/grace-sahertian-hela-tracing-back-the-roots/ ). If you follow her career and listen to her albums, also the fact that she is a fine fiber artist, you will agree with us that she is really, really artistic.

For this tribute she took her strong team including Rayhan Sudrajat (guitar), Omega Touselak (keys), Faishal M Fasya (keys and synth bass) and Gantira Sena (drum).

After sharing her memory with Widyasena the last time they met, what he told her and gave his support to Grace’s debut solo album, Grace took us into a journey towards her roots back to the beautiful island in Maluku through her title track “Hela”. Grace’s vocal backed with Rayhan’s voicing and the music served by her team made our imagination appear as if we were rowing bravely in the deep blue sea, facing no matter situation lies ahead with head straight. Just like in the ancient beliefs, this voyage theme could become a way for Grace to sail his spirit out to the better, peaceful world of afterlife in a majestic, elegant and heartful way.

Grace carried on with a track that always brings all her heart and soul out to be felt by the audience due to its strong nature, “Fallin'”. From there, she took Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” and then as how she always wants it to be, she ended up by spreading positive motivating vibe with her song “Sun of Hope”. “The universe wants the best for you, so shine a light and be alive. Bring out the sun to shine,” she sang out loud. If the first song took us into a journey of sailing, the last presentation invited us to go through another different journey, this time into the vast rainforest in Africa through the beat and upmoving melody.

Grace has the kind of voice with strong character that can make any theme to be at its best. Especially for a tribute of someone who Grace knows and respects like this, she gave a heartfelt appearance. As one of the artists that Widyasena really proud of, we know that inviting her is a must. It turns out that she decorated this event soulfully delicious. She gave an expressive, exquisite soul-connected performance.

The sister of Widyasena, Mrs Widyawati, her son and Widyasena’s girlfriend Nirmala Hapsari attended this event. Before we continued with the performance, we invited the representative from the family, Nirmala to share some words on stage. Joining us was Hari Pochang and Venche Manuhutu as the representative of The Papandayan and his friend from Jakarta, show director/production manager Damar Hatmadi to share some sweet memories with the man we gave respect to.

Back to the performance, next we featured The Manuhutu Brothers: David and Ezra Manuhutu. They are the sons of senior jazz guitar teacher and founder of VMS, Venche Manuhutu.

David began his career since he was still a teenager around the same time of Tesla and Grace. After being active for a couple of years either with his own bands/projects or as a part of the Indonesian Youth Regeneration (IYR) who won the Grand Champion at Singapore Performing Arts Junior Competition in 2010, he got the chance to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA under a scholarship. According to Venche, it was Widyasena who suggested him to contact Dwiki Dharmawan to find the scholarship, and it was a right sugestion. In Berklee, David continued to make achievements, including earning place on Dean’s List given to students who achieve high grades by the average of 3.4 and above.

Now as he has done with his study, he quickly placed himself among the great young jazz musicians who are equipped with high jazz playing technique. He has made an album titled “A Journey” where he played alongside two top American jazz guitarists: Adam Rogers and Peter Bernstein, plus a drummer from Peru, Ken Ychicawa. He recently joins the Indro Hardjodikoro Quartet too and just came home from an album tour in Japan visiting two cities: Tokyo and Nagoya.

As for Ezra, we first knew him as a saxophonist, but later he switched to and found his existance in bass playing. He grew as a solid bassist with The New Equinox and now stands as the bassist of a band full of amazing young players, The New Blood.

As we mentioned before, The Manuhutu Brothers was supposed to play with Agam Hamzah. Since Agam couldn’t come, they had to play alone. But that’s not a problem, because good players like them could always do great things even just by two. For this event they played two jazz standards: 1930’s gem “Body and Soul” and Charlie Parker’s composition from 1946, “Confirmation”. In each song the siblings locked up tightly, connecting their brain, heart and soul to erve jazz in purity. Everything you love from jazz were there. They played tight, cleanly executed each one, spared plenty of room for improvising. A real treat for jazz purists or the hardcore jazz lovers.

Projected to play as trio, they ended up just as a duo at the last minute. But that’s the magic of jazz, you can still expect a good round from a class-act musicians. While we have known the amazing skill of David Manuhutu, it’s great to see that his little brother Ezra is going to the same direction. Beautiful songs, beautiful play, beautiful jazz.

For the final session we featured a phenomenal young drummer who with lots of achievements and holds 3 MURI Records (Indonesian World Records Museum): Rafi Muhammad. If you wonder why we refer him as a phenomenal musician, it’s because he has done so many amazing things since he was still a kid. The first time we heard his name was when his debut album “Can’t Stop The Beat” was released more than 10 years ago. This album was produced by Harvey Mason, featuring no less than 18 world’s jazz giants like Mason’s compatriotes in Fourplay: Bob James and Nathan East, Tom Scott, and Ernest Tibbs just to mention a few. Speaking of MURI Records, he is listed under 3 categories: the youngest musician who performs at the Java Jazz Festival, the youngest musician who collaborated with 18 international musicians and the youngest producer for his own album at the age of 14.

Speaking of skill, he is great not only in mastering variety of styles but also by his playing style which is distinctive and full of youthful energy. He is the master of infusing rock and urban hip hop into jazz that feels natural and fluid. Look at his band and project he’s in throughout his career, from Rafi and the Beat, The Art of Tree, the second formation of LLW (with Indra Lesmana and Barry Likumahuwa) and Her Coat of Arms (along with Sri Hanuraga and Adra Karim).

Just a few days ago he released a new album titled “Transition”. As usual, he made another breakthrough with this album. “Transition” is under a Japanese record label who signed artists in wide array of genres from jazz to rock, AMSA Records. The album launching gig was made not in Indonesia but at Motion Blue in Yokohama, Japan. As mentioned by Rafi when releasing the single a year ago titled “Break The RuleS”, this album depicts his journey in music since the moment he began his career up until now. Because of that you can find jazz, rock, fusion, psychedelic, progressive and urban hiphop.

Rafi is among the artists that Widyasena supported for many years. It’s still like yesterday when we met him with Rafi and his band The Art of Tree in Bandung. Therefore we had Rafi in our list when we came out with this tribute event, luckily he’s available and agreed to join. Rafi performed in trio formation with Doni Joesran (keyboard) and Taufan Wirzon (bass). To Rafi, Widyasena is a figure of his life. He told us that Widyasena played a very important role to his Japan tour. And to Doni, Widyasena is a companion of his life. “All songs we are going to play are dedicated to him, Rafi said right before he jumped into his saddle behind the set of drums.

The trio played songs from Rafi’s new album “Transition”. First was “When I Was 10”, a playful track with strong funky beat. This song caught the attention of the audience as they bagged applause a couple of times whenever the audience were pleased with their shot. The title track “Transition” followed directly afterwards. Don Joe moved from the grand piano to keyboard while the other two maintained their positions. This song is lethal with graphic beat and melody. Certainly not easy to play since it has a lot of twists and tricky moments.

Rafi, made the stage like his fun playground. He teased and threw jokes spontaneously when he’s not busy banging the drums. Then Don Joe stepped forward and gave a speech. Rafi offered to provide some music by placing himself behind the grand piano. Doni then told us about a song he wrote inspired by his chat with Widyasena a while ago about the power of mother’s prayers. The song’s titled “Her-Lachrymose” (Latin – means: tearful/weeping). This song was played in a solo piano recital. Don Joe had a short moment of silence before he started pouring sad, bitter-sweet streams of melody. The combination of classical with light jazz at its best, full with emotion creating a touching moment. This song is so beautiful, we hope it will go into the recording, either appear in Don Joe’s upcoming solo debut or in any other ones. Rafi and Taufan regrouped and gave one last action. Again, strong, furious track was served in full round which sealed this tribute in style.

The trio of Rafi Muhammad hows attractive jazz in urban feel at present time. The energetic powerful beat, the captivating bass walk and the vibrant piano sound, all packed in one rock solid performance. Rafi shared 3 songs from his new innovation/movement which is now available to hear in his latest album released just a week ago in Japan. Rafi and his beat is always too hard to handle, and this trio appears as a very strong unit. We are happy to be able to invite them and hope we can have them again some other times.

We thank all the participating artists who have given their best, The Papandayan Hotel, all who came and everyone behind this event. We hope everything we all did with this event ; eventhough small ; could send our respect and prayers to Widyasena. We miss his friendly appearance, his jokes, his thoughts, his ideas, his support and writings. He’s physically gone, but certainly not forgotten. Rest in peace mas Wid, we will keep on carrying your passion, wishes and hopes. We will always remember you.

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Reporter: Riandy Kurniawan
Photographer: Riandy Kurniawan, Mia Damayanti, Prama Hanindia Wirakusumah .

As you might already know, we are now running two regular events every month. One at the location we have been in for the last 3 and a half year, the Braga CityWalk, and the other one is just started last month, at the TP Stage, the cozy jazz lounge of the 5-star hotel, The Papandayan. That means, now we have two places where we can give our support towards the regeneration of jazz musicians and the development in Indonesia especially in Bandung.

We name the one in the TP Stage “JAZZUALITY @ TP “. As we are now in December, we make our second episode special for Christmas celebration. Three showcases presenting two duos (one instrumental and one with vocal) and a participation from a very well established music school where jazz is ringing, that’s what the menu for this time. Oh yeah, “Swingin’ Christmas” is the theme, showing our intention to celebrate it in swing.

Performing first was the duo consisting of young jazz dudes: Anjuan Julio Siahaan (guitar) and Jason Limanjaya (piano), together as Juan Jason Project. We always consider them as two of the best and most interesting jazz musicians coming from the new generation. Jason and Juan are equipped with great skill and sharp in sense. Both of them shine in each of their bands: Juan in AFA Trio and Jason in The New Equinox and Nayra Dharma Group), but they have also played together in one band like Funktop and the most recently with New Blood.

Since the end of last year, we have heard that Juan and Jason were establishing a project filled by just them. They have graced many stages soon after from jazz to blues. We haven’t got the chance to feature them, but in this special Swingin’ Christmas edition finally we got them.

What’s interesting about these young men is that they both can make good compositions. They like to draw inspiration from daily lives, what they see, hear or feel, but they see it from the different angle. If Juan is more serious in selecting his subjects, Jason seems to have playful mind as he takes funny matters. They brought these subjects up in a story telling mode by using their respective instruments.

Right after we opened up the show and introduced them, they locked up with a song to fit the occasion, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”. They made it like jamming, fully depending on their feel and connection all the way to the end. After that, Juan told everyone that the next song is about his wish to share his life with someone. “Looking for Love”, that’s the title, composed in Samba mode inspired by one of Chick Corea’s song. Juan didn’t want to make it as a sad ballad, instead he described it sweet and romantic with cheerful vibes.

Then Jason got her turn to introduce his composition. “I’m no Don Juan, I’m not the romantic kind of guy,” he said laughing. What his composition based on is not most of people would think of, it’s called “Lutung”, in English means langur, the old world monkey. This song is so playful. Sneaky, jolly jumper and naughty, we guess portraying the daily life of langur in a wild forest. He injected some ethnic touches here and there while trading some jumping notes with Juan.

The interesting song carried on with another unusual source of inspiration Jason had in mind: “Baso Tahu”. For our foreign readers, baso tahu is one of the common food from West Java. Fried dumpling is probably the closest way to say it in English. It’s bluesy, boppin’ and full of free-flowing improvisations. The audience became a part of this song too as Juan asked everyone to repeat his made up lyrics. Jason just laughed at that attempt while still twisting his fingers above the keys. They had lots of fun with “Winter Wonderland” which became the last drop of their show. Loud cheers and applause were thrown to them.

We simply love the way they tell stories. From inspiring message, daily life experience to funny stuffs to Christmas songs to fit the theme, all served effortlessly in the free improvising spirit. It’s like they let us go into their dialogue which is fun to follow. There’s no doubt that these young fellas are outstanding musicians, and when they join forces, they always come out with something different. Just two players playing pure jazz, but it was fascinating and pleasuring. A very great start for the Swingin’ Christmas courtesy of Juan Jason Project.

In the second session we presented the students of well established music school with international curriculum along with their teacher. The school is ME Music Centre, formed by pianist/teacher Michelle Efferin in 2006, just a year after she graduated from Sydney, Australia. This school uniquely accept students as early as 2 years old and allow kids at the age of 4 to join the music and vocal classes. No wonder the ME Music Centre is able to present kids who could sing and play jazz really well.

Just a week earlier the school has just held their Christmas concert where not only showcased good quality of kids and youngsters from ME but also marked the reunion between Michelle Efferin and violinist Ammy Kurniawan. We manage to bring a slice of it. The combination of teachers : Michelle (piano), Oggie Samuel (guitar), Iwan (bass) and Richard (drum) with some of the best ones today among the students: Kevin Chrisandy (vocal), Madeleine Abigail (keys and vocal), Patricia Angelica (vocal), Christopher Emmanuel (vocal), Sydney Gabrielle (vocal) and Michelle’s daughter, 6 year-old Kezia Alexis (vocal) brought the Christmas joy into this event for around half an hour or so.

The teens quickly stood in straight line facing the audience and sang “Mas Que Nada”. This song immidiately spread the joy. The happy samba mode, the lovely vocal harmony and the substantial works from the teachers in providing music. The solo run by these teachers were fascinating.

Then all the singers left the stage except Madeline. She felt quite nervous at first, but after Michelle hugged her and calmed her down, she’s able to control her tense. She sang “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” really, really well. She clearly has better singing skill and control over her voice now comparing to the last time we got her in our event back in the Braga Jazz Night some months ago.

Madeline then moved to the keys and her sister Sydney came in. Together they took on a Disney classic from the movie Pinocchio, “When You Wish Upon A Star”. Madeline didn’t just play the keyboard but she sang as well. These talented sisters were backed by some the teachers during their appearance.

Then came the time to have the youngest performer in this event, the daughter of Michelle Efferin and Richard Sirait, 6 year-old Kezia Alexis. She ran to the stage giggling when she heard her name being called, making the audience laughed for her cuteness. On stage, accompanied by her mom she sang “O Holy Night” in complete lyrics. She did really amazing. Not only she memorized all the lyrics, she’s pitch perfect and effortlessly hit the high notes. Imagine a little girl like Kezia able to face the audience and sing, no sign of having any pressure, for us that’s really remarkable. For your information, she has been gracing our stage a couple of times since last year so we know how good she is. Another note, she also plays piano, violin and great in drawing. What an amazing girl she is. If she makes us proud, we can imagine how proud she makes her mommy and daddy.

The rest of the teens came back to the stage for one last song, “Winter Wonderland”. For us, this one is an epic due to the high level of difficulties. They chew complex vocal harmony and perfectly done each of their part. Little Kezia also joined them creating a spectacular kids vocal harmony group. It was unbelievable, how kids their age could do it, but ME Music Centre did it.

How many ensemble of kids could give a good-flowing jazz performance? Based on our experience in collaborating with the ME Music School, they do have and can provide so many. Look at the kids and teenagers, blending with their teachers as one team and brought happiness to our hearts. Having the founder and teachers who share the same dream with us, we believe we could continue and even extend our cooperation in order to see more and more skillful musicians from today’s generation. Always proud of the students and everyone in ME Music Centre. Great curriculum plus great teachers plus talented students equals great success.

The final performance got a dynamic acoustic guitar-vocal duo, Ael/Hardi. This duo is consisting of jazz guitarist/teacher Hardi Suryana and old soul vocalist with classical background, Putri Rahel Sihombing. If you are following our articles, you should already be familiar with them since we have featured the duo a couple of times in just a short amount of time.

It’s not difficult to figure out why we love to bring them in. The duo plays and sings really well. They like to take us into a journey of time, visiting some of the best moments of jazz through smart selection of songs. They are capable to bring any concept alive and make it special. Look at how good they were when we challenged them to sing Disney. It was job well done, much much better than our expectation.

Ael has a sophisticated but strong jazz vibe in her voice, and she has a crystal clear pronounciation too, which is remarkable knowing that she came from classical background as a part of a world-winning choir. As for Hardi, this man is outstanding when it’s about spoiling jazz lovers with his delicate play.

Just like we thought, they started with a song not many thought of bringing for a jazzy Christmas. It was a very old hymn from year 1849, “It Came Upon The Midnight Clear.” The crisp voice of Ael with Hardi’s waltzin’ guitar work was perfect to bring this song back again on stage. Then Ael took another song not many remember anymore eventhough it’s from not too distant past, a song mostly associated with the great Tony Bennett, “Christmas in Herald Square.” This song totally fits her like a puzzle piece found its exact place.

Next was a song from 1953, a tongue-in-cheek look at a woman who made a Christmas list full of royal, extravagant gifts adressed to Santa Claus: “Santa Baby”. It was Eartha Kitt who sang it for the first time but then so many singers have recorded it throughout the years, including the likes of Madonna, Kylie Minogue and Ariana Grande. Cute and notty nature of this song was captured nicely by Ael/Hardi. For the last tune, they played one of the most popular song for Christmas, “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)”.

We may probably enjoy the big band, full band or combo for Christmas songs, but a beautiful acoustic approach certainly works for this specific theme as well. Especially when it lies in good arms. Good teamwork, good play, good sing, good songlist once again came from Ael/Hardi. They made it looks simple, but what they bring is actually classy. We still have many ideas for this cool acoustic old-soul jazz duo (including “Sings Disney part 2”), we hope they would agree to be a part of our event again in the near future.

That was the end of all performances, but then since there were many of the audience wished to be a part of the show, we opened up the jam session. Dr Ervina Pasaribu who came with her husband quickly positioned herself on stage, followed by Jason Limanjaya (piano), Eleazar Yoshua and Anjuan Julio (guitars), Christ Kevin (bass on keyboard) and Oce Kamlasi (drum). This group sang “All of Me”, and then “Just the Two of Us” with Jason and Christ exchanging role.

One of the audience, Mrs Poppy then replaced Ervina to sing “Days of Wine and Roses”. In this song, Anjuan surprisingly moved to drums while his place was taken by Jabez Bezaleel Chan. The surprise became even bigger when Mr Hari Pochang joined the crowds with his cool harp for “Route 66”. In this song Juan went to keyboard to play bass while Jason now became the drummer! What a scene, what a jam session! Since it was really late already, the event reached the end.

We are happy to be able to bring a swingin’ Christmas celebration into the cool, cozy lounge of TP Stage. From kids, teenagers, young adults to experts, from students to teachers, all gathered together to make one of our Christmas events this year felt merry and bright. Thank you to all participating artists, the Papandayan, supporters and certainly to everyone who came. Remember, we can’t hope to see the successful regeneration of jazz musicians and the development if no one comes. So, we really appreciate your coming.

We still have another Christmas event coming just in a couple of days: The Braga Jazz Night : Christmas Smoothies at the Braga CityWalk (Read the article here: http://jazzuality.com/jazz-events/braga-jazz-night-42-christmas-smoothies/ ). A totally different concept and lineup will be there to bring their own version of Christmas gig. We hope you join us again this Thursday. Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrate it. Let there be peace on earth, keep spreading positive vibes and love to one another. Our nation needs it more than ever. God bless you all.

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Reporter and photographer: Riandy Kurniawan

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Ever since we started running the community-based jazz event, we have presented 6 Special Christmas Edition. Specifically in this event, the BRAGA JAZZ NIGHT (previously known as Braga Jazz Walk), this special show comes every year since 2014. This year once again we dedicated our December edition (it’s the 42nd edition by the way!) to celebrate Christmas, jazz style. We give the theme of “CHRISTMAS SMOOTHIES”, referring to our intention of presenting wide variety of jazz styles performed by the combination of young talents to pros.

Appearing first was a group of high schoolers with unique name: The Paradox. This new group was formed by a student of ME Music Centre, Kevin Chrisandy due to our offer for him to be in the lineup several months ago. Kevin has been here once with other students and teachers of his music school, but now we wanted him to stand on his own. We know he can, we know he’s talented, and we want to give him a push so he could be ready to face the real world as a musician faster than he thought.

As The Paradox, he brought in some of his high school friends including Keane Christopher (bass), Johnson Japp (drum), Nathanael Jofan Oetomo (saxophone). I brought these fellows in so they could learn together with me and got the same chance given to me.” said Kevin to us. Yes, that’s a really good spirit and the reason of why we created this event in first place. This is their first ever event.

These high schoolers began with a selection far from easy, Chick Corea’s “Spain”. They did the tutti part well and had fun running the song until the end. From there, they went swaying with “Quando Quando Quando”. Kevin sang in this one while playing the piano. Two Christmas songs came from these boys to fit the theme, “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” and “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)”.

It’s quite interesting that Kevin chose The Paradox as the name. with every struggle he’s in, it’s remarkable that he could become who he is today. In some ways, it’s a paradox. With all his progress especially in the field of self confidence and how he utilizes what he has learnt, we are proud of him. We are also proud of his teachers, Michelle Efferin, Othep and all teachers in ME Music School for equipping this boy more than just music skill. We hope these boys keep practicing and exploring together. One day they will be ready to step up onto the higher ground, and we certainly will invite them to see each and every progress they make.

The second act was a duo of young singer who has started her career at least 7 years ago, Luis Anastasia Sinaga and a long time guitar teacher, Jhonny Edwin Sitompul. The name of this duo is simply taken from their first name, Luis & Jhonny. Both of them are no stranger to us. Luis has graced our stage several times either with her successful vocal group established in 2010, Puella or with her church friends by the name of MY Kids. While Jhonny who has been teaching for 17 years in Purwacaraka Music Studio has brought his own project and supporting his friends too. We never saw them together, so for us it’s interesting to see how they would do as a duo.

