This year’s PIM Jazz Festival was successfully held on Monday, September 28, 2014 at Wing Atrium of Palembang Indah Mall. Made by the cooperation between PIM-Palembang Indah Mall, Trijaya 87.6 FM, Palembang Jazz Community (Pal Jazz Com) and The Faculty of Computer Science of Sriwijaya University (Fasilkom UNSRI), the festival managed to grab the public attention in Palembang city as well as the musicians.
The event started early at 10 am in the morning with Festival Band Technology Euphoria. “This Festival is followed by no less than 25 bands with the hope to accomodate the creativity of young musicians in Palembang”, said Siti, the Chairman of Festival Band. Meanwhile, Adji from Trijaya 87.6 FM shared his happiness too. “This event become a solid proof that the jazz virus has indeed spread. More and more youngsters are into jazz in Palembang today.” Palembang Jazz Community or Pal Jazz Com is always consistent in searching young talents and provide enough space for them to explore, as told by the head, Zaelan Hanani.
Bands from Pal Jazz Com were in line after that. Teguh Project was the first band. With the formation of Vinsensius Brian Jordi (keyboard, backing vocal),Rieo Rizky Permana Putra (guitar, backing vocal), Nickodemus Tethool (drums), Surya Adi Putra (bass) and three vocalists: Bayu Valerinoya, Ade Irma Suryani and Aldhita Rizky, they played 4 songs such as “Denganmu”, “Let’s Fall in Love”, “All of Me” and “Moving On”. This soon followed by Hei that chose fusion as their forte. Hei stands as the initial of the members: Hendra (drums), Edo (piano) and Ian (bass). The songs were “Smiling Faces”, “Friend & Stranger” and “Flying East”.
The attractive performance was given by EMS Creative Percussion. Ical, Arif, Dhio and Irvan are the players behind this group from Entertainment Music School. They combined the harmonious sound of percussion with variety of beating technique and attractive arrangements.
After that, Mr Jack John, a group of six with two vocalists represented songs in blues color. Staccato was next, comprises of Andre Martadinata (vocal), Roby (drums), Riski (guitar), Agung (bass) and Icha (keyboard). They entertained the audience with 3 songs: “Spend the Night”, “Celebrate” and “Rame-Rame”.
The special guest Bintang Indrianto Trio was the final show. In this trio, senior bassist Bintang Indrianto brought two compatriotes: Danny Chasmala (guitar) and Muhammad Iqbal (drums). Bintang Indrianto Trio served live performance and music clinic altogether in one package. Nutricious education was given, yet informal and entertaining.
The clinic part started with a brief explanation of setting up the instruments. Bintang Indrianto asked the audience and clinic participants especially bass, guitar and drums players to approached the stage so they could establish an intense communication. There were many interesting questions given to them, all were answered in detail by Bintang, Denny and Iqbal. Bintang emphasized on the importance of finding the right tone before one starts playing the instrument. What’s cool is this: Bintang directly invited those who asked questions to step up the stage and then tried it under their guidance.
Speaking of performance, Bintang Indrianto took a song highly popular in the early 80’s titled “Madu & Racun” in compelling rearrangement. He really showed his class as one of the all-time best Indonesian bassists through variety of techniques and his creativity of making unique sounds appear from his play. They also played a unique composition which he will include in the trio’s upcoming new album, “Kendang Kribow”. In the end, Bintang Indrianto Trio asked the local musicians to play together in an open jam session.
Based on the result, this event will continue to run for more years to come. Intan, the promotional manager of PIM said that PIM will always give different jazz entertainment plus music clinic as a part of responsibility to support the local musicians. With this we can hope to see more jazz players to emerge from Palembang as well as watching the tremendous growth of jazz in this particular side of Indonesia. Keep jazzin’ Palembang!
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The article’s written by: Eko Adji
Translated into English by: Riandy Kurniawan
Photographer: Djoean Kellij (except the header, provided by Eko Adji)