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A nice acoustic vocal-guitar work directly filled the venue as they sang two famous Christmas carols: “O Holy Night” and “The Christmas Song”. On the first one Luis sang calm and peaceful with deep emotion, while on the second one she demonstrated how good she could bring a chillax mood along with a fine work by Jhonny on guitar.

Smooth, sweet, simple yet on target, that’s the impression we got from their gig. An acoustic duo is always nice to bring something intimate, and the combination of smooth, sweet vocal of Luis with a good fingerworks of an experienced guitar teacher make it works real fine. Acoustic jazzy Christmas feels delightful. We hope the duo will be kept, so we can invite them again some other time.

Now, how about a solo piano jazz recital for Christmas? We thought it’s going to be cool if it’s played by a really good one. Well, for this idea we featured a specially gifted 11 year-old girl who could already play like a pro, Nadine Adrianna.

This little girl is not even a teenage just yet. But remarkably she has gained lots of experiences from playing with and learning from some of the best jazz musicians in this planet, national and international. She has landed on the Java Jazz Festival and some other prestigious ones. She just came back from Bali to learn more from the iconic jazz figure, Indra Lesmana.

Nadine has two active bands: the BFG Trio and her own band, Nadine Adrianna Trio. She has more than enough original compositions to fit into an album, all were made based on what she has, see and feel around him but if you listen to her compositions, you wouldn’t believe that they were made by a little girl her age. And what makes us feel blessed is that her very first performance was here in this event more than 2 years ago, when she was still 8!

If we invited her trio two months ago, this time we let her do her thing alone. She carried 4 songs consisting of 2 Christmas songs, one Disney that’s also taken as a Jazz Standards and one song composed by her current teacher.

What’s interesting is that Nadine played all these famous songs in her own way, making them as if her own. Look at how cool she played “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” in pure jazz with all its complexity. Her fluent jazz speaking continued on in “Someday My Prince Will Come” from Snow White. Both of these songs redressed in a whole new fashion by Nadine. The Christmas spirit was well kept with another fine interpretation of “Jingle Bells”.

For the fourth and last song, she surprised us by taking a masterpiece of a group called JavaJazz (not to be mistaken with the huge jazz fest), written by Indra Lesmana titled “Moon Over Asia” aka “Bulan Diatas Asia”. If you remember, this song captured all the greatest moment in jazz performed by jazz gods that would make any listeners tranced in a fantasy of watching the moonlight falls on the glittery Asian sea, jazz way. We have never heard the song played solo, as it’s very risky due to the high level of difficulties both in playing and capturing the imaginary scene. But Nadine actually able to bring it. A straight tour-de-force by this wonder girl that’s not only will make her teacher Indra Lesmana proud but also us all.

You know, Nadine played just as good as if you have a long time experience pro in charge. She has done solo Christmas Jazz piano recital two years ago in this event, but now she’s enhanced in skill, control, technique and variety. She owns the stage now and takes her time patiently in building the perfect momentum on each song. “Uncle Indra told me that I have to enjoy my play in order to make my audience enjoy it as well.” she said smiling. And yes, now she clearly is doing exactly that. We can’t be more proud of her, and certainly, we wish to keep supporting her. As amazing as she is now, we know we ain’t see nothing yet. We will keep on bringing her for sure to be updated with her progress and movement. What a beautiful and triumphant solo performance it was.

For the final session, it’s a privelege to present another phenomenal kid – this time is a boy – who debuted in our event but now has been enjoying his success in the higher ground, Philip Manfred Pincencia. He is still in mid-teen, but his soul resonances jazz louder than boys his age, even older ones. The evidence is found not only with one instrument but two, because we can capture his jazz soul perfectly with saxophone and piano just as good. But lately it seems like he is focusing more on saxophone, which in fact delivers him to the certain stage where he’s at right now.

We say he is phenomenal not just because of his very special God-given talent but also because how fast he’s climbing in the jazz scene, or even music scene in general. Just a couple of months ago he made a surprising move by being sharing the same spotlight with two of the mega stars today: Tulus and ISyana Sarasvati. He keeps on climbing from there, from being the opening of Tulus’ concert to another blast alongside saxophonist Ricad Hutapea at iCan Studio, Jakarta. Step aside of these fast rising with top stars, he is found in a band of young wizs, The New Blood.

For this event, we let him chose who he wanted to play with. And it turned out to be surprising, because he came up with real-life jazz couple, the senior bassist Rudy Zulkarnaen and the standout female drummer Adisty Zulkarnaen. While Rudy has many bands in different colors, shapes and sizes like simakDialog, Rudy & Band Listrik and 4Peniti just to mention a few, Adisty places her feet solidly on Jazzy Juice and the famous pop band SHE other than being busy as sessionist. Oh yeah, the name of the trio is PHIL TRIO.

A surprise came in as Phil Trio was reinforced with another player on piano, Philip’s piano teacher Mr Yahya Salam. From trio to quartet, in front of so many audience this marvelous team spread the joy with “Feliz Navidad”. Philip’s sax bites was a big attraction, so did the swaying senior bassist Rudy Zulkarnaen and wife Adisty who dressed up glowingly colorful. Mr Yahya Salam sat calm behind the keyboard, but his fingers danced merrily with the trio.

For the second song, still in the format of four Philip led his stellar cast to play “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!”, not in the usual way but delivering it with funky blues approach. “I decided to play it this way so we won’t get bored”, said Philip. So, again, we got interesting rendition of a Christmas song we all know so well.

A composition by Clifford Brown which taken by many as his signature song was next, “Joy Spring”. For this one, Philip left his saxophone and took Mr Yahya’s position on keys. Rudy teased him in some parts with his provocative bass, making Philip ran wilder and bolder. For the last song, interestingly they covered one of The Beatles’ famous gem, “Blackbird”. What they played was based on Brad Mehldau’s version. Still on keyboard, Philip and the jazz couple Rudy and Adisty gave a standout performance just as good as the Mehldau’s trio that recorded this song back in 1997. Sharp, clean and tight, they delivered it chilled right until the end. Philip thanked everyone and then left the stage with his team.

Rudy and Adisty has began their professional career much earlier than Philip, but we know that with someone like this boy wonder, the trio would work in the best way possible. It’s proved to be right. They created a rock solid trio where sky is the limit. Plus Mr Yahya Salam on keys, the group became a dream team with 5-star performance. What a joy to be able to have them enhancing our Christmas edition of Braga Jazz Night.

Since we still got time, we opened the jam session. The boys of The Paradox: Kevin, Johnson and Keane gladly jumped in, also Nadine. They called Philip back to play some more with them. Hence, we got all-young musicians ready to jam. They took Charlie Parker’s “Billie’s Bounce” as they playground where they joyfully shared the fun like being in an amusement park. It’s really a great moment to see two of the very young musicians who began on our stage but now achieved huge success playing together, along with the younger ones who probably just tasted their first ever jam session experience.

Many of Luis’ friends from the church, GKI Maulana Yusuf, came tonight. Two of them took part in this late party, including an alumnus of NEZ Academy, Cindy Tambunan who sang “L-O-V-E”. The Paradox happily served the melody for her. Then Rachmat Hulu sang Burt Bacharach/Hal David’s hit popularized by The Carpenters, “(They Long to Be) Close To You.” A group photo session became the last drop of this edition.

That’s how the 4th Christmas event we made at Braga CityWalk goes. From a band of high schoolers, a duo consisting of college student and long time guitar teacher, a wonder girl’s solo piano and a trio consisting of rising star and a super jazz couple made this year’s Christmas edition of the Braga Jazz Night shone bright. We feel happy to close our service for year 2017 with this edition.

We will be back again in 2018. New year, new chapter, new opportunities. Can’t wait to enter it! Thank you to all participating musicians and all of you who came. We really appreciate you support. We wish all of you who celebrate Merry Christmas and to everyone, Happy New Year. Many people say that 2018 will be even more difficult to walk through, but let’s walk with faith so we can go pass it as a winner. Another message is, the world has already enough troubles. Let’s relieve the tense by spreading peace and love so this world can be a better place to live. Happy holiday to you guys, see you again in 2018!

Watch the highlight of Braga Jazz Night #42 : Christmas Smoothies

See more pictures:

Reporter/Photographer: Riandy Kurniawan
Video Editor : Vierna Mariska K .

The seventh annual Mahindra Blues Festival (MBF) wrapped up in Mumbai in fine style with a star-studded lineup including Shemekia Copeland, Quinn Sullivan, Janiva Magness, Billy Gibbons, and Blackstratblues – and ending with a final jam featuring many of the performers.

Blues giants at earlier editions of the festival include Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker Jr., Taj Mahal, Jimmie Vaughan and Keb Mo. There was also a talent hunt for the best new blues band in India, and the winners for 2017 were Delhi-based group Blu. See also my writeup on MBF 2016, and interview with guitarist-composer Warren Mendonsa.

The two halls at Mehboob Studio in Bandra were packed with blues fans of all ages, as well as the outdoor performance stage, lounge, and vinyl store (also check out the festival art here). The blues, commonly regarded as the mother of all modern Western genres ranging from jazz to funk, has a large following in India as well.

Day One

The first performance was by festival regular Blackstratblues, a blues-rock ensemble led by guitarist, songwriter and producer Warren Mendonsa. The drummer at their MBF performance was Gino Banks. Warren’s early influences were bands like Cream and Led Zeppelin (at MBF he also played ‘When the Levee Breaks,’ with Shazneen Arethna on harmonica).

The group is named after Warrens’ black Fender Stratocaster guitar, and their albums include `Nights in Shining Karma’ and ‘The Last Analogue Generation’. The group played a range of mostly instrumental tracks of blues, rock and psychedelia.

An international star kicked off the next performance: singer-composer Janiva Magness, winner of the Blues Music Award and Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year. Her latest album ‘Love Wins Again’ was nominated for the 2017 Grammys. After the legendary Koko Taylor, Janiva is the second woman to win the highly coveted B.B. King Entertainer of the Year award – and she showed her mighty vocal prowess at MBF 2017 to loud rounds of applause.

The final act on Day One was guitar prodigy Quinn Sullivan, all of 17 years old, who has already shared concert stages with Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, and Los Lobos. He has also opened for B.B. King who later invited him play his treasured ‘Lucille’ guitar.

At MBF 2017, Quinn endeared himself to the audience by plucking some notes on the sitar before commencing his stellar set. He was accompanied by the talented Tom Hambridge on drums. His most recent album is ‘Midnight Highway;’ his first two albums were ‘Cyclone’ and ‘Getting There.’

Delhi-based quartet Blu, the winners of The Mahindra Blues Band Hunt 2017, performed on both nights in the outdoor theatre between the main acts. The musicians, hailing from Northeast India, played a mix of delta-inspired songs along with blues-rock. Members include Pranai Gurung (lead guitar), Kapil Chhetri (guitar, vocals), Rahul Rai (bass) and Chewang Lama (drums).

Day Two

The second day kicked off with Grainne Duffy Band from Ireland. Grainne is a guitar player, singer and songwriter, drawing on the blues traditions of Memphis and Chicago. She was influenced by Aretha Franklin, Rolling Stones, Peter Green, and the three Kings – BB, Albert and Freddie.

The charming singer showed off her wide range of vocals and guitar riffs at her first performance in India, with the audience shouting out to her to keep coming back. Grainne’s albums include ‘Out of the Dark’ and ‘Test of Time,’ and she has won a number of awards in Europe as best female vocalist and best live performer.

Vocal powerhouse Shemekia Copeland then took the stage, belting out a fiery set of blues, soul and rock. The ‘gale force’ three-time Grammy Award nominated singer does her father proud: Johnny Copeland, ace blues guitarist. She has produced a range of albums such as ‘Turn the Heat Up’ and ‘Outskirts of Love,’ and has performed in festivals across the world.

Shemekia has sung with Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Carlos Santana, and James Cotton. She drew a thunderous ovation for the songs ‘I am a Woman’ and ‘Ghetto Child’ — some of which she sang without the mike, and her powerful voice still cut right across the hall.

Shemekia showed why she truly deserves the title ‘Queen of the Blues,’ passed on to her by Koko Taylor’s daughter Cookie. She also endeared herself to fans in India by sharing that she had left behind her newborn son so that she could perform in Mumbai.

The festival ended in rousing style with Supersonic Blues Machine featuring the legendary Billy Gibbons (of ZZ Top) and Eric Gales. The group was spearheaded by Texan guitarist-singer-songwriter Lance Lopez and bassist-producer Fabrizio Grossi, along with Indiana drummer Kenny Aronoff.

In other interviews to the media, Fabrizio said that blues is like pasta – “you can add bolognese, tomato or clams, but the main ingredient is pasta!” Tennessee guitar virtuoso Eric Gales has also played with funk pioneer George Clinton.

They played a range of classics like ‘La Grange,’ much to the audience’s delight. The scorching guitar solos leapt to another dimension when the musicians were joined on stage for a memorable final jam by Warren Mendonsa, Quinn Sullivan, Graine Duffy and Shemekia Copeland.

The Mahindra Group also organises the Kabira Festival in Varanasi, a tribute to the great poet-saint and promoting his message of equality and dignity across religions. The corporate group has a won a number of CSR awards for its initiatives, which also includes the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards (META).

Anand Mahindra, the automotive group’s chairman and managing director, is a blues lover himself. “The festival shows that you’re a real believer, and you’re not just supporting another festival in New Orleans. You’re such a believer, you’re taking it across the world. That’s how you create empathy, trust and admiration,” explains Anand, in a Live Mint interview. We all look forward to the next edition of the Mahindra Blues Festival already, in 2018!

Written and photographed by Madanmohan Rao
Editor & DJ, World Music and Jazz;
Bangalore Global Correspondent for Jazzuality.com .

The year 2017 wraps up with a superb series of jazz, blues and fusion performances at Bangalore venues such as The B-Flat Bar, Blue Frog, Windmill Craftworks, and Humming Tree, along with other locations like Alliance Francaise and Pragrup!

In our regular annual deep dive, we look at some of the groups who delighted jazz fans this year in Bangalore. See my earlier Jazzuality articles for a roundup of 2016, 2015, and 2014, and my pick of Jazz Quotes and Blues Quotes (by the late great B.B. King).

 The year kicked off with one of the best performances of the year, by Kefaya at B-Flat. The band featured Italian guitarist Giuliano Modarelli, keyboardist Al Macsween, bassist Domenico Angarano, and drummer Joost Hendrickx. The guitar and drum solos in tracks like ‘Jyothi’ were outstanding, and the compositions drew on influences from the Middle East, Europe and Europe.

The quartet Magic Flutes had two superb performances at B-Flat and Alliance Francaise, featuring French flautist Jean-Luc Thomas paired with Ravi Kulur, along with percussionists Giridhar Udupa (ghatam) and Muthu Kumar (tabla). French gypsy tunes and Carnatic melodies picked up whether the other left off, and blended together to rousing crescendos. Flautist Amit Nadig also appeared as guest musician at the B-Flat performances.

An unusual performance took place in the basement of Goobes Books on Church Street, with Burning Deck. Singaporean violinist Huich Goh played with Sandeep Madhavan on bass and electronics. Creative visuals were displayed on a backdrop of packed bookshelves.

Bookshelves are also the backdrop for another superbly designed venue in Whitefield: Windmill Craftworks, where multi-instrumentalist Nadishana performed with percussionist David Kuckhermann and ace bass prodigy Mohini Dey. This trio explored fresh new frontiers with hang drums, ethnic woodwinds and folk percussion instruments.

The trio Sax Machine delivered a high-energy performance at The Blue Frog, with Guillaume Sené (saxophone), Pierre Dandin (trombonist of Sergent Garcia) and Chicago vocalist Racecar. The set packed deep funk with hard bop, and lots of looped groove.

The Perfect Strangers had a high-energy set of jazz-rock and blues at B-Flat, with Raphael Emileenaa and Pranav DM on vocals. They were backed by Debjeet Basu (guitar), Steve Rajan (keyboards), Prashanth Gnanamuthu (bass) and Preran Pramod Gulvady (drums).

Another European jazz band, this time from Germany, also played at B-Flat: Klaus Graf Quartet. It featured the founder Klaus Graf (alto sax), Olaf Polziehn (piano), Axel Kühn (bass) and Meinhard Obi Jenne (drums). Founded in 2001, the quartet played original compositions as well as ‘Jive Samba’ and ‘Minha Saudades’ (Cannonball Adderley).

The Rotem Sivan Trio featured a superb collaboration by guitarist Rotem Sivan along with bassist extraordinaire Mishko M’ba (see my earlier interview) and Mexican drummer Karina Colis. Rotem has performed at Montreaux Jazz Festival, Sonora Jazz Festival (Mexico), and Bern Jazz Festival. Mishko shuttles between France, Reunion island, and Pondicherry (South India).

Blues and funk fans were also treated to a performance by Shreya Bhattacharya Collective, with Shreya Bhattacharya (vocals), Joshua Costa (keyboards), and Wesley Newton (drums). Abhishek Dey on bass was outstanding, with a series of brilliant riffs.

Hang drum duo Hang Massive played a superb set at Blue Frog. The first half consisted of haunting acoustic tunes, followed by fat electronic grooves. The band has a huge fan following in India; in fact, the founders Danny Cudd and Markus Offbeat first met on the shores of Goa, and continue to tour India extensively.

Two of the best performances of the year in Bangalore were by SubraMania, formed in 2013 by violinist Ambi Subramaniam and vocalist Bindu Subramaniam. They are the son and daughter of violin maestro L.Subramaniam, and are accomplished musicians and composers in their own right. Their performance, aptly titled ‘Next Generation Shining,’ also featured percussionist Karthik Mani, guitarist Alwyn Fernandes, and bassist Keith Peters. Carnatic music and contemporary sound fused seamlessly at their second performance as well, at the end of the year at Pragrup.

Tajdar Junaid performed a pleasing set of ambient and folksy jazz at Windmill Craftworks. The multi-instrumentalist from Kolkata played with Rohan Rajadhyaksha (keyboards), Rohan Ramanna (drums), Nathan Thomas (bass) and Sangeet Mishra (sarangi). Tajdar’s recent album is ‘What Colour is your Raindrop.’

Acoustic and electronic music in two sets were delivered by Ikarushka & Ancient Science. The diverse mix of musicians included Varun Lulla (moorchunga), Mehdi Dehbandi (Iranian guitarist), Yashar Bagheri (on the Persian bowed instrument kamanche), Shreyas Selvaraju (drums), and Petr Nesterov (on the Russian instrument goosli).

Another outstanding band from France was EYM Trio, with Elie Dufour (piano), Marc Michel (drums) and Yann Phayphet. Sounds of Eastern Europe and Africa blended seamlessly with jazz; the band has an album release scheduled for 2018, and will be touring India again. One of their tracks is called ‘Bengaluru,’ and another is named after Kuala Lumpur.

The Brian Molley Quartet, who also played at the Madras Jazz Festival, performed at B-Flat with Scottish founder Brain on saxophone along with Tom Gibbs (piano), Mario Caribé (bass) and Stuart Brown (drums). Their recent album is titled ‘Colour and Movement,’ and features tracks inspired by Rajasthan.

Young blues guitar powerhouse Aayushi Karnik wowed the audience with her energy and riffs at B-Flat. Her ensemble included keyboardist Aman Mahajan, guitarist Sylvester Pradeep, vocalist Shreya Bhattacharya, bassist Avishek Dey, pianist Joshua Costa, and drummer Ashwin Shekhar. Aayushi drew round applause in the middle of one riff where she walked off the stage and climbed onto a couch to continue playing.

Guitarist Francisco Lelo de Larrea brought Latin American sounds to B-Flat, with his quartet of Gabriel Geszti from Brazil on the piano, Camiel Jansen on the upright bass from Netherlands, and Karina Colis on the drums from Mexico. Their mellow music was a nice contrast from the traffic-choked streets outside.

More Latin jazz, with lots of influence from Cuba, Portugal and Brazil, came to Windmill Craftworks with the Pablo Lapidusas Trio. Pianist Pablo Lapidusas was joined by the able Marcelo Araujo on drums and the brilliant Leo Espinosa on bass. Pablo has a master’s degree in jazz performance from the Superior Lisbon School of Music, and now lives in Lisbon.

The venue hosted another fabulous performance by ‘tablatronic’ ace Karsh Kale from New York, who was accompanied by Warren Mendonsa (of Blackstratblues) on guitar and Carnatic flautist Ajay Prasanna. The high-energy set had the audience enthralled, with loops and crescendos showcasing the musicians’ diverse skillsets.

Bangalore also witnessed other gigs by guitarist Sumith Ramachandran with vocalist Rila Banerjee; Ministry of Blues (anchored by guitarist-vocalist Philipe Haydon); German alpine brass band Erpfenbrass; Ziia & the Swing Mates (from France/Reunion Island); and Raghuram Quartet (Raghuraman Ramasubramanian on guitar; Yann Phayphet on bass; Vivek Santhosh on piano; Jeoraj George on drums).

More musical delights were in store from IndoSoul (by violinist Karthick Iyer – see my earlier interview); Girish & The Chronicles (blues rock); Big Band Blues (with vocalist Diyatom Deb); By2Blues (anchored by guitarist-vocalist Ananth Menon); IST (Indian Standard Time – with Arati Rao on vocals); Bansal Band (with musicians from Norway, Nepal, India, Czech Republic); Latination (Latin jazz band from Kolkata); and the aptly titled Songversations (with singer-songwriter Mathangi Jagdish).

The year also featured a number of outstanding Indian classical music performances by maestros who have collaborated with jazz musicians, such as tabla legend Ustad Zakir Hussain. “Knowledge transfer in music is now happening not just between branches and roots of a tree, but across fences,” said Zakir.

Other festivals to track in India are the Mahindra Blues Festival (see my write-ups on the 2017 and 2016 editions), Goa International Jazz Live Festival and Kala Ghoda Arts Festival (Mumbai). The Jaipur Literature Festival features superb music showcases in the evening; blues and fusion bands such as Soulmate, Aga Khan All Stars and Ronnie Malley performed this year.

I picked up a range of CDs from many of the artistes for review, and look forward to another inspiring year of jazz and fusion ahead in 2018! See also my app Oktav (‘Music Quotes & Proverbs’) available on iTunes (https://appsto.re/in/ah1u4.i) and on Android (free version: https://goo.gl/FTFOt5).

Written and photographed by Madanmohan Rao
Editor & DJ, World Music and Jazz;
Bangalore Global Correspondent for Jazzuality.com .

The inaugural Kuching Waterfront Jazz Festival: a musical treat, and good news for jazz lovers in Asia!

With 18 jazz acts featured across two days on the bank of the Sarawak river in eastern Malaysia, the inaugural edition of the Kuching Waterfront Jazz Festival 2017 (KWJF) provided a real treat for music lovers! The bands came from across Southeast Asia and the US, with everything from big band and bossa nova to swing and fusion.

Sarawak is already host to the renowned Rainforest World Music Festival (see my coverage of the workshops and jam sessions from 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013), as well as the Borneo International Jazz Festival. Asif Ben Pishori, KWJF artistic director, and Mark Justin Silvester, KWJF festival director, hosted daily press briefings between the jazz bands and the media.

From just before sunset to past midnight, the bands performed outdoors to an enthusiastic crowd gathered on the waterfront next to the Grand Margherita Hotel. CDs, festival merchandise and local handicrafts were also on sale along the walkways.

The event was a curtain raiser for the culture festival called ‘What About Kuching.’ The rains mercifully spared the jazz festival, though it poured heavily the next day!

Day One

Festival emcee Rene Barrow kicked off the weekend festival by introducing the bands one by one, along with insightful commentary on the story of jazz. Between each performance, he curated a superb set of tracks tracing the growth of jazz and its different types.

The first performance was by Akoustik Connexion from Malaysia, with a set of jazz and R&B. Founded in early 2014, the band is led by singer-pianist Marvin Jong, along with Adriel Enchana (bass) and Adrian Lim (drums). At KWJF, they were joined by Claudia Geres on vocals and Dennis Tan on the violin, with tracks such as ‘I don’t want to miss a thing.’

An unusual jazz song was performed next, in the Iban tribal language of Sarawak by The UKBD Brothers Band. The group was formed in 2015 by the Mayor of Kuching City North, Datuk Haji Abang Abdul Wahap bin Haji Abang Julai. The 10-member band features the mayor himself. The band also played jazz versions of classics such as ‘Where would you be now’ by the Doobie Brothers.

Artistic director Asif Pishori played a brief piano tribute in memory of Sarawak Economic Development Corporation’s former director of tourism and hospitality John Agustin – one of the organisers of the festival, who unfortunately passed away recently.

Ace on bass Andy Peterson from Kuala Lumpur took the stage next with a solo performance, trading off bass riffs to recorded music (his accompanying musicians unfortunately could not make it to the festival). Andy has been performing for over 40 years, and said he was inspired by the music of the Mahavishnu Orchestra led by John McLaughlin.

Andy has played extensively across Asia, US and Europe as well, at venues such as Caesar’s Palace, Dolby Theatre Hollywood, The Royal Albert Hall and Wembley Arena. He has played with music greats such as Billy Cobham, Randy Bernsen (Zawinul Syndicate), Natalie Cole, Chaka Khan, David Foster, and others.

Diana Liu from Sarawak took the stage next, accompanied by five musicians including Marcus Young on trombone. Diana is a vocalist, composer and producer in Mandarin Chinese and English, with musical influences from classical, jazz, bosa nova and soul. She was the first runner-up in the 2007 season of Project SuperStar, and has performed at venues such as No Black Tie, Alexis and the Hakka Republic.

Diana’s first album, in Mandarin, ‘Most Beautiful,’ was released in 2009. The second album, Sunny Days, has songs in Mandarin Chinese and English, serving as a cultural bridge. The tracks include ‘Whisper,’ written by Indonesian pianist Idang Rasjidi.

What is a jazz festival without Brazilian sound? Smooth bossa nova and upbeat vocals flowed across the warterfront with the next band, Mellow Motif. The jazz sextet from Thailand has released two albums, spearheaded by vocalist Natasha Patamapongs and pianist Eugene Ang.

They have performed at Hua-Hin International Jazz Festival, Pattaya International Music Festival, Miri International Jazz Festival, International Java Jazz Festival, and China’s Nanjing International Jazz and World Music Festival. They have also been featured at jazz venues in Bangkok such as Saxophone Pub, Brown Sugar Jazz Pub, Jazz Happens Bar, and Mello Yello Jazz More.

Mellow Motif’s latest album, ‘Sabuy Dee’ (2010), includes jazz renditions of Thai favourites such as ‘I Feel Sabuy Dee’ and ‘Tur Moon Rob Chun, Chun Moon Rob Tur’ by songwriter Prapas Cholsaranon.

The audience were then treated to sounds from another era by The Shanghai Sisters, which is actually a band from Malaysia, led by three talented female vocalists: Winnie Ho, Janet Lee and May Mow. They sing in three languages, and feature songs reminiscent of old Shanghai, Malay traditions and jazz classics.

The name for the band was actually suggested by an emcee at one of their corporate performances. Winnie was The Astro Talent Quest Champion in year 2000. May Mow was one of the Top 5 Finalists in 8TV’s 2006 singing competition ‘Superstar.’ Her debut album, ‘Flirtation – Passion – Reflection,’ was released in 2015.

Janet is a cabaret performer of Mandarin music of the 1920s and 1950s, as well as American show hits; she conceptualised ‘The Shanghai Jazz Songbook Tour’ series and the show ‘Shanghai Jazz Redefined.’ At KWJF, the vocalists, all dressed in dazzling red, performed classics like ‘Fever.’

Jazz legend Ernie Watts took the stage next, along with the Jeremy Monteiro Organ Trio. The two musicians have been collaborating since 1987, when they first played at a Hyatt Ballroom concert in Singapore to a full house. Ernie and Jeremy not only share a long and deep musical relationship but are also very close friends, and their strong ties showed through in the talent and affection shown on stage.

Two-time Grammy Award winner Ernie Watts is an American jazz, rhythm and blues saxophonist. Singaporean Jeremy Monteiro is a jazz pianist, singer, composer and music educator. Jeremy produced the Ernie Watts album ‘Stand Up’ in 1995; Ernie’s other albums have been produced Quincy Jones and Don Grusin.

Ernie and Jeremy have jointly composed tracks such as ‘Twilight Waltz’ and ‘Oasis,’ which Ernie recorded on one of his albums. At KWJF, they played ‘Wings of the Dreamer’ and ‘Reaching Up,’ with superb call-and-response interactions between the talented musicians.

Smooth jazz-influenced pop filled the air next, with a six-member band led by young singer Kunto Aji. He was one of the Top 5 vocalists of Indonesian Idol 2008. Born in Yogyakarta, his hit singles include ‘Terlalu Lama Sendiri’ and ‘Pengingat.’ His first album, ‘Generation Y’ was released in 2015.

Kunto has won a string of awards including Breakthrough Artist of the Year, Best Newcomer, and Best Indonesian Song. He had the crowd singing and swaying along to his tunes like ‘Choo Choo Boogie.’ He had a memorable duet with the guitarist, and even jumped into the media pit to get close to his audience during the closing track of the night.

Day Two

The evening performances of Day Two kicked off with Malaysian pianist Jolynn Chin, born in Sarawak. She was the first Malaysian to receive a doctorate in piano performance at the Juilliard School in the US. Her music blends jazz, classical and contemporary music. Her quartet ‘Jazzin it Up with Jolynn’ has performed extensively in Sarawak.

At KWJF, she showcased the work of Russian pianist and composer Vladimir Titov. Her trio also played classics by Dave Brubeck and even ‘Billy Jean,’ as well as an original titled ‘Night Groove.’

The 12-piece Borneo Big Band filled the stage next. Led by Joan Jim, the Malaysian ensemble covers Latin and dance music. It featured trumpeter Jessel Yansalang of Sabah Institute of Art. They performed smooth ballads and swing, perfect for the mood of the late evening.

Bassist Andy Peterson performed another solo set, followed by Baihana from the Philippines, an all-female vocal trio. The talented vocalists are Krina Cayabyab (arranger, musical director and the group’s Soprano 1), Anna Graham (Soprano 2) and Mel Torre (Alto).

Formed in 2008, Baihana is inspired by The Puppini Sisters, The Manhattan Transfer, Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, and The New York Voices. ‘Baihana’ is the Filipino word for woman, and the lineup includes Karmi Santiago (drums), Junji Llerma (guitar), Jesper Mercado (piano), and Julius Lopez (bass). They have performed across ASEAN in festivals like the World Youth Jazz Festival in Kuala Lumpur.

At KWJF, the vocalists showcased their talent on tracks where they imitated various brass instruments. They sang in Tagalog as well – taking jazz to new Asian frontiers. The band also performed classics by Charlie Parker and Ella Fitzgerald, showing superb coordination in tracks like ‘It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing).’

Two renowned music pioneers from Asia took the stage next: Lewis Pragasam (Asia Beat) and John Kaizan Neptune (based in Japan). Malaysia’s Lewis Pragasam is the founder and moving spirit of the Asia Beat project, which has been blending Asian and Western music styles since 1979. Ace percussionist Lewis has collaborated with a range of world music artistes.

California native John Kaizan Neptune, now based in Japan, is the ultimate ‘musical bridge’ – he is regarded as a top master of the shakuhachi, or Japanese bamboo flute. At KWJF, he also played morseng and takeda (an hourglass-shaped drum he invented).

The two musicians, accompanied by KL-based percussionists on Indian tabla and mridangam, treated the audience to a melting pot of sounds, covering Asian folk, Indian carnatic and jazz influences. Their closing track was aptly titled ‘West of Somewhere.’

Indonesia’s Sri Hanuraga Trio, with the outstanding vocalist Dira Sugandi, took the stage next. The trio was formed in 2015 at The Freedoms Jazz Festival, and features Sri Hanuraga along with bassist Kevin Yosua and drummer Elfa Zulham. The trio and singer, Zulham’s wife Dira Sugandi first blended contemporary and Indonesian sound at the Museumseferfest Festival in Frankfurt. Their self-titled album was released in 2016.

Indonesia and Malaysia share a common love in music, like brother and sister, the band said at KWJF. “Jazz brings us together in the spirit of togetherness, musical celebration and enjoyment,” said Dira. They played a range of compositions including ‘Kichiki,’ and Dira’s soaring vocals drew loud applause.

Pianist Jeremy Monteiro then took the stage one more time, this time with The Asian Jazz All-Stars Power Quartet featuring Melissa Tham on vocals. The audience was treated to a superb performance by Hong Kong jazz guitarist Eugene Pao, Philippine saxophonist Tots Tolentino, and Thai drummer Hong Chanutr Techatana-nan.

Melissa Tham’s album ‘Falling in Love Again’ was released on Jazznote Records in 2015. Melissa has also performed at the EFG London Jazz Festival in 2014. At KWJF, they played tracks like Jimmy Cobb’s ‘Say, Little Mama, Say.’

Another Asian jazz legend then performed at KWJF: Sheila Majid, widely regarded as Malaysia’s Queen of Jazz. Though she is now 82 years old, you would never have guessed it from her youthful appearance and soulful performance.

She is best known for her 1986 song, ‘Sinaran’ and has been performing jazz and R&B for over 30 years. Her albums include ‘Dimensi Baru,’ ‘Emosi’ (Emotion), Warna, ‘Legenda’, ‘Ku Mohon’ and ‘Cinta Kita’and ‘Boneka.’ She won the Indonesia BASF Award for Best Female Artiste in R&B category in 1987, never before done by a non-Indonesian.

At KWJF, Sheila performed solo, to recorded music. “Next time I will play with a band,” she said, to enthusiastic applause. She performed a range of hits like ‘Legenda,’ with the audience singing along loudly.

Sheila Majid was followed by the eight piece band Abdul & The Coffee Theory from Indonesia. The vocalist-composer Tengku Muhamad Abdulah Amin Ashari chose the name Abdul & The Coffee Theory as his identity, reflecting the spirit of hanging out with friends over coffee. At KWJF, the band played a smooth range of jazzy pop and folk music.

One of the most creative bands of the festival wrapped up the night’s lineup: guitar virtuoso Balawan ‘Magic Fingers’ from Bali. He wowed the audience with his unique tapping style on the double-neck guitar, performed along with traditional Balinese gamelan instruments.

Balawan listened to gamelan since birth, taught himself to play guitar at age eight, and joined his first band at 14. He started off with rock but moved on to study jazz at the Australian Institute of Music in Sydney. In 1997, he formed a band called Batuan Ethnic Fusion.

Jazz and world music fused in a dynamic and entertaining way in his KWJF set. The band’s energetic drummer was all of 12 years old. “Young people don’t get sleepy so easily,” joked Balawan. He played a range of tracks inspired by Stanley Jordan and Al Jarreau. One of the tracks featured traditional Balinese kecak or monkey chant.

Balawan has performed his ‘touch tapping’ style across the region and in Europe, in festivals such as ‘East Meet West Gitarren Festival’ in Edekoben, Germany and ‘Other Minds Festival’ in San Francisco.

All the musicians of the festival came together for the grand finale, featuring a collaborative though joyfully noisy jam led by Nik Azmi, founder of the World Youth Jazz Festival (WYJF) in Malaysia. They played tributes to the greats of jazz such as George Gershwin and Al Jarreau.

The audience roundly cheered the musicians and festival’s organisers and volunteers, and the jam session carried on in the bar of the Grand Margherita Hotel till early the next morning. We look forward to the next edition of the Kuching Waterfront Jazz Festival already, on September 28-30, 2018!

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Written and photographed by Madanmohan Rao
Editor & DJ, World Music and Jazz;
Bangalore Global Correspondent for Jazzuality.com .

‘Jazz is freedom’ – artiste insights from the Kuching Waterfront Jazz Festival 2017

The Kuching Waterfront Jazz Festival (KWJF) in Malaysia provides not just a performance feast for music lovers, but also a wealth of artiste insights for jazz fans and musicians (see my writeup of the inaugural 2017 edition).

KWJF 2017 featured 17 bands: Akoustik Connexion, UKBD Brothers Band, Andy Peterson, Diana Liu, Mellow Motif, The Shanghai Sisters, Ernie Watts, Jeremy Monteiro Organ Trio, Asian Jazz All-Stars Power Quartet, Kunto Aji, Jolynn Chin, Borneo Big Band, Baihana, Lewis Pragasam, John Kaizan Neptune, Sri Hanuraga Trio, Melissa Tham, Sheila Majid, Abdul & The Coffee Theory, and Balawan ‘Magic Fingers.’

The bands also met with media professionals on three days and shared their views on the interpretations of jazz, industry trends, and the role of collaboration. Asif Ben Pishori, KWJF artistic director, and Mark Justin Silvester, KWJF festival director, anchored the discussions between performers and jazz journalists.

Jazz with an Asian touch

Describing their music, the KWJF artistes showed how they are taking jazz to new frontiers in Asia. Jazz is now sung in Tagalog (Baihana), Iban (UKBD Brothers Band), Thai (Mellow Motif), Malay (Sheila Majid), and Mandarin (Diana Liu).

Jazz has fused with Balinese gamelan music (Balawan), south Indian carnatic styles (Lewis Pragasam and Asia Beat), Japanese instrumentation (John Kaizan Neptune), and traditional Indonesian music (Sri Hanuraga Trio with Dira Sugandi).

“It is a privilege to able to see and fuse different music traditions and create something new,” said the vocalists of The Shanghai Sisters.

Unusual instruments

California native John Kaizan Neptune plays jazz on the Japanese shakuhachi flute. “It is normally a solo instrument and played for meditative moods. But jazz influences from my father, who plays trombone, helped lay the foundation for me to explore new directions for musical instruments,” said John.

“Lots of things are possible with this simple flute. The bamboo flute lends itself well to lots of connections,” he said. He has also invented an hourglass-shaped drum called takeda.

Balawan plays the double-neck electric guitar – in an unusual finger-tapping style, like Stanley Jordan. He performs along with two musicians on Balinese gamelan, taking jazz to new creative frontiers.

Jazz as a career

“Music is indeed fantastic, but the music industry is not so fantastic,” joked John Kaizan Neptune, reflecting a common love-hate relationship between musicians and industry, between the creative and business sides of the media world.

“It is hard to make a living as jazz artistes in the Philippines, but that keeps us on our toes,” said the members of Baihana from Manila. “We explore more every time, even with the same songs. It is always exciting and we never tire,” the vocalists said.

“My day job was giving me nightmares,” joked a vocalist from The Shanghai sisters. “Music gave me joy, and the bookings followed. People listened when they saw my joy,” she explained.

“When I first started playing jazz way back in 1958, my mom and dad were scared to death, they said I would starve to death. 60 years later, people are still saying the same thing about jazz musicians,” joked Grammy Award winner Ernie Watts.

“Music is about making a personal commitment. It was never easy to be a musician, or put together a festival or concert,” he added. Musicians should clearly decide if they want to commit to what they like, or if they want to play music that is profitable – they should set their expectations right and be realistic.

“If you do what you do and become the best at it, then all other things will follow,” Ernie advised.

Some musicians said they also take time out from music to refresh themselves. “I take a break to find inspiration,” said Diana Liu. John Kaizan Neptune said he loves mountaineering and surfing.

“I started mountain biking at age 55, and snowboarding at age 64. I am now 65,” John joked. “But feeling blue is not part of my makeup. I am not down often. I feel lucky to be a musician and to feel that vibration,” he added.

CDs and beyond: tech trends

For decades, having a string of albums (vinyl or CD) has been regarded as milestones of a musician’s journey. Indeed, each album does represent the culmination of a musical project or collaboration.

“I started off with an album a year in my early years, but now do one only when I really need to. Each new album should be very different from the earlier ones,” said John Kaizan Neptune.

But the world is changing, and musicians don’t think of their work only in units of albums. John said he composes music all the time. “And many music listeners don’t even have CD players anymore,” he joked.

Social media is also playing an increasing role in connecting bands with their audiences, or starting their own YouTube channels. Many listeners now discover new music through streaming services like Spotify.

Jazz and fusion

 Jazz has fused well with a wide range of other musical genres over the years, ranging from rock to Indian classical music. “Jazz also works well with Western classical music,” said pianist Jolynn Chin from Sarawak.

“You need to know both genres well when you try to fuse two styles,” said Sri Hanuraga from Indonesia. “It then becomes exciting. Jazz always absorbs musical influences from around the world,” he said.

“Jazz itself is an amalgamation of different music types,” explained Singaporean pianist Jeremy Monteiro. For example, John Coltrane’s version of ‘My Favourite Things’ reflects Indian influences. “Jazz is naturally a fusion, has and always will be,” said Jeremy.

 The jazz journey

 Many artistes described how they first got into jazz, and where they are headed next in their musical journey. “I grew up to the music of Miles, Coltrane and Monk, and I played like that. I realised I had been over-trained in that style,” joked Ernie Watts. He then experimented with jazz fusion with blues and pop.

“I fell in love with jazz after hearing Ahmed Jamal in concert,” said vocalist Natasha Patamapongs from Thai jazz sextet Mellow Motif.

Describing their recent works, some of the musicians described how they are exploring new external collaborations in jazz, while others said they are exploring within themselves. “I have done lots of albums with other musicians, and am now reconnecting with my inner roots,” said John Kaizan Neptune.

Diana Liu said her second album is a compilation of her musical journey over the years, right from her university days. It covers a lot of ground: pop, world music and Latin sound. Jolynn Chin’s recent work is both an exploration of her Chinese roots as well as the larger world outside, covering classical music and even electro.

 “Jazz is about expansion as well as consolidation,” said Jeremy Monteiro, describing the journey of guitarist Pat Metheny as an example.

 The meaning of jazz

 I asked many of the musicians what jazz means to them, and how they are giving back to the jazz movement. “Music is my life. Jazz is experimental. Emotions come out through my music,” said award-winning saxophonist Ernie Watts.

“You play how you feel, without saying it. People create their own story, it is creative for everyone,” he explained. “We want everyone to partake in the creative experience,” said Ernie.

“All musicians respect the masters of all genres. All music is inter-connected. Honour other people’s sounds and become less judgmental,” he advised. “Our purpose of life is to promote understanding and joy. We make people feel better after our performance,” he said.

“Jazz is played differently every single time,” said pianist-composer Jeremy Monteiro. Other forms of music such as Western classical music do have emotion as well, but less variation in performance.

“Jazz opened me up to a whole world of improvisation. It gives me room to express myself and add my own personal touch, and spread the love. This is how music can change you. Jazz is more than entertainment,” said vocalist Natasha from Mellow Motif.

“Jazz is something you can feel, it changed my heart,” said Abdulah Amin Ashari from Indonesia, founder of Abdul & The Coffee Theory. “Jazz is about the future, and for a better future,” he said. “Music is my life, music is everything,” said fellow Indonesian musician Kunto Aji.

“Jazz is freedom. Not everyone can appreciate or play jazz, but if you can it is beautiful,” said the members of Borneo Big Band.

Jazz also lets musicians add a unique personal touch to their compositions. “One of my songs is based on what my dad would say when I went to the airport. He said he would always feel sad when I left on a journey,” recalls vocalist Diana Liu.

 A life of jazz

 Jazz can indeed be a lifelong calling, as shown at KWJF by veteran musicians like Sheila Majid, Jeremy Monteiro, Ernie Watts, John Kaizan Neptune, and Lewis Pragasam. “I have been on tour for 40 years,” said Ernie.

Their long and inspiring tenure in the world of jazz has also led to endearing and productive partnerships: such as between Jeremy Monteiro and Ernie Watts, as well as John Kaizan Neptune and Lewis Pragasam.

The future of jazz 

Many musicians see a good future for jazz, though the 1930s and 1940s are regarded as the ‘golden age’ of jazz when it was mainstream music.

“Jazz is in good hands,” said pianist Jeremy Monteiro, who has helped create the Jazz Association of Singapore (JASS) and also gives numerous talks on jazz history and appreciation.

 It is certainly possible to stimulate youth to listen to jazz. “Play with the youth! They are energetic, excited and exciting. Our young drummer is 12 years old, and has no girlfriend issues,” joked Balawan from Bali. Trends like Nu Jazz and Electro Jazz are attracting new and younger audiences also.

“We have 160 musicians at this festival. The more time we spend together, the more we can collaborate,” said Asif Ben Pishori, KWJF artistic director. “We want to hear new sounds,” said Agus Setiawan, founder of jazz media WartaJazz.

Agus organises an astonishing 67 jazz festivals each year in Indonesia. He suggested that a jazz album in the Iban language be recorded, and maybe even a regular online channel of jazz from Asia could be launched.

After such stimulating discussions and interviews, the media meets were followed by fantastic stage sets featuring the jazz bands. We look forward to the next edition of the Kuching Waterfront Jazz Festival already, on September 28-30, 2018 – with its mix of music performances and artiste dialogues!

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Written and photographed by Madanmohan Rao
Editor & DJ, World Music and Jazz;
Bangalore Global Correspondent for Jazzuality.com .

We have launched the first edition of Braga Jazz Night in year 2018, or number #43 if you count from the first one. This edition also marks the 4th year of our service by collaborating with the venue, Braga CityWalk.

Since the beginning we set our goal to support the regeneration of jazz musicians by giving them chance and place to perform, also to them heard at least by our readers. So far it’s been fruitful as we have seen young musicians having success in their career after starting from this event. There are senior and experienced ones too often found among the lineup, and their appearances are crucial in order to help the young ones learning by watching. What surprises us is that the successful musicians who have placed their signatures on this event are not just from Indonesia but also from other countries like Australia, Malaysia, Italy, Mexico, Cambodia, USA and France. And, eventhough the event is based in Bandung, we have featured bands and musicians from other cities, like Jakarta, Sukabumi and even a city far away from our location, Batam. With all the limitations, we are feel blessed that we could strecth our mission much further than we ever imagined.

For Braga Jazz Night #43 we welcomed a new band that takes jazz into the edgier side where rock and blues live on, getting an update of a young bassist who is still crawling to establish himself, and a very special reunion between two musicians who recently join forces again after 14 straight years. This reunion involves piano and violin, two instruments that’s probably found often in classical scene. But as you can see, the combination works perfectly well in creating the ellegance of pure jazz.

The debut gig of a new band was first. The band’s called RED ZONE. This band was uniquely formed under weird coincidence, so weird that you would probably laugh if it happened in the movie. Let us describe how weird it is. In one fine morning, two boys were playing guitar at the campus ground of Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia. More and more boys joined in, and before they realized, they locked up in the fun of jamming which went for hours until the late afternoon, and it was enough for them to make an 8-piece band! Mind you that they didn’t even know each other, but they did feel strong chemistry to one another.

For Braga Jazz Night #43, Red Zone appeared as a quartet with rockin’ bluesman Eki Johan (guitar/vocal), Amir Fiqih (drum), Alfi Ibrahim (guitar/vocal) and Moch.Diva Sundara (bass). The fact that each of them came from different background creates a multi-colored sounds of music.

Featuring a female singer Ima Nirmala, they began with Stevie Wonder’s “Superstitious” and showed that funk can go perfectly match with classic rock playing style. From there they knocked us even more with The Beatles’ “Come Together” with even higher rock intensity. Two guitarists Eki and Alfi traded punches in front, which stands as interesting about this band since they have different style.

All was good, but just as we thought they would keep it that way, they gave a cool surprise. They played Dave Brubeck’s gem “Take Five” in a totally different way! How often do we hear this song dipped totally in blues and rock, complete with the sound of guitar distortion? The frontman Eki Johan roared wild and free, often in tranced state as if he was possessed with blues demon. We have never heard “Take Five” being played this way. They turned the event into a rockin’ blues bar and had a lot of fun with this song for more than 10 minutes. It was a really pleasant surprise for us, and we say it was a really smart move executed well.

In our interview with veteran blues guitarist Scott Henderson some years ago, he told us this: “…it’s all about jammin’ and creating new stuff all the time, and this is the essence of jazz. So just because you play rock doesn’t mean that you can’t have the mentality of a jazz musician.” (Read the full length interview here: http://jazzuality.com/interview/exclusive-interview-with-scott-henderson/). And yes, we think it’s important to show that jazz breaks boundaries and can be applied in just about any genre and style. While we serve pure jazz in our event, we also have to show this other side of jazz, which we like to describe as ‘jazz by spirit’.

Red Zone is an example of it. They stay true to themselves, who they are, but plays something that still deeply relevant to jazz. They jam, have fun, create new stuff while still being honest to their own nature, and brilliantly uses a jazz standard as their canvas to paint blues, rock with some funk textures. As we said before, that’s a smart move. They put enough space to run solo, as free as a bird and enjoy their moment. Even when they had to play without cymbals and hi-hat, which many believe are vital to blues and rock.

Another thing we could learn from them is that there are many ways for a band to born, even from the unlikely moments that we might never thought possible. We are just happy that the band had their debut with us, and we wish them the best. May they keep bringing those who watch them to a ‘red zone’ area of music, the edgy area where the spirit of jazz generates the rebelious rock and blues.

The second act featured the young bassist who is still crawling to establish his existance in the industry. His name is Joe Bastian. He is no stranger to us since he’s been participating many times with various groups, from a bossa duo with Billy Likumahuwa, supporting her friend Fadhilla ‘Lala’ K Pramastij to the first time we met him in Find Taste. But that’s not all, because since last year we encouraged him to work on his own project so he would find and shape his character faster.

At first, he named it Joe Bass Project and had the debut right here last July. At that time he demonstrated his music color which lies on jazz rock fusion and slices of soul. 6 months has passed, he told us that he is still regularly practicing and working on his first single which he decided to be made in pop, hoping that it would be accepted by larger segment of music lovers. As we heard that there’s been movement, we invited him again.

Now he made the name shorter, dropping the word ‘Bass’ to be just JOE PROJECT. For this second act he took his original drummer Kevin Bernard along with two new players for this event: Abdul Aziz (keyboard) and Rendi Dwiyanto (guitar).

Just like the first band, they had to play without cymbals and hi-hat because they failed to find them up until the last moment. But that didn’t stop them to give their best in producing a beautiful music. They started light with a relaxing joy-trip song written by Agung Munthe “Afternoon Stroll”. Abdul Aziz did very well in this song with his ‘third stream’ piano playing.

After that, Joe demonstrated his skill by pinning the song of famous bassist of this generation, Barry Likumahuwa titled “Walking With the Bass”. Rendi Dwiyanto, who is originally a rock guitarist surprisingly fit the role of playing funky fusion with Joe. As for the drummer, Kevin Bernard showed that he didn’t need complete drum to play well.

For the last song, Joe invited her friend, Irza Rena to join the band on stage and sing Glenn Fredly’s hit from 3 years ago, “Tega”. Irza has a soulful vocal style with smooth but thick vibra. In her voice, this song sounded really nice.

As a musician, Joe has both skill and passion. He is serious in proving to everyone that he can, and will succeed in pursuing his career as a musician. Having qualified ring of friends is his other advantage, which we think he should utilize as much as possible. For tonight he proved that eventhough not all his core team could play, he still got replacements with skills just as good. We certainly think he can. All he needs is time and chance, and we hope we can provide a bit of both for him. We can never get enough of good bassists afterall, and Joe is one of them.

Exactly last year, on the January edition (that’s number #31) we showcased an unforgettable reunion between Michelle Efferin, the founder of fruitful music school M.E Music Centre and her former college friend resides in Sydney, Australia, Jessica Kung. If you don’t remember, allow us to refresh your memory with this link: https://jazzuality.com/jazz-event-report/braga-jazz-night-night-at-old-shanghai-the-report/. What a coincidence that in January 2018 Michelle was back again with another reunion. This time the reunion is with a violinist whom she takes as a perfect partner in crime. This story brings back the memory all the way to 15 years ago, the time when they played intensively together which lasted for a year or so. The violinist is a virtuoso that we always mention as ‘Jazz Paganini’ ever since we began our service. A flamboyant, charismatic and talented man: Ammy Kurniawan. As we want to highlight everything about their friendship, chemistry, memory and of course the joy of regrouping, we give this project a special name : MICHELLE – AMMY REUNION.

As we mentioned, their history began in 2003. They quickly found chemistry, locked as playing partners and landed on many spots. It was all good, but all of a sudden Ammy lost her because she had to pursue her formal education to Sydney, Australia. When Michelle’s done with her study and returned home, they were both busy with their own career. As Michelle established her music school and fulfilled her calling to teach mostly kids by holding an international standard curriculum, Ammy existed as an active musician, flying wide over the jazz, blues and everything in between. They did share the stage once in a while, like in Michelle’s wedding party for example, but not as much as it was back then.

Last year Michelle told us that she actually wished to reunite with Ammy, having the fun and pleasure of playing together again just like they did back then. In December it finally came true. She sounded really exicted when she told us about it which took place at M.E Music School’s event Christmas Jazz Night. For around half an hour they let us feel the magic of two great friends having a happy reunion. It was full with fun and laughter, they were both all out in exploring the jazz territories with selected songs which mean a lot to them.

The question is: how much is half an hour comparing to 15 years? It couldn’t be enough, we thought. We expressed it to them, and Ammy said: “Yes, I’m not satisfied just yet! Let’s do some more!” Hearing that, we quickly offered them to take part in this edition, and they directly took it excitedly.

Just like in the first reunion, Michelle and Ammy were accompanied with two more players: Michelle’s husband Richard Sirait on drums and Iwan on bass. Right after they took each of their position on stage, they played an original song, the last one found in Ammy Kurniawan’s new album titled “Encore”. Eventhough this is not the recording band, this pack did great in playing it. As usual, Ammy with all the smile and charisma quickly caught everyone’s attention, and the chemistry between him and Michelle was clearly felt since the first note.

For the second song they took a classic Brazilian choro song from early 1900’s,”Tico Tico” (“Tico Tico No Fuba”, a song about the beautiful orange/reddish-brown collared bird). This song is perfect for Ammy’s playful character and certainly perfect for being the showcase of magic finger due to the fast-paced nature and rhytmically lively melody.

All of a sudden the stage became a fun playground for them. It was like watching bunch of kids playing merrily in a park on a sunny afternoon. The song is brought artistic and majestic, but full of action. Ammy went teasing Michelle, trading some punches with her in raising intensity before approaching Iwan and had some fun together. Michelle was totally on fire, in a state we have never seen before. If usually we saw her calm and content, this time it’s a totally different Michelle. Expressive, tranced and burning. It was even difficult for us to see her fingers, dancing, streaming and dancing above the keys. Not only Michelle, Ammy also demonstrated how fast his fingers could work the violin. Amazingly, all notes were hit flawlessly. Richard and Iwan gave a solid layer to the song with their steady rhythm. We don’t get to hear this song being played too often anymore, so it was really great to have it back again through the hands of these jazz magicians.

After the vivace tempo tune, they slowed down with a classic from George and Ira Gershwin written in 1924, “Oh, Lady Be Good!”. Eventhough the song is smooth and sweet, they could still make it fun to see. The intensity might be less, but the conversation between two friends in front were still intense. Michelle’s beautiful original composition, “Thursday, 2 pm” became the last drop. This uplifting song served in mid-tempo felt relaxing with positive vibes, a really nice tune that you would love to hear whenever you need to refresh your mood. We do hope somday this song will go to recording so we can listen to it over and over again.

This session is 15 years in the making. The content was full of memory, love between two great friends who clearly still has a very strong chemistry after all these years. The magical conversation built through the combination of piano and violin in jazz, created by stellar musicians like Michelle ad Ammy along with the substantial support by Richard and Iwan was simply beautiful. Not only it’s beautiful, it was also fun to watch, very entertaining. What we hope is that after this reunion they will keep on playing together.

Musicians can build chemistry by practicing and playing together often, also by spending time together off stage. True. But such chemistry that Michelle and Ammy has is special and hard to find. Look, they hadn’t been playing together for years, yet they immidiately locked in harmony right when they’re back as one. No chemistry loss, it just even gets stronger. A very special chemistry they share does make a difference, giving us the chance to see more than just skill, technique and even talent. If possible, we hope we won’t have to wait for another 15 years to have more of the endless conversation between them by using jazz as the language. Thank you for letting us having a great start folks! Cheers to you all!

In this fourth years of service, the Braga Jazz Night #43 has made a good start, thanks to all performers, Gita Bawana and Tiga Negeri who generously supported the instruments and to everyone who came. We can never do it without you guys. May we can keep having your support in our mission to push the regeneration of jazz musicians from Bandung and to keep introducing the rich color of jazz to the society. Especially in the difficult times like where we are now and whatever comes next, we always believe music can bring peace, become a symbol of unity and even a chicken soup for our soul. We will be back again in February with another batch. Thank you once again, see you again then.

Watch the highlights from Braga Jazz Night #43

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Reporter and Photographer: Riandy Kurniawan
Video Editor: Vierna Mariska

We are just done with the third edition of JAZZUALITY @ TP, our new regular jazz community event taking place at the cozy, comfy TP Stage in cooperation with the venue, The Papandayan Hotel. In this Jazzuality @ TP .03, for the first time we brought in a different jazz flavor that’s not only progressive but also has strong scent of ethnic music, especially the Sundanese traditional sound. We also featured a trio consisting of veterans who has been active for many, many years. Some has even reached over 3 decades career. Then, a smooth, simple acoustic duo were completing the lineup.

We started with the duo, representing the soft, sweet side of jazz. The duo continued their participation after our Braga Jazz Night Christmas Edition just a month earlier. It’s LUIS & JHONNY where the delicate, smooth satin voice of Luis Anastasia Sinaga lives harmoniously with the efortless guitar playing by Jhonny Sitompul.

Although the pairing is new, both of them are no stranger to us. Luis has been a part of our event since she was still in high school with her vocal harmony group Puella and her church’s band MY Kids. As for Jhonny who’s been teaching at the Purwa Caraka Music Studio since the millenium, he supported Erick Gabe, Caroline and brought his own project too. We think this is a promising pairing, so we gladly welcomed them to enjoy the experience of playing in the TP Stage.

Luis already mesmerized the audience when she was still testing the mike. Right after we opened the event, Luis & Jhonny took us to the evergreen from Louis Armstrong in the early 70’s, “What a Wonderful World”. She sang it beautifully with her satin smooth and relaxing vibe. Calm, good control and heartfelt. She brought it effortlessly natural. Jhonny provided all the melody that’s needed to make each song presented in perfect sound.

For the second song they took one of today’s big hits from Adele, “All I Ask”. If in the first song she looked a bit nervous, on this one she was totally over it and sang with full emotion. Jhonny’s guitar cried with her which nicely delivered the message contained in this Adele’s hit. For the last song she chose Keith Martin famous song, “Because of You”. Well, this song suits her vocal character. We have no doubt that if she ever put this song in recordings, you would love to listen to it over and over again. It was that good.

While the possibilities of exploring jazz is limitless, jazz can appear beautiful in simple form in more pop too like this. Luis & Jhonny represented the soft and tender side of it that everyone can easily listen to. The pairing is really good. Eventhough they both came from different generation, they can blend together in sweet harmony. You might haven’t heard her name just yet, but once you listen to Luis, you will agree that this girl has a very, very beautiful voice. We look forward to bring her back again in later episodes.

The second act was a trio of veterans named JIM CONNECTION. We got connected with the band after we’re in touch with its guitarist/founder Amoeng Gaia. As the name suggested, Amoeng has a successful band rooted in alternative rock named Gaia, established in 1997. So he is a rock guitarist then? Sure. But he is also a jazz guitarist. And actually, he has been playing jazz for more than 30 years, at least he had done it in 1984 alongside Jilly Likumahuwa. “I play alternative rock a lot, but whenever I play jazz, I go with this band (Jim Connection)”, he said to us. With Jim Connection, he happily fulfills his jazzy side by playing jazz standards (the real book).

With the Jim Connection, Amoeng plays with the iconic, highly respected senior drummer Henky Suparjan, and the female bassist with monster groove famously known as the member of SHE band and Jazzy Juice, Arnie Christanti.

The band brought in spontaneous jamming way of performance. With manic bass-lines of Arnie, Amoeng’s sharp and fast guitar fingering and steady but rich beat from drum courtesy of Henky, they built something which turned out to be a different version of Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five”. This is what’s interesting. In our other event less than a month ago, there was a band who boldly took this song as a palette to paint their rockin’ blues soul, far different than the original. This time Jim Connection took it into another side of jazz. From them, “Take Five” still appears fully in jazz but placed into classic rock and blues atmosphere, with freedom of playing and lots of twists. The tradings they served and some cool solo runs were entertaining.

Their out of the box rendition continued on with “The Day of Wine and Roses”, an evergreen written by two legends, music by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. In the hands of these senior musicians, each song appeared as if their own. For the last song they took Sting’s “Fragile”. In this one Arnie got her chance to handle the melody and again, they made it their own. Big round applause were given to them in the end.

In the hands of these two senior gentlemen and a rhytmic lady, jazz appeared with fresh with attitude. They don’t need to pretend to be someone else, nor that they think too much of playing anything. They just went sailing and gave their best punches by using their true self. The experience, skill, passion and love over jazz were all painted in their show.  Amoeng and Arnie rarely play together, yet they were tightly locked in harmony as if they have been playing together for ages. Three different songs from different sources and generations, but somehow connected like three chapters of one book. Their colorful backgrounds created an unconventional jazz. It’s clearly jazz, but with so much more. We really appreciate the participation of senior musicians like them, beause we believe what they give can also be learnt by the young musicians rather than just entertaining.

Speaking of chaptes and unconventional, the last act presented it in totally different story. The group consisting of 5 dudes who we always see as music explorers than just musicians. This ring of friends have been having great time since 2017 with so many movements. Their music is different. You can clearly feel the jazz vibes, but not in the ordinary way as you can capture some rock, blues even classical inside their crafts.

If you think that’s all, they also have strong infuse of traditional music along the way, particularly Sundanese. That’s make possible by the using of kendang (the double-headed drum) and various bamboo woodwinds. All feels natural and effortless. They are not the only band who bring this kind of crossover music and the combination of modern-traditional instruments, yet they manage to have their own style of sound which you can easily differ from others. We are always proud of this band and wish more people will notice and give them credit. It’s the amazing WEST JAVA SYNDICATE.

Ever since the band established in 2010, it has been moving progressively. With all the ups and downs, the band keeps its creativity that for us goes beyond ordinary. While some bands who share simiiar concept could struggle for years to find the perfect blend, this band found the grip early but still evolving as time goes by. The rhythmic connection between drum and kendangs are always a catch, because more than just serving action, the unusual beat from two players is seamless and tight. Then, imagine a rockin’ bassist goes pentatonic on his bass, the pianist who is always ‘in the zone’ on stage, and a spectacular traditional woodwinds player who has a haunting humming voice. All captured in their concert.

They have released two recordings so far, one EP a couple of years ago and a full album titled “Bubuka” in 2017. The West Java Syndicate always love to extend their musical coverage, as they are happy to collaborate boldly with musicians from another corner, even the unthinkable one like when they serve West Java-West Sumatra connection by having some of the Minangkabau progressive ensemble, Palanta Line Art. We always want them to be exposed wider to more and more people, because we think they are unique and rich in soundscapes and performance.

There have been several changes being made, but since the last couple of years the formation found its most solid shape with founder Zahar Mustilaq (drum), Yopi D Nafis (keys), Dede SP (bass), the youngest of them all IpinZbet (kendang) and Randy Gevenk (woodwinds). Together they are taking the audience and listeners to enter a surrealistic music-magination we might never thought existed.

For this event, Zahar brought his own Nekara drum and Nebulae cymbals, a genuine Indonesian products that have really good sound. The eerie sound appeared before Randy added karinding sound followed by the rest of them and their respective instruments. The first song was the title track of their new album “Bubuka” which was used to introduce the audience to their multi-dimensional world as well as the entrance.

After loud applauses being thrown to them, they took us deeper into their world but this time showing their sensitive side with their romantic tune “Tembang Katresna”. In English, the title means “Love Song”, written by Yopi D Nafis when he proposed his beloved wife, Misty. This song has a sweet melody in Sundanese pentatonic style. The composer was in charge, but it still has a lot of space for the rest of West Java Syndicate to place their signatures.

The band then played the last song they wrote for the album tributing the late key-wiz and composer Riza Arshad who passed away exactly last year. The song’s titled “Like Brother Like Teacher”, showing who Riza was to them. Yopi and Randy are the composers of this song. This song is emotional and sad, making us mourn with them over the loss of a respected figure who is like a mentor and brother at the same time. Zahar made a little quiz afterwards and gave one free Bubuka CD to pianist Widiyanto Sutanto who answered his question right.

They moved on with the glittery, much brighter tune “City of Light”. As the climax, they played their song from the EP written by Zahar Mustilaq, “Gending Rame Ku Kendang.” This song was played intense, full of high-octane action and highly entertaining. IpinZbet got a very important role on this one, especially with his solo opening and his beatboxing while still beating up the double-headed drums. They served a full-throttled coda with rising intensity which stunned everyone inside the TP Stage. The combination of expressive, attractive, blazing performance with thrilling dynamic pushed us to the edge of our seat, creating one spectacular ending for the Jazzuality @ TP .03.

The cohesive work between drum and kendang, the bass player who serves more than just usual role, the explorative piano playing and the mystical sound of traditional woodwinds opens up a Sundanese musical realm in progressive multi-dimensional soundscape through different moods – from grand, majestic, playful to intense action. We always love visiting this musical territory rarely existed, something that we can always have by having these mad syndicate on stage. It’s magical, it’s sensational, with the kind of spirit they have inside their nature. Like a showdown of playful wizards, they delivered bags of surprises and lots of jokes throughout the show. We feel happy to bring them here. Thank you West Java Syndicate for always being a part of us!

As there were some musicians came to this edition, we gave them a chance to jam. Pianist Widiyanto Sutanto and drummer Marissa Wiguna, real-life couple stepped in along with two West Java Syndicate members Yopi D Nafis and ipinZbet. They played “Just the Two of Us” in a unique way. Unique? Indeed. Because this song was played by using both kendang and drum by musicians who didn’t know each other. Widiyanto at first served as the bassist by using keyboard, but then he got his time to improvise. It was cool to see since Yopi and the grand piano were placed behind his back, yet both of them could exchange role smoothly.

Another interesting chapter is added into the Jazzuality @ TP. We got acoustic pop jazz/RnB, swing with splashes of rock and blues and multi-dimensional cross Sundanese ethno-progressive fusion as the miniature of the united colors of jazz, something we always intend to bring in any of our event.

We will be back again on 11 February 2018 with a different batch. There will be another cross ethno-progressive fusion, but this time it will be from West Sumatra (Minangkabau), a native American who plays Sundanese harp, the pianist of Jazzy Juice/SHE band, and the single promo of a power house soul singer who is now going international. Your attendance is important, because by coming you will show your support to the playing band, to jazz and the regeneration and development of jazz musicians which stands as the top list of our mission. Hope to see you again in two weeks.

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Reporter/Photographer: Riandy Kurniawan .

In this month of February we got the green light to run the JAZZUALITY @ TP twice. We proposed The Papandayan Hotel to consider to double it up permanently, not because of our own reasons but due to the overwhelming response from the musicians to take part in this event. Unfortunately we failed to get the approval. Anyway, it’s still lucky that in this month of love we could go twice, as there are some important features that we really should highlight.

The JAZZUALITY @ TP .04 was held a couple of days ago on 11 February 2018. Since this event was held near Valentine’s Day, we invited a real-life couple who could let us taste the romantic atmosphere of love through music performance. They are not just a couple, because they use the combination of instruments that’s really rare to find especially on the jazz stage. Then, we feel proud to continue our support to a lady with amazing soulful voice who is now on her move to go international. Last but not least, we featured a unique ensemble who brings traditional Minangkabau (the tribe of West Sumatra) into a new height, progressively. This edition has such a super cool batch that shows the rich variety and true heart of jazz.

To our surprise, this edition was fully crowded! Most of the audience stayed until the end, they enjoyed each of the performance, taking pictures and recorded the shows. They gave loud applause and cheers, and that made the this even ran lively.

We planned to start with the couple Dyah Sekar and Dan Nicky, together as SEKARA. Dyah is known as the keyboardist of famous girl band, SHE and also one of the Jazzy Juice. She’s cute, can look a bit shy, but when she’s placed next to the piano, this girl is always playful in letting her fingers dance some jazz above the keys. She’s absolutely no stranger to us since she has been participating in our event many times, including our two first events 5 years ago.

Now let’s talk about Dan Nicky. Dan is different, as if he was born on the wrong side of the planet. He is native American, but he is 100% Sundanese at heart. He can speak Sundanese fluently, he plays traditional Sundanese music and has a big concern about preserving the traditional Sundanese culture. Many of you especially those who live in West Java should be familiar to him already because he has appeared many times on television, radio and newspaper.

From Dyah we heard that they are working on a project combining two instruments from diffrent side of the spheres: Sundanese harp (Kacapi Sunda) and piano. It’s really rare to see this kind of collaboration especially on jazz stage. Of course they caught our attention and directly featured them here before Dan goes back to Chicago.

Sekara is supposed to play first, but we thought of something different. Before they started their gig, we decided to go first with one song involving all the bands. It was unique. Not only because most of the musicians still didn’t know one another but also the variety of instruments being used in it. Imagine, this early jam session got two sets of talempongs (sets of kettle gongs, the traditional instruments of West Sumatra), Kacapi Sunda (Sundanese harp), Sundanese bamboo flute along with the usual modern instruments. Both Dyah and Nicky were participated in, then from Palanta Line Art there were Kiki Septian and Sandi Ndung stood behind two talempong tables plus Arts Fiaris on guitar, Qorry Restu on keyboard and Shendy Susanto on bass. Representing Agis Kania was Fuad Rudyan. They all played a Sundanese traditional song “Mojang Priangan”.

The appearance of Dan in the middle became an interesting sight. He’s dressed in traditional Sundanese including the headband, played flute, harp and also sing! As far as we know, a jam session using this kind of combination never happened anywhere else before. And that’s not all, because they also executed the song really great. Loud applauses were given to the jamming participants in the end.

Everyone left the stage except Dan and Dyah as Sekara. What they presented was not just music but like a semi theatrical performance. They did some jokes in between songs by playing words between Indonesian, Sundanese and English.

This scene directly appeared from the first song, their original called “Bulan Maret” (“The Month of March”). The glittery piano opened it up before Dan joined with his instruments and then they sang together. The way Dan sings reminds us of Hugh Jackman’s style in his most recent blockbuster, “The Greatest Showman” which is not only singing the song but also telling the story.

Then they took Coldplay’s hit from 2002, “The Scientist”. Dyah played really beautiful, making us felt like watching them stargazing on a clear dark night, sharing every drop of love they have to each other. “Just Another Chance” and “Setting Sun” gave an excellent proof that the Sundanese harp works really well with piano. Serene, peaceful and romantic.

For the last song they took Sundanese folk, “Es Lilin”. What’s unique is that they made an English version of it and made some jokes inside it. The audience loved it and gave them loud cheers and applause as a way to thank them for a sweet and entertaining gig.

Different, romantic, beautiful and relaxing. That’s what we have in mind from Sekara’s music performance. We have heard many bands whose music lies in between two worlds, but we haven’t heard the kind of harmony produced by the combination of Kacapi Sunda and Piano like this. The way they were romancing through their passion in music is really beautiful to watch and listen to. For us, a unique collaboration like this is always important if we want to see fresh, new things in music. Even if it doesn’t work well, it’s still worth to try. But when it works like a charm like what Sekara does, with the semi theatrical and the jokes, it creates magic. We hope they will continue developing this project, trying and finding new possibilities, experimenting on new stuffs which in the end will give benefit to the world’s music especially Sundanese traditional music and culture.

From West Java we went straight up to the West Sumatra, switching from pentatonic to diatonic, courtesy of the distinctive Minangkabau music brought progressive and modern by a mind-bending ensemble, the PALANTA LINE ART.

Minangkabau music has spesific music rhythm and melody. It’s captivating and dynamic, it could be energetic and uplifting but also smooth in terms of romantic or sad. Whatever the sound is, you will easily notice if a song has Minang sound in it. The question is, how often do we find it in jazz scene? Well, there were some famous ones from the likes of Karimata and Emerald, we did find it in a jazz festival in Batam a couple of years ago, but it’s still quite rare, at least comparing to the Sundanese.

That’s why we felt so excited when we found them, thanks to Zahar Mustilaq of West Java Syndicate. The Palanta Line Art was established in July 2012 by traditional Minangkabau woodwinds virtuoso Maspon Herizal and has becoming the answer of every wedding who needs traditional West Sumatra ceremonies in West Java ever since. They do great in it, but the band actually has the passion to explore wide and try new stuffs, which of course naturally made jazz as a perfect habitat for them to live in.

What’s cool is that Maspon brought in with many young talents to play the side of music that is not easy. Arts Fiaris (guitar), Qorry Restu Qodirullah (keys), Kiki Septian and Sandy Ndung (talempong), Shendy Sutanto (bass) and Regi Permadi (drum) do really well in delivering the concept and they seem able to enjoy it too.

The combination of Western, modern instruments that we often find in jazz and other American music with traditional Minangkabau like saluang, sarunai (bamboo flutes), talempong (a set of small kettle gong) and tanduak, a small flute made from horn bull creates such mystical vibes in no time. The overture directly took us all into the wonderful land of Minangkabau. As our mind went wondering, all of a sudden they played a very familiar tune which caught everyone by surprise: Chick Corea’s “Spain” ! The crowds popped big time as the cheers went up high above the roof.Probably it was the time when the audience realized that this Minangkabau ensemble play like no one else. Look at how they executed the tutti on that famous verse which involved both sets of talempong. It was absolutely beyond believe, you can never imagine how amazing we feel that this happened in our event. Sensational!

After this surprising opening, the Palanta Line Art made another cool move by taking us to the land of the Gods with “Djanger Bali.” Once again they gave something unique, since this song now played not with gamelan but talempong and Minangkabau woodwinds. Maspon and his young mates managed to capture all the mystical elements of this song, but more than that they sprinkled more magic dust with the arrangement and traditional Minangkabau instruments. After that they slowed down with a Minangkabau evergreen, “Sansaro” (“Misery”). Maspon painted all the pain and sadness by ‘crying’ through his flute.

Then they played Maspon’s new original song, “The Magic of Sampelong”. Maspon told us that this sampelong instrument (much bigger size of bamboo flute in a shape and length like a big water pipe) was associated with dark/black magic ritual in the old days, and almost extinct because of that. “Now I’m throwing the ‘black’ but keep the ‘magic”, said Maspon, as described by him in the composition. The low tone of Sampelong sound is indeed haunting. It created eerie feelings, but by combining it with the modern instruments, it actually opened an imaginative musical dimension that probably has never been opened for ages.

For the last song the Palanta Line Art played another Maspon’s masterpiece which according to him was made together with the boys. This song is named “Andalas Raya”, a grand, majestic song picturing the beautiful landscape of Sumatra island. They built the momentum with increasing dynamic all the way until it reached climax. If you listen to it while having your eyes closed, you’d be able to see the fascinating landscape of the island by imagination, as if you were a free-flying eagle admiring everything you see from high up above.

Speaking of authenticity and uniqueness, the importance of preserving the traditional music as a part of our rich culture and the regeneration of musicians, the Palanta Line Art has a big role in all of those subjects. Yet, even if these are not important matters to you, we are sure you’d agree that this band plays like none other, has a very unique concept and highly entertaining. By having Palanta Line Art in our circle, we can (re)introduce the beauty of distinctive Minangkabau music sound and show how jazz can accomodate the multi-dimensional exploration these musicians are into. Simply magnificent music form. Traditionally authentic, yet progressive and boldly provoking today’s music trend.

For the final show of this edition, we proudly welcomed AGIS KANIA to promote her new single “Erase My Number” aka “EMN”, released just last week on February 2nd, 2018. Produced by Tabriz Muhajier ‘Ajier T-Five’ Effendy and Inal Chaniago, this single will follow the huge success of the first one “Baby You” last year.

We are happy to continue our support to Agis after having her launching the “Baby You” single in our Ramadhan Edition of Braga Jazz Night (http://jazzuality.com/jazz-event-report/braga-jazz-night-36-ramadhan-edition-the-report/). This single has been doing really well eventhough it’s only available digitally. It became chart topper with most downloaders came from overseas. This fact helps establishing her name internationally as she continues to receive praises from nu soul lovers all over the world.

In still considerably young age, Agis has been wandering through wide diversity of genres. She’s been singing Pop Sundanese, Keroncong, Pop, RnB, Blues, Jazz and everything else in between. We met her in her jazz period when she existed with Satura and then Agis Bape. Yes, she sings jazz very, very well. And yes, she’s still singing jazz every now and then. But since last year she found her lucky charm which turned out to be a genre which has been living in her every breath, soul. As we mentioned, the first single was a huge success, and this new one is right on the same track. Just a couple of hours after its release in major digital stores, she already got listeners.

This second single she’s promoting “EMN” features a super talented, phenomenal young blues guitarist Ginda Bestari. “I’ve been his fans since I was still in high school, and guess what, finally it happens. I have him featured in this song. I’m so proud of it!!” said Agis excitedly. If you know Ginda, you will surely agree with her. If you don’t know him yet but listen or watch him play, you will too. This man is an authentic blues guitarist with natural talent, but he’s easy to find in jazz events too. So you can imagine when someone his caliber join forces with Agis Kania and her excellent team. It’s awesome.

We tried to have Ginda for this gig, too bad he already has another schedule. But hey, we are lucky that Agis Kania performed in full team. That included both producers Ajier T-Five (guitar), Inal Chaniago (bass), Ezra Abraham (piano) and the fine youn drummer who kindly rushed back here after having a gig with Tulus, Fuad Rudyan (drum).

Right after she and the band started playing, the strong soul atmosphere immidiately filled the room. The first song she chose was her first single, “Baby You.” Her voice, the melody, the music and her body language suggested the sensual feel, describing what the song is all about completely. Since the composer Ajier played in this gig, this song found its perfect form. Inal, Fuad and Ezra did their role flawlessly.

“Insanity” a song taken from Gregory Porter’s Grammy winning album “Take Me to the Alley” (2016) which featured Lalah Hathaway was the next choice. Agis demonstrated her powerful and spirited voice with such deep soulful emotion in this song. Ajier gave a strong flavor too which for us was like the second ‘voice’ in the frontline. Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely” offered a happy mood. some of the audience swayed or tapping their foot enjolying it.

Time for Agis to let us hear her new single, “Erase MY Number”. This song has every reason to be a hit. The catchy lyrics, the storyline, the uplifting, infectious melody, and if you watch her life, you would add fine performance too. It won’t be difficult for you to remember the song especially the refrain part. As an evidence, even most of the audience listened to this song for the first time in this gig, they could already sing along with her. In one part, Agis even conducted everyone, dividing the audience into three parts to be a big choir.

For the last song she took Eric Clapton’s famous song from 1996 Phenomenon, “Change the World”. Many of the audience sang along with her while again enjoying Ajier’s captivating guitar playing. Then Agis made a surprise. She called up Anjuan Julio to replace Ajier, and we got this genius guitarist painting different pattern into the song with his distortive improvisation. Realizing that there was another established guitarist from Tulus’ band, Topan Abimanyu, Agis had him replacing Anjuan to give another vivid color. Using this song as the last party, she said thank you to everyone for staying with her all through the gig and sealed her show.

If you listen to Agis Kania’s singing voice, you will know that she should stand among the best (nu) soul artists in the world today. She doesn’t just sing, she attaches her heart, soul and emotion that makes each song feels alive. From what we heard, “EMN” will be played in so many radio stations all over the world, not only in Asia but also USA, Europe and even South Africa. This is a very wonderful news. We know from the first time we met her that she’s different and has all the potential to be an international (super)star, now she’s getting closer than ever to it. We hope to see her stepping higher. We won’t be surprise if one day she will become more than what we ever imagined.

Found among the audience were two of the groups who qualified into the next round of Jazzphoria, the jazz competition made by MLD. We didn’t want them to go home empty handed, so we asked each of them to sing one song. First, Akbar and Hudda, two young boys still in mid teens. Akbar Herliansyah is a former Indonesian Idol Jr 2017 who reached top 10. They sang “Jati Diri Urang”. As you have probably seen when he competed in the Indonesian Idol and from the Jazzphoria, Akbar is indeed a singer who emotionally attached to anything he sings. That has become his forte other than having a good singing voice. Hudda blended with his voice seamlessly which makes him more than just playing the melody.

Then, we got two of Sava Sika on stage featuring Hudda’s father, Indra on piano. They went bluesin’ together and enjoyed their moment on stage. We feel happy that the stage can provide happiness even to the musicians who are sitting in the audience’s seats or to anyone who feel like playing/singing. That’s how we want our event to be, therefore we always feel great when things like this happen.

What an interesting edition this is. Three showcases got amazing world-class acts who flew over wide musical territory, taking us travelling through cities, tribes and even realm. From West Java to West Sumatra, to the modern Nu Soul with Blues, all are glued together with jazz. We are lucky to be able to bring these talented people as one, united together in the name of jazz and created such an unforgettable moment.

The next edition will be on 25 February 2018. If you are curious who will be in it, it’s going to be a well experienced jazz guitarist as a trio all the way from Batam, the jazz quartet of a UPH student who is having Sri Hanuraga as his teacher and a real life couple who have been supporting each other in real life, church services, wedding ceremonies and jazz stages. It’s going to be interesting as well, we hope you will enjoy it with us.

Thank you all featured artists, participating musicians, the soundman, TP Stage crews and The Papandayan hotel, Mr Bobby Renaldi as the Grand Manager, Mr Doni, the manager of TP Stage also to those who came. We salute you! See you all again in two weeks.

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Reporter : Riandy Kurniawan
Photographer: Kherisna Irawan, Prama Hanindia Wirakusumah , Arie Ramadhatus , Riandy Kurniawan .

Not only in the Chinese mainland, around sixth of the world’s population celebrates the Chinese New Year. This year the celebration begins on 6th of February, marking the beginning of The Year of The Dog, Earth Dog to be exact. Chinese New Year is also called Lunar New Year since it is dated based on the Chinese lunar calendar, some called it Spring Festival because it comes in the springtime. Our partners for 4 years, the Braga CityWalk which is located at the historical Braga street in Bandung makes a special program to celebrate it and use “Flowerichious From East” as the name, running from February 4th until March 2, 2018. Variety of events are made within the program, including our jazz community event, the BRAGA JAZZ NIGHT.

This month the BRAGA JAZZ NIGHT has reached the 44th edition, and got a special theme “Shanghai Night Jazz”. The stage is decorated with lampoons, and the surroundings are made specifically for the mall-goers would feel like watching jazz live performances in Shanghai. We decided to suit the theme, but of course without leaving our main reason in making this regular event, that is to support the young musicians and keep pushing the regeneration process. Plus, we always wish to present the wide variety of jazz by inviting bands with unique concept and make jazz accesible to the society. By combining them all, we created the basic concept for this special edition.

Performing first was the students from an educational art institute in Bandung GITA BAWANA. This school intends to enhance the productivity of its students from the creativity sides by providing variety of classes including Music Course, Music Production, Traditional and Modern Dance Course and Modelling. This school is a blessing for us since through one of the teacher Zahar Mustilaq they have been kindly supporting us from last year with the instruments, particularly drum and keyboard. Without their support, it’d be impossible for us to keep this event running.

Gita Bawana sent its best students to represent its jazzy side. The owner Daniel Denzel was there too supporting them. Apparently, this institute has a lot of talented kids as the troops are big in size. Teachers YD Nafis (piano), Zahar Mustilaq (drum) and Luqman Hertanto (bass) took their position then called a little boy named Bintang to take the second keyboard. This set went sailing with a famous song from The Sound of Music, “My Favorite Things”. Bintang is still a little boy, but he didn’t look nervous at all to play with the teachers.

Next, Zahar called Anita and Kurnia Rizky Husar to join them. Anita is even younger than Bintang. She’s currently in the 2nd grade of the elementary school and has been learning in Gita Bawana for a year. Husar is a high school student. They took “Over the Rainbow”. Anita has a soft little girl voice but she can reach high notes while maintaining her pitch really well. As for Huzar, eventhough he’s still in his 3 months studying there, he could already play good jazz with guitar.

Novira replaced Husar on guitar and the mike moved to Agnes for a famous song in the early 80’s from Nikka Costa, “First Love”. Just like Husar, Novira gave a good round while Agnes did her best in front. Next, the vocal coach/teacher Mirna Nurmala joined her fellow teachers to sing one of Chrisye’s big hits “Kala Cinta Menggoda”. We already know Mirna is a good singer, starting with her part as the vocalist of Continuum and then at the turn of her process in solo career, we have featured her too a while ago. It’s just nice to see her again, this time as a teacher with Zahar, Luqman and Yopi.

All teachers left the stage, replaced by all students of Gita Bawana. They are Yehuda (drum), Carina (bass), Evelyn (keyboard), James (guitar) and three girls on vocal: Naomi, Ferren and Astrid. They took Bruno Mars’ famous song “That’s What I Like” as the last drop. It’s certainly great to see them having fun on stage and played just as cool as their mentors. While the musicians produced solid sound with their gears, the singers gave lovely vocal harmony with no flaw. Adorable but strong performance from them.

The young guns parade from a well-established art educational institute Gita Bawana gave a warm opening to this Special Chinese New Year Edition. The combination of students and teachers also shows how close they are, which makes us think that the learning process in this institute must be fun. These kids and teens are surely new to live performance like this. Perhaps this one is even their first, yet they don’t look nervous.They enjoyed every moment, which for us is far more important than making a gig a skill showcase.

In the end, music and performances should be able to entertain both the players and audience. And, it should connect both sides. Since they are still young, time is on their side. We won’t be surprise if one day some and hopefully all of them make waves in our music scene. We have collaborated with some music schools in Bandung that speak jazz loud, they are really good schools, it ‘s indeed a blessing for this city, the nation and jazz.

The next session marks the return of a multi-faceted band. Led by a pianist who has a strong jazz soul Widiyanto Sutanto, this band has actually climbed quite high in just 2 years. It’s the OUT OF 7. 

The band was established in 2013 consisting of a group of friends who regularly served at a church in Bandung. Except Widiyanto Sutanto, the band has his wife Marissa Wiguna (drum), Herman Yulianto (guitar) and Abet Darmaji (bass). The band came alive not long after the leader Widiyanto advanced to the second round of an international jazz competition Soon after they got a vocalist Erick Gabe who also co-hosts this event since day one. With this formation they found their existance very well, from their first hatch in Klab Jazz’s event to the prestigious Red White Lounge in Jakarta to festivals such as Kampoeng Jazz, Espose and JakJazz. Sometimes they added another guitarist Daniel Christy or got a sub bassist Reinhard Woran.

They have made a couple of original songs, where one became their first single, “Kita Indonesia.” Ironically, when everything seemed to be on their side, the band suddenly went on ‘unusual’ hiatus. We say unusual, because occassionally they regrouped to make special appereances here and there. They haven’t appeared anywhere for around 2 years. Luckily when we offered the band leader to participate in this Chinese New Year edition, they agreed to resurface like the old days.

The solo drum from the only lady in the band quickly grabbed the attention of everyone. Marissa had comfortable time to have fun with the drum which turned out to be the opening of Dave Brubeck’s masterpiece, “Take Five”. Widiyanto followed his wife in developing magic with the keys. A lot of twists were found, showing how much they missed running loose on jazz stage with such joy. Herman and Abet did their part tight and enjoyed their moment when they got their turn. It was a sharp, quite surprising opening from them.

The Out of 7 then slowed down with a bossa classic from Jobim, “The Girl From Ipanema”. Instead of making it simple, they explored all the possibilities of making it interesting with improvisations. So eventhough it wasn’t as manic as the first one, this gem got quite a treat as well.

Realizing that this event was meant to be a special Chinese New Year edition, they played an ageless Mandarin song from the great Taiwanese singer, Teresa Teng titled “Yue Liang Dai Biao Wo De Xin” (in English: “The Moon Represents My Heart”). This very romantic song is still found in many weddings here in Indonesia as well as in the playlist of many people. It was a surprise to see them making a swing version of this. The sweet melody was very well kept, yet they made it as if it was a jazz song, thanks to the smart arrangement by Widiyanto.

Enough with the ballads and smooth tracks, they took a different road by serving funky jazz by covering Lee Ritenour’s “Rio Funk”. High dose of funk were poured in this one, as we saw some ladies swaying on the far right side of the stage. Plenty of goodies were captured in this one as they totally funked us out.

After all these pretty intense servings, they eventually came to the last one, taking on a masterpiece of John Coltrane which was found in his legendary studio album “Giant Steps”, “Mr. PC”. This song is tributing bass player Paul Chambers who was with him for many years and has been known as a major vehicle for jazz improvisation that every jazz musicians should be familiar with. Widiyanto and his fellows seems to know it as they kept the bone structure intact but let the even more ferocious improvisations flowing freely in its veins under pleasuring jamming spirit. All of them released everything they had inside on this one. The trading punches between Marissa and Abet was really captivating, and the way they did their solo runs gave compliment to the fun of jazz playing. It was a final blow that knocked us all out.

This band actually has the x-factor that makes their gig interesting. The no-ordinary arrangement, the blazing finger-dancing over the keys, the lethal young female drummer who deceives people with her cute look, blues-rock oriented guitarist and groovy bassist, put it together then you got the soul of Out of 7. We haven’t seen the band reformed again for two years, but we can see now they still actually have all their uniqueness which has took them fly up high. We always believe that this band is really solid as one team. Probably it wasn’t clearly seen before, but it surely is now. We could also feel how much they miss running wild on jazz stage and playing together. We do hope they won’t go hybernating again after this, because with what they have, they should be able to speak loud in the music scene.

For the last band we featured a band consisting of young musicians that takes a course not many dare to go anymore, the Prog Jazz. The band is named BLUE OCEAN PROJECT (BOP).

This band was born as the brainchild of a pianist rooted in jazz but never stop exploring, Ditra Prasista and drummer with different punches, Rio Abror. They began just by two, said to be inspired by the one and only Rudess Morgenstein Project before the band got bigger by having more players. First they became trio with Fuuji Kyra joined in 2015, then they got Leviana Puteri and Meita Yunita filled the vocal lines a year later. The vocal part moved to Kharisma Hakiki then to Didin Ginanjar. After that, the band added two more players: Dwi Fari on flute and Erwin Apriliadi on sax.

The Blue Ocean Project began in the format of four with Ditra, Abror, Fuuji and Didin, presenting their own version of a song by Tillery – a uniquely gifted trio of respected vocalists – written by its member Gretchen Parlato and Magnus Thompson-Marcelin titled “Magnus”. Right from this first choice we could clearly see that this band brings jazz in different atmosphere. Sharp, explorative yet friendly to even the non jazz listeners. Surely wasn’t easy, but they somehow know how to bring it naturally.

From there, the band pinned a song found in Robert Glasper’s 2005 album on Blue Note label, “Rise and Shine”. In this one the Blue Ocean Project decreased its size to just trio, but even so, they delivered even louder sound. Abror roared wild behind the drum, like a soldier shooting the machine gun with unlimited ammo and hit the target every time. This formation highlighted the second formation of BOP which would work perfectly had they continued on being a trio.

Enough with cover song, Ditra then announced that the last two songs would be their originals. Starting with “Delusion”, the founders Ditra and Abror showed the true core of BOP and how much colors their music pallette has. All members then gathered for one last tune titled “Lunar”. Starting with sparkling solo piano by Ditra, the rest of them started filling up the song until it became full rounded. For us this song is a masterpiece, a celebration of third stream in its finesse. The humming voice of Didin sprinkled more magic into this song, while the combination of flute and saxophone enhanced the sound significantly. For us, this song is a winner. Brilliantly composed, cleanly executed.

It’s important for us to bring in and support a band with different concept to show that Bandung and in general, Indonesia actually have wide diversity of jazz. Creative brains like Ditra and Abror are urgently needed if we want to see jazz being developed bigger and wider. The Blue Ocean Project is currently working on their first album using something quite ‘scary’ as the theme, Schyzophrenia. Interesting concept nicely done. We have been trying to invite this band since some months ago, finally we go them and plan to bring them back again, hopefully when they are promoting the album. If anyone ask, is prog jazz still exists today in Indonesia, now we can say: yes it is. In the hands of Blue Ocean Project, not only prog jazz would live on but also would get the chance to appear in a new face.

As we got the big 10 of Indonesian Idol Jr 2017 Akbar Herliansyah and his reliable partner Hudda, we gave them a shot before we sealed the event. They took Willie Nelson’s everlasting ballad “Crazy”. Once again Akbar let all his heart out in singing the song, something that for us become his forte. Both of Akbar and Hudda are still very young, so we do hope by encountering jazz early, they would have plenty of time to explore and find their own grip in it.

This edition for us is uniquely describes the heart of Braga Jazz Night. We always want to push and support the regeneration of young musicians by giving them a chance to perform since early age, we try to ‘wake’ the bands that we think is good but currently inactive, and showcasing the different form of jazz from creative brains. We thank every participating musicians for giving up their best. We will be back again next month with another set, we hope to still have your support as well as being able to meet your expectation of a variety and good quality of jazz. See you again in March!

Watch the highlights of Braga Jazz Night 44:

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Reporter and photographer: Riandy Kurniawan
Video Editor: Vierna Mariska Kurniawan .

In this February we are fortunate to be able to run JAZZUALITY @ TP twice. We have received overwhelming requests by musicians from Bandung and other cities to participate in this event. And that’s quite surprising since we actually just started last November. With so many musicians to accomodate, from the young guns who still need to gain experience to the established musicians who need to promote their new project or album. By having two shots, we could support more bands than usual.

So, what do we get in the Jazzuality @ TP 05? If in the previous one we showcased the magic of traditional musics from West Java and West Sumatra brought progressively in jazz and the fantastic nu soul singer in her single promo, this time we were focusing more on jazz. Swing, bebop, straightahead and the joy of having an octet complete with brass section. From the regional side, this edition stands out differently because each band came from different cities. One representing the well established community in Batam Kepulauan Riau, one from Jakarta and one from Bandung. As you can see, this edition also stands in its own way.

The rain poured really hard outside since an hour before we started. We was worried that no one would come under the terrible weather. But surprisingly, while the rain was still heavy, the audience started coming and made the TP Stage became full house in just a short time! We feel really happy with it since this venue is not a mall that has its own shoppers. In other words, it needs efforts for them to reach here. Looking at this fact, we highly appreciate it and send our gratitude and respect to everyone who came to support the musicians, our community and the event. Thank you!

We began with the band of highly talented young musicians from Jakarta, led by a pianist who is still studying at the Universitas Pelita Harapan (UPH), Steven Christian. As he is the band leader, he simply named his band as STEVEN CHRISTIAN QUARTET. As we have mentioned, he is still very young, born in 1997. But make no mistake, he is already a really good jazz musicians. By having this kind of special talent, he rose fast and gained his chance to taste the prestigious events like Java Jazz Festival, Bogor Jazz Festival, Locafore Jazz Festival, Jazz Reunion ad so on. He has also being awarded many times in various music events and competition as the best keyboardist. In some ways, he reminds us of young Sri Hanuraga (Aga), a jazz virtuoso who is now based in Jakarta, and that’s no surprise since Steven is a proud student of Aga.

Since last year he started writing his own compositions, which of course would lead on making up an album. And that’s what he is working on right now. What he brings for this event are the exact same team as the recordings: Jabez Chan on guitar,Timothy Investario on contrabass (he is a proud student of Indrawan Tjhin) and a drummer based in Bandung who has helped us a lot, Alman Naufal. Steven’s debut album already has the title, it’s “In Real Time”. We have heard some of the compositions in his instagram, all are made really fine as if they are written by a long time pro.

Steven Christian Quartet is consisting of young musicians who are mostly students, but they surprisingly played like longtime pros. All songs are original and brilliantly made. Right from the very first one titled “Pepperoni”, Steven’s band exploded and put everyone at the edge of their seats. Intense, dynamic and filled with all the fun of jazz that makes us fall in love with, including a tight trading between the drummer and the rest of them.

For the next song Steven explained that it was built upon the rhythm changing. Thunderous drumming from Alman gave us a clue that this song was going to be something. And yes it was. “On the Riverside” has a very complex rhythm, certainly not easy but they all made it like a jolly playground. The audience rewarded them loud and long applause.

After two full action-packed songs, Steven Christian went romancing with his sweet ballad, “You and Me” made in 3/4 time. This song is really beautiful, it’s like watching a lovely couple waltzing together under the moonlight with love. After that, Steven played the soon-to-be title track for his upcoming debut album, “In Real Time.” These boys were like having their energy restored, they went speeding with this uplifting composition in extreme pace.

The way Steven played really reminds us of his mentor, Sri Hanuraga. Steven’s fingers streaming fast like bullets, so fast that we couldn’t see them with naked eyes anymore. As he went mad on piano, the rest of the band traveled with the same speed of light, in real time. Alman gave even heavier thunderous beatings, Timothy hit everything right while exploring the fret of his contrabass and Jabez shared the melodious spotlight with Steven. Just like the previous ones, they all got their own shining moment which gave them lots of applauses, cheers and even shouts from the crowds.

We thought it was the climax, but we got one last treat, a grand, glorious original composition titled “Remember Me”. With this kind of composition and execution, we believe everyone presented in the room will remember them.

A triumphant show it was. The fired-up performances, the winning jazz compositions, the dynamics, the way they build each piece and hit the momentum, the skill, passion and perhaps dreams, the fun factor, all fell in the right place, a wicked showdown of young wizs that far exceeded our expectation.

A band like Steven Christian Quartet is what we are looking for, the main reason of why we keep our community event running. Once again we see the evidence that age is just numbers when it comes to music. As the band leader, Steven successfully shows a good leadership. He gave enough room for his mates to shine, but when he got his turn, he didn’t waste even a bit. From time to time we see the birth of great jazz musicians, in this one we witness it again. We have no doubt that Steven could become the next Sri Hanuraga, Timothy would one day stand like his mentor, Indrawan Tjhin, and Jabez and Alman also have the same bright future. Fun to watch, high-octane, really entertaining action and lovely songs, these young lions are really something.

For the next round we warmly welcome a solid community from another city quite far away from our homebase. It’s a trio representing the BATAM JAZZ SOCIETY, came all the way from the wonderful city of Batam, Kepulauan Riau (Riau Archipelago). The trio is motored by a swingin’ jazz guitarist Tchepy Wijaya Soekardi, former student of the living legend Oele Pattiselano and Kadek Rahardika. On bass was the bassist of unique Melayu fusion band Geliga, Muhammad Gusrianto (Ryan) and Sofyan Nur (Yayan), the new drummer of Geliga who came in at the last minute, they reflected how lively the jazz scene in Batam today.

The Batam Jazz Society was established more than 18 years ago, just a year before the millenium to be exact. Since then, they have been penetrating the city with jazz, performed by so many great talents. They also proudly held the International Jazz Day in Batam, officially chosen by UNESCO ad the Thelonious Monk Institute which they have been doing since 2014. This community has plenty of events and so many great jazz musicians.

We never met Rian and Yayan before, but not Tchepy. We met him for the first time at Asean Jazz Festival 2012 in Batam. At that time he still played fusion, but soon after that he switched to swing. We think it’s the right decision since he has a delicate swing soul just like his teacher Oele. We became close friends with him since last year by communicating a lot eventhough we live in different cities.

Right after we introduced them and the jazz community, they went swingin’/soul boppin’ with a song from Hank Mobley, “This I Dig of You”. Tchepy let his swingin soul flew out naturally through his fingers, complimented with the melodic rhythm from Ryan and exactly the right amount of beat from Yayan. Just the three of them, yet the sound was fully round.

The second song was Tchepy’s original composition that he wrote just a couple of days before he came to Bandung. Originally it was named “Simpang Jam”, the new fly over in Batam, but to make it easier to remember, Ryan suggested the title “Flyover”. This song is brilliantly made. It has the cool avant funk feel like what we found in Medeski Martin and Wood (MMW)’s signature. Just a couple of hours earlier this trio went into the Studio 8 in Bandung to record this song and made it done in just one simple take. This is the kind of song that would make you feel high without taking any drugs. For the last song, the trio selected a classic from 1940 that we don’t hear so often anymore, “Broadway”. This jazz standard has been long associated with the Count Basie Orchestra, but Tchepy, Ryan and Yayan could work it nicely with just a trio.

It’s certainly fascinating to be able to bring the authentic Batam jazz scene to Bandung. And we are really happy to have our buddy Tchepy back with two new friends from a fellow community far away, the Batam Jazz Society, to be with us. Not just the spirit of friendship and togetherness, but we share the same amount of love to jazz and hope for a better jazz future here in Indonesia. May we continue to work side by side, and we wish Batam Jazz Society and everyone living inside it the best. Thank you for coming guys! Keep jazzin’ up Batam and never stop contributing to Indonesian jazz scene!

Whether you realize it or not, jazz has becoming a favorite theme in wedding parties. As we want to expose the jazz scene in real life, we think it’s important to bring this kind of side too. From time to time we invite bands or musicians who exist in weddings. This time we featured one of the most successful ones in Bandung especially with its jazz core, the W.ID MUSIC EXPERIENCE.

W.ID Music Experience was established in March 2013 by a pianist/composer/arranger Widiyanto Sutanto. This man is a genius in music, has a very good hearing and also able to make compositions and arrangements either on jazz standards or any other well known songs, from semi jazz, pop jazz, pop, soul, RnB and even Rockestra. Speaking of size, he is capable to make the arrangements for big band and orchestra too, amazingly all self-taught.

If you wonder how he could do that, we think it’s his activity at church plays a big role, something he has been doing for more than a decade. He’s been jazzin’ up the church along the way, and that’s the reason why we’re connected with him some years ago. As an evidence of his jazz skill, he reached the semi-final of a worldwide jazz competition, the Master-Jam Competition held in Ukraine. Not long after that, he founded his own band called Out of 7 which remarkably reached some prestigious international jazz festivals such as Kampoeng Jazz, Espose and JakJazz. The band is currently on hiatus, but even so, we just brought the band back to life just a couple of days ago at our event in another spot, the Braga Jazz Night Special Chinese New Year edition (http://jazzuality.com/jazz-event-report/braga-jazz-night-44-shanghai-night-jazz-the-report/).

In this event as mentioned earlier, we feature his successful music/wedding entertainment W.ID that he’s running with his wife, drummer Marissa Wiguna. They have been hired not just in Bandung but also in another cities or even nations. As the W.ID has been consistently specialized in jazz weddings and events, we invited them for the first time in full team to bring the jazzy wedding scene in this event.

And yes, full team is what he really brought. Joining him for this gig are Marissa Wiguna (drum), Daniel Christy (guitar), Reinhard Woran (bass), two saxophonist Erik Chandra and Aziz, and a male singer who made a successful attempt in The Voice Indonesia two years ago, Rizki Jonathan.

John Coltrane’s classic dedicated to bassist Paul Chambers, “Mr PC” was first. Quite bumpy at first, but then Widiyanto quickly dealt with the situation. This song showcased sax duel in the frontline, something that we don’t get to see often. Erik and Aziz teased, mocked and battled each other, creating an entertaining show. The band leader used his keyboard more than just an instrument to sound some jazz but also like a control panel to make sure that everyone in the band functioned just like the plan.

The second song was a classic instrumental funk that was found in the B-side of James Brown’s single in 1969 but then made famous by Jaco Pastorius, “Chicken”. The battle between brassmen continued on while Marissa on drums, Daniel Christy on guitar and Reinhard Woran on bass got more space to expose themselves. This funky jazz tunes were popular among jazz musicians and fans as many of them in the venue enjoyed it. Marissa’s solo run was rewarded loud applauses. Significant response were given too to the rest of players whenever they finished their solo runs.

The vocalist of W.ID Music Experience Rizki Jonathan then came onto the stage. Rizki is a young singer with heavy soulful singing voice that has gained experience in some talent searches show on television, most notably when he went all the way to the battle rounds of The Voice Indonesia 2016 (Season 2) under guidance of coach Ari Lasso. With him, the WID presented a song written by Widiyanto that calls for peace and unity among us titled “Kita Indonesia” (“We Are Indonesia”). Unlike the original version, this one is made more cheerful and upbeat. If usually we hear it through the RnB vocal style of Erick Gabe, now we know that the song fits very well too with Rizki’s deep heavy soulful voice.

For the last two songs, Rizki told everyone that they were going to bring two songs of Phat Phunktion, a band from USA who combines the 70’s funk, jazz, RnB and the smooth 60’s soul. The song they chose were “Well Run Dry” and “Knockin’ em Down”, both from “High Fidelity” album in 2011. A cool selection that we don’t get to hear often, it became a funky party that officially sealed this fifth edition of Jazzuality @ TP.

We realize that it wasn’t easy to manage a heavy artilery like this. So we can understand that some flaws were found in it. But what we can learn from them is how to deal with any obstacles that occur during a performance and keep going strong until the end. That’s also a valuable thing to learn. Speaking of fun factor, they did it very well. The fired-up appearance from them are highly enjoyable. In the end, music should be able to entertain people. The cute lady with remarkable drumming skill, the leader with strong jazzy spirit, good bassist and guitarist and the cool sax duel in front, the funk bites, jazz chops and sharp solo punches were found in this act. Probably they don’t have to play this wild in wedding parties, but when there’s a chance, they can go high too on jazz stage. Keep the success up W.ID Music Entertainment! Don’t stop jazzin’ up the weddings and other parties!

Since we still got some spare time, we invited the musicians to jam. The first batch got Tchepy Wijaya Soekardi (guitar), Steven Christian (piano), Timothy Investario (using Ryan’s electric contrabass) and Jabez’s younger brother, Jesse Chan (drum). They went boppin’ with Charlie Parker’s “Confirmation”.

Christian stayed on stage and joined by Marissa Wiguna (drum), Muhammad ‘Ryan’ Gusrianto (bass) and Jabez Chan (guitar). This second team took on Duke Ellington’s gem “Take the A Train”. Since the vocalist of Serendipity Habbits who has a very unique style and appearance Madam’s Rama was there, we invited him to take a bite. Accompanied by husband-wife Widiyanto Sutanto (piano) and Marissa (drum), he gave tribute to Frank Sinatra including a cool take on “Fly Me To The Moon”.

Three bands, three showcases representing three cities makes this fifth edition stands differently. Add a happening jam session, that’s what this event is all about. We thank all musicians who participated, the soundman, Mr Bobby Renaldi as the GM of The Papandayan, Mr Doni the manager of TP Stage and everyone who came to have fun with us. We can never make it without you.

We will be back on 25 March 2018 for another special edition. This time a trio of wild, mad men will come to tear down the house. Yes, it’s LIGRO TRIO in complete formation (guitarist Agam Hamzah, bassist Adi Darmawan and drummer Gusti Hendy ‘GIGI’), they are set to launch their new album “TRANSISI” in Bandung. Warning: their music is controversial, haunting, provocative and even brutal! If you haven’t heard them just yet, get yourself ready because this trio will shake your perception of music, particularly jazz. Please save the date from now, we hope to see you again next month!

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Reporter & Photographer : Riandy Kurniawan   .

We have reached the 45th edition of Braga Jazz Night (formerly known as Braga Jazz Walk), a community-based jazz event made by Jazzuality.com in cooperation with Braga CityWalk. In each and every edition of our event we think of presenting young talents who have the passion in jazz, supporting the established musicians as well as introducing the rich variety of jazz to the society. We always look forward to the chance of expanding our support to musicians outside the Bandung city region. So far we have succeeded in it by having fellow musicians from other cities like Jakarta, Sukabumi, Majalaya, Tangerang, all the way to the mid part of Sumatra, the city of Batam. But that’s not all, because we have stretched our wings further across nations, welcoming singers/musicians from Malaysia, Australia, Mexico, Italy, USA and Cambodia. We are thankful for the opportunity and wish to be able to continue for many more years to come.

In the Braga Jazz Night #45 we presented three sets of performance featuring musicians/singers ranging from the young fellas to the successful ones who have been active in the scene for more than two decades. Speaking of style, it was wide that we got a unique trio using the combination three instruments that are rarely found in jazz scene today especially in Indonesia. We invited a band from a city around 2-3 hours by car  to reach Bandung, Majalaya, and we paved the way for a boy who did very well in the famous singing competition on television to build his career in jazz.

This boy started first. His name is Akbar Herliansyah, better known as AKBAR IDOL JUNIOR. As we said earlier, he rose to fame by ending up in the 10th place on the second season of Indonesian Idol Junior. We met him in person last month when he competed in the Jazzphoria, a jazz competition made by MLD where we served as one of the judges. We were quite surprise to see him, knowing that he didn’t show any sign of jazz during the Indonesian Idol Junior. Realizing this fact, we invited him to join the community so he could find out what kind of jazz suits him the most, while we tried to find a slot for him. Akbar showed a good spirit. He came and took the chance getting on stage in our events several times. And now, finally we could provide a slot for him to perform.

If usually he appears as Akbar and Hudda, this time he built a band. Joining him were Hi-5 Indonesia’s cast Reza Eka Putra (keyboard), Rommy Hendrawan (guitar), Yudi Aditia (bass) and Rivandi (drum). It didn’t take long for Akbar to wow us. why not? He took an evergreen “What a Difference A Day Made” and sang it with deep feeling. No rush, just relied on his inner heart, served by nice, solid band behind him. Of course, he bagged applauses from the audience with this kind of opening.

Akbar then moved on directly by going local, taking on Sandhy Sondoro’s big hit “Malam Biru.” This song works fine with him as well. So does A Great Big World’s “Say Something (I’m Giving Up On You)”.

Back to the time when we met him at the competition, we suggested Akbar to dig Jamie Cullum because we think the more modern jazz style and character of Jamie would be fit on him. He listened. For the fourth song he took Jamie Cullum’s signature song, “Mind Trick”. This song fits him like a glove. Not only Akbar’s vocal work and the substantial play by the band were great, they delivered it joyfully too. Akbar and the band clearly had a lot of fun during this song, and that transfered the cheerful vibes to everyone.

Quite variety of style rooted in jazz has been served by Akbar Idol Jr. For the last song, he surprised us by taking a very difficult song to cover, that’s Etta James’ “At Last”! According to Akbar, it was his uncle, a jazz singer who offered him the song. Amazingly, Akbar successfully nailed this ‘heavy’ song. He attached his heart fully to sing it, which actually is the right way to do, resulting a stellar final. Not a senior jazz diva, not a long time male singer, it’s a 14 year-old boy who took it, a boy who just had his debut on jazz stage, but he claimed this evergreen to be his.

We feel happy and proud to be able to provide the new chapter of Akbar’s career where jazz is written in bold. Tell you what, this boy is not just talented but full of spirit. He is serious, he is humble, and he still has a very long year to progress. Excellent song choices shows that he really know who he is, musically speaking. After the show, he told us that he only got two practice sessions, and they were still unsure what to bring until the last minute. But all the songs he sang were bullseye, right on target. The band also worked really well on him. Reza, Rommy, Yudi and Rivandi were solid in every style. We know he would be great on jazz stage, yet he still surprised us by performing much better than we expected.

This won’t be the last for us to feature him, because we want to follow his update and support him to stand solid in jazz. The way he sings his heart out is always nice to see, and we won’t be surprise if he rises to be a prominent jazz singer in the near future. Keep it up kiddo!

The next session was taken by a jazz-rooted band who took a big effort to participate in this event. They had to travel almost 3 hours, passing around 50 km from their hometown Majalaya to reach Bandung. This band captured our attention when they competed in Jazzphoria like Akbar. It’s a band of 6, consisting of all young dudes. It’s SAVASIKA.

Other than able to play good, this band has a strong endurance. The band was born around 7 years ago, they did everything to stay alive against all odds. They kept their existance even when they still got no vocalist for years, until finally they found what they were looking for in 2016.

So, life is not always easy for this band. There were times that it was difficult to find gigs, at other times the personnels might be busy with their own agenda. They even went to hiatus for a while. But what’s good about Savasika is that they always bounce back, which led us to meet them at the competition. Speaking of the competition, they became the runnerup in the end.

So, today the band comprises of Tomy Fhaisal (bass), Naufal Trisna (percussion), Wili Rizki Ismail (drum), Ryzky Ramdan (keys), Erfan Iksan Fauzi (vocal) and Kiki Gusdiana or Rian Ahmad Fauzi (RAF) on guitar. For this event, it was Kiki who’s in charge with guitar. Too bad Naufal couldn’t make it due to his work and the vocalist was having a bad cold, but even so, Savasika gave a strong performance without losing a grip even a bit.

Savasika directly shows how good they are right from the start. They began with an instrumental track covering Tohpati’s composition from his album “Song For YOu” titled “Happy Jazz”. Not really an easy one to go with, but they did really, really well. We like their style which was served more in fusion than the original speeding ragtime version. As this song originally has a lot of room for the band to play around freely, the boys of Savasika brought that idea by doing it in a fun jamming mode.

The music suddenly switched to a famous song of Tania Maria from 1983 without having a break, “Come With Me”. Let us ask you a question. How often do you hear this song on male voice? This song has a strong sexy vibe, that’s why it usually goes with female singer while male normally would avoid it. But Erfan’s brilliant falsetto technique could make it work like a charm. They wowed us with this one in the competition a month ago, they did it again this time, even when they had to do it without having the percussions which becomes one of the important essences of this song. If Tania Maria were there watching them, we believe she would think it’s funny that a man could do the song that nice.

For the last song, Erfan sang another Sandhy Sondoro’s song from 2010, “Superstar (How Could We Not Love)”. His high pitched falsetto and his normal singing voice worked out fine, as if he was fully healthy on stage. His unique body gestures helped to keep us energized. The solo runs from Tomy, Kiki, Wili and Ryzky were cool too. They gave a strong performance all the way till the very end.

Savasika is a good band. They play well, the players are connected to one another and they know how to give an entertaining appearance. No wonder they ended up in the second place at the Jazzphoria. For us, Sava Sika can become an evidence of a good jazz existance in Majalaya today. This is a happy news. If before we never knew how the jazz scene is in that city, now we know that it’s alive and kicking. So many great musicians live in Majalaya, and many of them actually are into jazz. We are proud to present the runner up of Jazzphoria in this 45th edition, and we will invite more jazz-oriented bands from the city to take part in this event. We do hope to see Sava Sika again in the future, if they are still willing to go extra miles to be with us.

For the third and last act we got three magnificent musicians who have been doing their career for many years. They are Ammy Kurniawan (violin), Rudy Zulkarnaen (bass) and Opik Bape (guitar). As you can see, these gentlemen shapes a trio with unique all-strings format, rarely found in Indonesia (maybe even the only one). Ammy named the band TRIO BIGIBAS, the BIola (violin), GItar (guitar) and BAS (bass).

If in Indonesia this concept or formation is rare, in the international scene it is too. We know that the late Didier Lockwood established this exact formation in honoring the legendary Gypsy Jazz musician, Stephane Grappelli. Other than Lockwood, Ukraine violinist Sergei Bolotny has done it too. So, true, some have tried this formation, but still it’s rare comparing to other regular formations.

It was Ammy who told us about this new band, and that caught our interest right away. Probably this is not easy to do, but in the hands of musicians their caliber, we simply got the best ones to make it work. They have known each other for many, many years. Ammy and Rudy have even been playing in the same bands a couple of times, for example in 4Peniti and Rudy & Band Listrik. While Opik is certainly a perfect pick due to his skill and musical background which is spanning wider than just the vintage swingin’ era in the USA but also the French Gypsy Jazz/Jazz Manouche when he stablished Satura some years ago. Today he is still going vintage with Madame & Toean ensemble and plays with Mary Jane. Ammy Kurniawan has just released an album titled “Let’s Play Violin!”, and Rudy got the AMI Awards a couple of months ago for the best sound production (Tulus’ album, Monokrom).

Ammy told us that the embryo of this trio has actually began long time ago with his then-group called Bandung String Ensemble. “But it was short lived, unfortunately,” he said. Rudy was there too, but now the guitar position is taken by Opik Bape, who, according to Ammy is a really, really good and unique guitarist.

The original plan was to use contrabass, but Rudy thought it would be best to use electric to deal with the sound and condition of the venue. Not long after they took position in the middle of the stage, out of nowhere, huge number of crowds quickly gathered in front of them! That created a wonderful scene.

After giving a warm greetings, Ammy led Rudy and Opik to sail. First, they took Chick Corea’s jazz standard written in early 1970’s that speaks loud about celebration, “La Fiesta.” As if the trio wanted to invite everyone to join their party, they played it so merry with cheerful and playful stage act, resulting a very loud applause when they sealed this one in grand.

For the next song they took us to Paris and had us waltz with them with a composition of Richard Galliano. As this theme flows through the veins of Opik who is famous for being a French Gypsy Swing/Jazz Manouche guitarist, Ammy and Rudy teased him with their instrument and funny face mimic. How nice it is to have Jazz-Bal-Musette style appeared on our stage. That’s certainly not the music we found often here in Indonesia especially in Bandung. Without having any accordeon, the Trio Bigibas amazingly captured the scene and sound.

For the third song they gave a special tribute to the late violinist Didier Lockwood by playing a song taken from Lockwood’s album in 1990, “Tiny Twins”. Cute and simple melody, easy listening, but the trio decorated it with their touch. Ammy stepped down the stage playing his violin near the crowds, making their show felt even more intimate that it already was.

Since we still got much time, the Trio Bigibas was very kind to give us two more songs, all taken from Ammy’s latest album released just in May last year, “Let’s Play Violin!”. The songs he chose were “Duo Etude” and “Encore”. If originally “Duo Etude” is played by using just violin and guitar, this time it appeared in trio format. By having Rudy, the song felt slightly different. Richer sound yet still have all the beauty essence of the original. The happy tune of “Encore” which has a slight country feel gave us all a pleasant final for both Trio Bigibas’ session and the event.

The BiGiBas Trio offered multi-dimensional jazz by using three stringed instruments, showing us that the combination of these instruments could create such magical sound. Relating to Star Wars, this session feels like a showdown of three Jedi masters. High amount of action was there, effortless playing made their appearance special. As we always want to show the variety of jazz with all the possibilities, this final round of Braga Jazz Night #45 stood up high. We always love to see something new, we always wish to see innovations, therefore we feel blessed to have these gentlemen landing on our soil.

What an interesting edition this was. Different style, different concept, different format played by former Idol Jr, a band from Majalaya and a trio of experienced, high skilled musicians presenting the unique music crafted from rare combination of all-stringed instruments were on the menu, giving us moments to remember.

We thank every participating musicians, soundman, the venue, our partners and everyone who came to this event. We will be back again in April with another batch. Stay tuned for the upcoming 46th edition, see you again next month!

Watch the highlights of Braga Jazz Night 45:

See more pictures:

Reporter/photographer : Riandy Kurniawan
Video editor : Vierna Mariska Kurniawan .

Imagine yourself having a fine dine in a cozy, romantic place under a breezing cool weather surrounded by breathtaking view of nature. Not just enjoying the delicious meal, but you can also pair it with wine of your choice, or you can also ask the sommelier’s suggestion. Now, add jazz in it. Sounds great right? Then if you are a musician, think of performing in this place while having yourself being promoted by both online and on air. That’s what we pictured in mind when we established a connection with the venue, Burgundy Dine & Wine by Pramestha Resort and a top radio, OZ Radio. Synchronizing with what this place offers, we all agree to name the event “WINE AND JAZZ”.

The pilot project was done on Saturday, 24 March 2018. Unlike the usual time for jazz event which is mostly at night, the Wine & Jazz is served in the late afternoon, starting from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm. That gives the audience a chance to enjoy the view before the sky gets dark without being too cold. Also, we believe this selected time will accomodate the whole family to be a part of it. For us, this will give us something new since our other events are running at night.

A little more information about OZ, this radio has just brought back one of its popular program alive, JAZZY OZZIE. This jazz program was once popular around 7 years ago or so. Just like the name says, Jazzie Ozzie highlighted the jazzy side OZ. After being on hiatus for some years, now it’s back in business. Oz is once again ready to support the movement of jazz in Bandung, Jakarta and beyond by not only playing the songs but also interviewing and airing live performance from selected bands, hosted by former Jajaka Pinilih (The Chosen Young Man) of Bandung 2017, Darryl Max. For us it’s a good news since it wasn’t easy for jazz before to enter the radio in Indonesia, especially the popular radio for youngsters.

For this pilot project or premiere edition, we featured two lineup with different style and sound. One is a pure Jazz/Straightahead quartet and the other representing the modern day Nu Soul. They do have some things in common though. Both of the lineup are amazingly gifted, have a good quality performance, enjoyable and entertaining, and have original materials that we think deserve good and wide publication. They are the nu soul diva AGIS KANIA and the stunning STEVEN CHRISTIAN QUARTET.

We started first with the nu soul diva who is now claiming her position much, much better than where she has ever been before. This lady has a 5-star vocal quality that we dare to compare with any soul singers today in the world. She is AGIS KANIA.

We have known her for around 5 years, the time when she was still a part of the gypsy swing duo Satura. But she actually has started way back long before that. She already embarked her career since she was still a little girl, placing her song to be the anthem of her hometown Sukabumi. At that time she was still singing in Sundanese Pop.

Although jazz wasn’t a stranger in her childhood, she carried on with the traditional keroncong. Again, she had a good time by being aired regularly in the national radio RRI. When she moved to Bandung, she encountered American music particularly jazz and blues. Her soulful voice suited both genres and quickly she established her position in both corners. She took considerably higher step when she formed a dynamic duo Agis Bape, collaborating with fingerstlye guitarist Opik Bape.

Last year out of nowhere we heard about her making a breakthrough. Having two brilliant producers Tabrize Muhajier ‘Ajier’ Effendy of T-Five and Inal Chaniago, she released her first solo single rooted in the modern nu soul titled “Baby You” through digital outlets. Soon the song went well on charts and purchased mostly by foreign music lovers from all around the world. This song was officially released in our event, Braga Jazz Night in the holy month of Ramadhan.

Last month Agis released her second song, still having the same producers. This second song is titled “Erase My Number” aka “EMN”, featuring the amazing bluesman Ginda Bestari. Again, the song gets a very well result as it’s played over radio stations around the world, reaching as far as South Africa.

For this appearance, Agis Kania was supposed to play with the producers Ajier (guitar) and Inal (bass). Unfortunately both of them couldn’t make it. But wait, Agis still has pianist Jason Limanjaya and the cute but lethal girl on drum, Marissa Wiguna by her side. These two musicians could amazingly covered the lack of musicians on stage and made her able to perform her best as if she got full team.

As this event is intended to be an on-air program of Jazzy Ozzie, the host himself, Darryl Max acted as the MC and did just right he was broadcasting in the studio. After a little chit-chat, Agis Kania began her session by covering a song of Gregory Porter with Lalah Hathaway, “Insanity”. Quickly her soulful voice along with Jason’s smooth jazzy vibes and gentle drumming of Marissa painted the atmosphere full of charm.

Then she sang her first solo single “Baby You”. Jason did great in covering the bass part alongside his own role as the pianist. Even only with two musicians, Agis delivered the song perfectly. The song is sensual, full of lust that one could feel just by listening to the music.

For the third song Agis took The Crusaders’ gem from 1979 featuring the beautiful voice of Randy Crawford, “Street Life”. She asked the audience to sing along, also let Jason and Marissa to exchange some punches. A twist was found in this one as Jason and Marissa suddenly went swinging in the middle. That move creates an interesting variation which actually enriches the soulful jazz-funk nature of this song. From Agis’ side, she sings it just as good as miss Crawford or the later version from Joe Sample and Lalah Hathaway in 1997.

She sealed her show with her latest single “Erase My Number” aka “EMN”. If in the original version EMN has Ginda Bestari’s fine blues guitar sound, this time we got another version involving no guitar. But even so, Jason and Marissa tackled it really well.

We consider Agis’ nu soul style would match the concept of wine. Her voice too, for us, is like wine; getting better with age. It turned out right. Not only her appearance melt tastefully with wine and the foods/beverages of Burgundy, it blended sweetly with the cool weather and beautiful landscape of Lembang too.

It’s remarkable to see how Agis grows all the way up to this point, but we know for sure this is not her final stand. She will keep on rising not only in our music scene but internationally. She is getting ready to go on tour soon, aiming not just in Java but also abroad. As usual, we wish her the best and hope she would achieve more than anything she ever dreamed. A great friend, humble, big heart, really gifted. We can’t say anything better than ‘we love you’, Agis. Go get it and stand up there among the stars!

The second and final session was given to STEVEN CHRISTIAN QUARTET. This band consists of all young musicians who we believe will lead Indonesian jazz in the future. Most of them are still students but they are able to play and make great pure jazz compositions like a long time pro. Led by Universitas Pelita Harapan (UPH) student mentored by young jazz genius Sri Hanuraga (Aga), pianist Steven Christian, the quartet has bassist Timothy Investario (the student of jazz (contra)bassist Indrawan Tjhin, drummer Alman Naufal, former student of Elfa Zulham and guitarist Jabez Chan.

Speaking of jazz performance, this band bites hard with their catchy performance that clearly shows how happy they are being on stage. Just like before, they played all original songs which soon will be available in the quartet’s debut album. They opened up with “Pepperoni”, Steven’s composition built upon 12 bar blues. The remarkable skill, the teamwork, the dynamic, all of these aspects were found in their performance from the very start. On “On The Riverside”, Christian and his band demonstrated how well they do the Afro-Carbbean Calypso style creating a vibrant jolly ride.

The band turned gentle and romantic with “You and Me”. This song is lovely, it has the kind of melody that could be found in classic romance movies from decades ago. Try to play this one for the one you love, you would melt his or her heart instantly. For the final song Steven Christian Quartet played the title track of the upcoming debut album, “In Real Time”. Solid beat, fast and furious stream over the keys, the nonstop moving along the bass’ fret, the thunderous drumming and glittery guitar lines made this song a winner. A brilliant composition that shines in every aspect. No wonder they use this one as the album title, considering how strong itreally is.

The ‘handsome’ straightahead was served chilled by Steven Christian Quartet. These boys present the aspects that make us love jazz in first place: beautiful compositions with lots of room to improvise, wicked solo runs, punchy tradings, clean tuttis, free-flowing play, great technique served humble, tight teamwork, active communication between players, twists and turns, and stellar stage performance. Mark our words, these boys are going to be among the top ones in the near future.

For Burgundy Dine and Wine, we offered a Jazz and Wine concept, meaning that we are choosing the jazz style and bands who we believe go along sweet and nice with wine. For this pilot project we selected Agis Kania and Steven Christian Quartet, representing the beautiful sound of nu soul and straightahead jazz. And we are satisfied with the result. If this event continues on, we will bring more excellent performers with their respective style that would work with wine, and quite possibly we will try to fit the theme to the nearest celebration too. We thank all the performers, Burgundy Dine and Wine @ Pramestha, OZ Radio and its program Jazzy Ozzie, and certainly everyone who came. We hope to see you again soon!

See more pictures:

Reporter and Photographer: Riandy Kurniawan .

The Jazzuality @ TP 06 was different in any way. Unlike before, this time we highlighted one band that has a very different concept, set to support and introduce their latest album released a few months ago.

Yes, we are talking about LIGRO, the home of three mad men. This is the kind of band that dares to go beyond limit, embarking a journey into the ‘unknown’ part of music that probably would only exist in the darkest part of the parallel universe. Their music, especially this new album titled “TRANSISI” is one of the most ‘provocative’ jazz recordings we have ever heard. It’s so provocative that we even have to use ‘brutal’ as the one of the words to describe their music. And of course, we just have to feature them in our event. We want our jazz community members to see how far can jazz go if they don’t go against the word ‘crazy’, how borderless jazz really is in the mind of free-spirited musicians and how exactly skill is needed in order to accomodate the creation from a dangerous mind.

So, this is the story of three musician extraordinaries who think differently: Agam Hamzah on electric guitar, Adi Darmawan on electric bass and Gusti Hendy (the drummer of GIGI) on prepared drum set. They gave birth to LIGRO in 2004 and worked on some compositions which led to the first album “Dictionary 1” 4 years after. Their dangerous, deranged mind carried on to the next two albums. Dictionary 2 and 3 were released in 2012 and 2016, making the first three recordings ended up as epic triolgy/saga which gained many praises from all around the world. This was made possible by USA-based label MoonJune Records who distributed the album globally.

At the end of last year they came back with the fourth album titled “Transisi” under Demajors. You can take your wildest guess on what’s inside, but we bet you would still be surprised once you listen to it. While still rooting in their previous compositions, they are taking it into the new level, more open and unpredictable direction. This album documented their attempt in going wider with their musical spectrum and goes more dangerously loose. More than a continuation of the Dictionary saga, they digged much further to find out what’s inside the different, hidden phase. Look at how serious these three mad-men are. In this album Agam uses a decatonic electric guitar tempered from Slendro scale made by the maestro Pra Budidharma. As a result you will find a different guitar sound and tone that you have never heard before.

If you wonder what they want to tell by having “Transisi” (Transition) as the title, this album contains the story of the transition period Indonesia has been experiencing still the huge political turmoil in 1998. But that’s not all, because they also captured the chaotic, lawless streets of Jakarta that may represent the same problem in other over-populated cities. You will find your mind being flipped upside down, being thrown from side to side and even tear your brain apart. Violent, brutal, derange, fierceful and uncontrolably wild. You see, just three players found inside, using each of their respective instrument. Yet you can experience how much chaos they created that goes all the way to the most extreme, passing the deathcore.

Enough for the introduction, and let’s see how this event went. The audience started filling the TP Stage a bit late due to the heavy rain outside right on the time we were supposed to start. Luckily the rain didn’t last too long, and soon after we got pretty enough number to start. Of course, to bring such brutal music courtesy of three madmen, we needed an opening act that we believed could take our mood, mind, heart, soul and every sense to be ready to such show. For that, we proudly relied on a band of young wizards, The NEW BLOOD.

Formed not too long ago by legendary harpist Hari Pochang, this band consists of all free-spirited and skillful young musicians who could also take jazz to the extreme yet pleasant to listen and fully entertaining. Their music is far from brutal, but they share the same wildness in playing like Ligro. The players are: Jason Limanjaya (piano), Anjuan Julio (guitar), Philip Manfred (saxophone), Sugih Achmad Gumilang (drum) and Ezra Manuhutu (bass).

We have featured them in our other event not long after they were formed last year. This band moves quite fast, because now they have more than enough materials to make one or even two albums. Fast, but it’s not a surprise since the band has brilliant musicians who are able to compose instead of just playing.

For this event they played all original songs. New Blood started with the youngest Philip’s composition titled “Look Down”. This song is inspired by his experience playing in a sea cruise. According to him, at first the musicians underestimated him. What could a mid-teen boy like him do? That was what they probably had in mind. But that soon changed when Philip started playing. So, this song was meant to motivate the listeners not to break down when someone look down on them, instead use it to go even higher. The song has some sharp punches primarily from Anjuan and Philip in front. Jason kept everything intact while making it ellegant with his jazzy fingers. Ezra and Sugih teamed up strong in thumping in the rhythm.

“Imagine the feeling when you feel like someone’s stalking you.” said Jason explaining the next song composed by him titled “Stalker”. This one was made heart-pounding that describe that exact feeling. Later on, Anjuan roared wild creating an intense chase scene. From smooth jazz, funk to rock, New Blood delivered the story chilled.

After throwing a couple of jokes, they went on with another story written by Philip based on his trip to an island located around 6 hours by boat from the beautiful Raja Ampat in Papua, off the norhwest tip of Bird’s Head Peninsula. The island name and the title of the song is “Misool”. If usually one would refer to the beauty of an island as the theme, Philip see it from a different angle. During his trip, he heard that a man was just died in the island after stepping on a highly toxic sea anemone. When they started playing, we directly catched a sad, scary and sound of terror inside a beautiful melody. For this one, Jason moved to grand piano and led the band to narate the story. Behind something beautiful lies a tragedy. That’s more or less what they want to tell, and yes, we feel it. Beautiful, intense, sad and terrorizing.

Earlier this month New Blood released their debut single titled “Caca Maura”. This song came almost like in medley. Anjuan made this song about two girl-friends of his, Caca and Maura. Unlike the previous one, “Caca Maura” has the Brazilian joy. while Anjuan stood tall in front accompanied by Philip’s sax lines, Jason was busy behind them moving back and forth from the keyboard to piano. This song easily showcase the fun side of these boys. Probably the lightest of their crafts so far, yet still technically challenging.

“Caca Maura” would work to give a blazing climax, but they wanted to give the audience more. “Do the Best”, another motivating theme written by Anjuan spread the uplifting spirit and positive vibes. They threw every last drop of energy they had resulting a blazing finale. The combination of smooth, funky jazz and hard-rocking fusion are encouraging and entertaining at the same time.

Playing much wilder and intense than any time we have seen before, the boys of New Blood did terrific job in rising up everyone’s mood. When we invited them to be the opening act, we intended to see them deliver high-octane performance that could set the heat before the unthinkable form of music. And they did rise to the occasion. They stepped up the plate and nailed it. Thanks to these young lions, we had no doubt that the audience were ready to enter the dare-devil rollercoaster ride.

More and more audience came in as the three madmen of LIGRO, Agam Hamzah , Adi Darmawan and Gusti Hendy entered the arena. Without further ado, these three madmen directly surprised the audience by letting out heavy distortive loud noise, nonstop for probably around 4 minutes or so. Feels like they are taking us into a transition from our cozy seat inside a cool jazz club to the chaotic, deranged and bizzare realm. If you wonder how it was, well..it was like being trapped inside the running engine of a plane. Oddly enough, soon after our ears adjust the noise, we could somehow hear ‘music’. Yes, it must be. Not like the kind of music we know, but it definitely is. Thunderous drum banging and unorthodox bass playing made it even more bizzare. These are the living entities inside Ligro’s music dictionary.

Adi told us that the story of Ligro began when Agam became the host of Java Jazz’s famous jam session that took place at that time in Hilton. The songs are familiar, but when musicians from all around the world put their sketch, the atmosphere created differently. Agam then came to Adi and Hendy offering an idea. “What if, we do our own jam.” he said. That became the core of Ligro, who then entered the studio and let themselves fly naturally. “All were done in one take, we didn’t even know what we were going to make, how the song would go as, etc.” said Adi. “Basically we based ourselves on motives. We try to figure out the motive of others and answer it. Sometimes it’s right, sometimes it’s wrong. But so be it. We just go straight up.” he added.

For “Transisi”, Agam said that it was actually a recycle of their previous songs, only played totally in different way. Some people refer their music as experimental. Some say it’s avant garde, heavy rockin’, deathcore or even mad music. “We don’t care, we just do what we do.” said Agam. That makes this band one of a kind. They might be inspired by the Mahavisnu Orchestra, they might be provoked by Pra Budidharma and his ingenius guitar creation, or inspired by the jam session involving musicians around the world. In the end, it doesn’t matter anymore, because Ligro transforms into a band like none other. Try to find a band like this, you would find it kind of impossible. Provoking, terrorizing, in times spreading horror, but we still want to put ourselves in it.

They kept on playing in the same fashion. They could start ‘smoother’ with some melodies, but in the end they put all sketches and scratches on each canvas. It’s like enjoying an abstract painting. You don’t have to understand or try hard to find the meaning to be able to admire it.

Gusti Hendy sent love to everyone who came by saying that their coming and th interaction they have with Bandung becomes a spirit for them to keep on creating stuffs.

Then they played a song that was kind of funny, especially when Agam being cool playing a little bit of reggae. The song is “Don Juan”, taken from their second album “Dictionary 2” released in 2012. Although the song was lighter than the previous ones, it still contained intense action from them that took us to the edge of our seats.

Eventually we finally reached the last song. For this one, Ligro gave something special as a token of appreciation by presenting an unreleased track never been played anywhere else before. This song which is projected to enter the upcoming 5th album is called “Bakucau”. From what we know, bakucau means eating by using hand instead of spoon and fork, but according to Hendy, it means scrambling or mixing things that normally would be impossible to blend in. This song turned out to be an epic. Agam produced some pentatonic scales, that was awesome, but what surprise us the most is when Adi left his bass guitar to become a pianist. He made it like a classical piano recital. He got plenty of time to do it as Agam and Hendy stepped aside and let him flew freely presenting wide, landscapic key-ploration. Majestic yet melancoly, but provoking at the same time. From there they roared wild to build the momentum until finally the reached the wild climax. The manic drumming, the crazy guitar part and the way Adi provoked Hendy – something he’s been doing throughout the concert were just unbelievably mad.

It was a bizarre jazz concert that only Ligro could do. Brutal but pleasuring, you can’t even hum with their song yet your soul got hooked to its deepest core. If you haven’t bought their latest album “Transisi”, you better get it now. The album would energized you in a way you have never felt before, it would pump your adrenaline and place you in the darkest corner of a parallel universe you have never thought existed.

It’s a big privilege to be able to present Ligro here in Bandung. We send our respect to Agam Hamzah, Adi Darmawan and Gusti Hendy for accepting our invitation to play for us and for presenting a very special concert that we will never forget. We thank 3 Negeri and Henky Suparjan for helping us out with the equipments, Zahar Mustilaq for supporting us, The Wolf Pack (Howling Channel) for capturing the event both photos and videos, and certainly, everyone who came. We salute you all.

We will be back again in April with another fresh batch. We hope you all will keep supporting us, our event and mission, and also the musicians we feature. We will let you know who will be featured in the Jazzuality @ TP 07 and look forward to see you again then.

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/jazzuality/albums/72157665128552027

Reporter & Photographer: Riandy Kurniawan .

A slice of a top box office musical film, lots of kids, the return of a band after 43 editions and a newborn band embracing the sound of 80’s fusion. Yes, that’s what the Braga Jazz Night #46 built upon. This 46th edition reflected what we always have in mind: unique presentation, supporting the young musicians/new bands and introducing the rich variety of jazz to the society, which in the end would contribute to the regeneration of jazz musicians and the jazz development itself.

Held inside the Braga CityWalk on Thursday, 19 April 2018, this edition managed to get people’s attention and curiousity even before it starts. Some of the mall-goers paused their walk as they got attracted by the soundcheck and preparation involving lots of kids with so many instruments on stage. Yes, it was the kids and teachers from M.E MUSIC CENTRE!

Thanks to M.E Music Centre, this edition got something different unlike what we have ever presented before. You should remember the musical film “The Greatest Showman” right? Starring Hugh Jackman and Zach Efron, this movie was a big hit. It ruled the box office and got nominated in many Awards, including Oscar (Academy Awards) and the Golden Globe (the movie won Best Song/Recording Created for a Film).

This movie inspire us on many things with tons of quote to remember. Among those, there is one quote that we favor the most: “The Noblest Art Is Making Others Happy”. We like this one the most, because that’s we have been aiming for. Instead of debating jazz not jazz, swing not swing, we accomodate everyone to join us. Why? Because for us, jazz should belong to everybody. Above all, happiness is the most important thing to think of. If the musicians feel happy playing on our stage, and the audience happy watching it, we feel happy.

So, we did wish to have something about this movie on our event, and thank God, the well established and fruitful music school who have been producing so many good musicians (most of them are still kids and teens), the M.E. Music Centre told us that they were also inspired and currently working on the musical project from the movies where The Greatest Showman is one of them.

Now let’s take a closer look at this music institute. It was established in 2006, just a year after the founder, pianist Michelle Efferin came back from Sydney, Australia holding a degree from the Australian Institute of Music. Just 4 years later, her school got appointed to be the Official Representative of Encore Music Education for Indonesia, where Michelle became the official trainer for it. This curriculum, the teaching method and the ensemble of teachers proved to work great, as we have seen so many children hatched early. Not only they have good skills, they have no stage fright too. We have showcased many of them, either representing the school or standing by themselves. But now it’s all a different ball game, because for the first time they are carrying the musical theme.

“The theme we have this year is musical. It’s different than last year where we were more into acoustic, jazz and top 40” said Michelle to us. They actually thought about this theme before The Greatest Showman appeared in cinemas. “When I watched that movie, which for me is the best movie ever made, I called up the teachers and say, let’s do this!” she said further.

Agus Wijaya, one of the piano teachers of M.E Music Centre whom Michelle actually learned from when she was still 12 year-old worked hard on transcribing the arrangement. The rampak drum (drum choir) which is consisting of 6 children are taught by Richard Setiawan. Then, Yosep Asrom Othep is in charge of preparing the teenage singers. As they are ready to launch this theme for the 12th Anniversary of M.E Music Centre on 26 May 2018 and right before they bring this concept to 23 Paskal Shopping Mall on Sunday (22 April), we are proud to provide this session as a part of their preparation.

This time we got much more players from M.E Music Centre than ever before. Juan, CJ, Jason, Darren, Nathaniel and Gifford were the kids behind the drum choir led by Richard Setiwan on drum. Then, Yosefien Moudy joined Agus Wijaya on keys. Michelle’s long time partners who also serve as teachers Iwan (bass) and Oggie Samuel (guitar) completed the band. Standing behind the mikes were Darren, Chris, Maddy, Sydney, Maria and Celline, plus the teacher Othep himself was found in the team. Yenny Natalia (Yenyen) is credited as the coreographer.

The thunderous beat from the little drummer boys along with the stomping catchy chorus from the singers on “The Greatest Show” gave an exhilarating start. The band and the singers did their part brilliantly as they dragged more people into their show. Really loud applause were awarded in the end.

If you remember, in the film “A Million Dreams” literally took us to feel P.T Barnum’s life from childhood to adulthood. It contains some key elements of the storyline which makes this song important, not to mention the beautifully moving melody and lyrics. Christopher Emmanuel moved forward to be the lead singer for it, with Darren’s high voice and the harmonious vocals from them all spiced it up.

Then Sydney and Maria gave a delightful duet on “Come Alive” before Othep surprisingly joined them, engaging the stage and crowds by singing right in between them. Together they created a simple theatrical feel that brought us closer to the film. The ballad “Never Enough” appeared heartfelt through Celline’s lovely voice and gesture. The crowds gave her some applauses here and there.

For the last song they chose the anthem with strong statement, “This Is Me”. For us, this song encourages us to stop listening to haters and stay true to ourselves, keep doing our best and aim high by utilizing every gift we have within us. The ensemble of M.E Music Centre gave an unforgettable moment in perfect climax. It was Madeline aka Maddy who stood in front this time, painting the song with her strong charactered singing voice. More coreography, spirited singing and fine works of the teachers with their gears and the drum choir delivered their performance of the lifetime. Perfect arrangement, perfect execution. Loud and long applause were poured on them after they sealed their unbelievably solid show.

Once again the M.E Music Centre team showcased something more than we expected. Not just music, they now enhance themselves with some coreo too, making us able to feel The Greatest Showman much closer. Michelle stated her happiness afterwards. “I’m super proud of my team!” she shouts. “The great thing about working with a team is that you tend to dream bigger and aim higher. At the end of the day is not about what I have achieved, but what we have achieved as a team and family. I feel so blessed surrounded by amazing people.” she continues.

Really well said. Like her, we are always proud of them too. We send love to the kids for being able to give such performance, and big, big respect to Michelle Efferin and all teachers for making them ready at such age. Thank you for making our dream come true, bringing the musical theme into the Braga Jazz Night which let people see the connection between jazz and dance could also appear on a small jazz event like this. Jazz does have a wide scope, it’s more than just music, and the variety is unlimited. Sky is the limit, so to speak. Kudos to you all!

The second act let us go through a memory lane, visiting the time when fusion ruled the jazz world around 3 or 4 decades ago. It was from a new band named ERFOLG.

This band is still young, but it already has character and good players. The course was set before the band came alive. The idea came from two musicians: Ajie Mohammad Chrisnagara (bass) and R Bhameswara Putra Kencana (keys). They searched for musicians to start an 80’s fusion band. Soon after, guitarist M Rizqi Pratama joined in, then M. Reza Pahlevy (drums) and Puji Ayu Lestari as the vocalist. All set.

For this event, Reza the drummer couldn’t make it because he had to work in another city. But worry not, the band found a good substitution in Kevin Bernard. They quickly set the atmosphere into fusion mode, with evil bass slapping and jazz-rock sound which led to the very popular song of Level 42, “Love Games”. Aji is clearly inspired by Mark King, the bassist of Level 42 which is showed by his way of producing nonstop solid monster groove through mad bass slapping the way King does. Not only that, Aji also sings while slapping his bass just like King. Not an easy task to do of course, but he did it really well. While Aji got our attention, let’s not forget that the rest of the boys got their own moment of glory too.

Their vocalist Puji Ayu Lestari then joined the boys. She started with Fariz RM’s classic hit from 1980, “Sakura”. The memory from those era continued on with a big hit of Chrisye released 6 years after, “Anak Sekolah”. While they made it more jazzy, they kept it simple so we could easily sing along with Puji.

For the last song they did something interesting. They blended the famous tune of a legendary Indonesian television musical quiz that aired for the first time in 1988 and still exists until now: “Berpacu Dalam Melodi” with “Dansa Yok Dansa”, originally by Rollies but then made famous again some decades later by Kahitna. Served in uplifting Samba beat, Erfolg created a cheerful ending to their first appearance at the Braga Jazz Night.

Erfolg is a Deutsch word means “Success”. By using this as a name, we could clearly see what the band aims at, and by looking at what they have inside, we say why not. Looking at the wicked bass slapping ability of the co-founder Aji and the way they do 80’s style of fusion, perhaps it would be cool to ask them for some special themes, like a Tribute to Level 42 perhaps. We think it will give something different to this event. Well, let’s see if or when it’s going to happen. But for now, we are happy to bring them in. We wish them all the best and look forward to have another round with them.

For the last presentation we welcome back a band no stranger to us. We have featured them before, but way long, long time ago when we just started this event around four years ago. We haven’t seen or heard from them after the third edition, but now they are returning ‘home’. A band quite big in size, consisting of good musicians that know how to entertain people. It’s the ALLVOICES.

We met them at the Kampoeng Jazz Band Audition 2014. They won the competition which brought them to play at the festival. A couple of months later, they landed on this event, at that time it was still called Braga Jazz Walk. The band itself was formed three years earlier in Sukabumi when the members were still in high school. So, basically we can mention that this is a jazz-oriented band from Sukabumi.

Long story short, two months ago they told us that the band has awaken from its long sleep. The same band, only with new formation and new concept. Of course we love to have them back again after 43 editions in absence. Most of the original members are still there such as Boy Hilmi Johari (vocal), Dori Wirawan (sax), Diaz (bass), Elko Nurul Yaqin (keys) and Rizfan Zulkifli Sastrawinata (percussion). Two new members are saxophonist Yudansyah Utama Putra and the rockin’ drummer, Ade.

What a joy to finally have them again gracing this event after that long. They are still as good as the last time we saw them and is still cored in the intention to entertain anyone who watch them. Just like before, the band takes today’s hits that would be familiar to everyone especially the youngsters. They opened up with Bruno Mars’ medley, “Treasure” and “That’s What I Like”. They did a good job in presenting the song simple, still sounded like the originals but somehow attached with their own flavors. The two saxophonists really spiced this song up, making it appeared more jazzy without losing its catchy, groovy vibe.

For the next song once again they made a cool move by playing a smooth jazz version of Dewa 18’s famous song, “Risalah Hati”. Surprisingly this song actually fit perfectly into the smooth jazz frame. Boy as the singer has a delightful high pitched voice, that makes All Voices sounds different than most of the bands that have male vocalist. It was really nice to hear, we like this version very much.

Just like what the previous band did, the AllVoices decided to seal their performance with a party. A party, using a song everyone know and love from Michael Jackson, “Rock With You”. The groove they created was tasty and intense, with Boy’s voice flew freely above it. Diaz on bass, Elko on keys and Ade on drum worked collectively in serving the music, while Dori and Rizfan did stunning sax duet with no flaw. A perfect song to choose as the climax for this 46th edition.

The concept of using more than one saxophonist at once are not often found in Indonesia. The AllVoices who speaks loud about ‘the voices of mind and soul’ is using that concept. They craft jazz as something easy listening, friendly to even the non-jazz listeners but could also satisfy the jazz aficionados. Having a band with quite large size can be tricky sometimes. If the players can’t make it right, the sound can crumble into pieces. But AllVoices is capable to make the most of it. They create rich sound in lovely harmony. We hope the band to have a long life and keep rising. They make Sukabumi proud, they make West Java proud, and of course the nation as well. We also hope to bring them back again in later editions.

From the return of a band, an 80’s jazz fusion to a slice of top box office musical drama film, from children, teenagers to young adult, all become the portrait of Braga Jazz Night episode 46. This edition can give a clear description of what we want this event to be: providing colorful variety of jazz, presenting something unique, supporting the musicians/bands and giving up a good jazz entertainment to the public. We hope all participating musicians and the audience satisfy and enjoy what we brought on stage. Thank you for playing, thank you for coming and thank you for supporting. We hope to see you again in the next episode!

Watch the highlights of Braga Jazz Night 46

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Reporter & Photographer: Riandy Kurniawan
Video Editor: Vierna Mariska