Braga Jazz Night #48 : The Report

The Braga Jazz Night #48 stands out differently due to the wide variety of sub-genres presented in it. For the first time we held not one but two tributes to big names that gave huge contribution to shape the history of music. Uniquely they came from the same era, but their music is totally different, yet both influence many musicians up to this day forward. How wide? Well, how about from traditional Swing to Bossa Nova to Psychedelic Rock? Aside of the tributes, we also featured the debut of young girl, still 12 year-old, but has a unique singing voice.

We started with the little girl who’s just graduated from the elementary school. Her name is Fatima Favel Fauziah. You can refer to her as just Favel Fatima. We heard her name since the first month of 2018 recommended by some friends. When we checked her Youtube channel, clearly this girl is into jazz as we found out she sings mostly jazz standards.

Favel has the kind of voice that’s more mature than her age. Recently she’s at the early stage of her career by establishing a duo with a boy she met by chance, Luqmanul Hakim. We have featured this boy last year playing as a guitar duo with his teacher, Hardi Suryana. This time, since Luqmanul couldn’t join, Favel was heavily reinforced by Hardi. Luckily Hardi has back to Bandung after working in a drilling project in another city due to his role as a geologist. If Hardi has had a duo with Putri Rahel named Ael/Hardi, now he has a new, much younger girl to mentor. Having an experienced mentor would give Favel a chance to grow fast. The name of this new dynamic duo is FAVEL/HARDI.

Favel and Hardi received big applause right from the first song, a classic composed by George Gershwin in mid 30’s, “Summertime”. Watching a young girl singing this song in today’s time is really something. Interestingly, instead of making it a ballad, Hardi made it groovy. We think it’s a smart move, because then Favel could sing an old song without having to loose today’s music trend, especially to kids around the same age as her. They moved on to the second song, “Cry Me A River”, an evergreen popularized for the first time by Julie London.

Favel has a vocal tone like today’s female Brit Pop singer, much older than her real age. When singing jazz standards like these, she brings something different. Not a normal song choice for kids, yet somehow these songs suit her perfectly.

Favel/Hardi then took a song from more modern era, Radiohead’s “Creep”. Surprisingly, this one works very well with her too. Then they went current by taking on a popular song from Labrinth, “Jealous”. The way they both received applauses shows the crowds’ approval of their choices. For the last tune Favel sang another classic from The Sound Of Music, “My Favorite Things”.

What we heard from others and her Youtube channel are true. She got talent in singing, she has good control and able to sing with full feelings, which all are perfect for jazz. Hardi as always gave an essential assist in providing music for her. She still has some homeworks to do, but as she’s just begun, she still has plenty of time to enhance herself. We feel happy to find her fast and definitely will keep our eyes on her. A wonderful debut of Favel is done. Will you see her again in this event? Most definitely.

It’s hard, or should we say, impossible to imagine how the music would be without Bossa Nova. This music appeared from Brazil in the 60’s and then soon after took the world by storm. Today, Bossa Nova (in English: New Wave) is widely known as one of best-known Brazilian music genres abroad. When talking about Bossa Nova, one of the names that you should be thankful to is definitely ANTÔNIO CARLOS JOBIM.

Jobim is one of the founding-fathers of Bossa-Nova. The first Bossa single “Chega de Saudade”, sang by João Gilberto was written by him. He’s responsible for so many timeless Bossa hits; many of them even became jazz standards. He revolutionized the festive rhythms of Samba into a cool, intimate, soothing, breezing and exotic music we all know as Bossa. It was him who internationalized bossa, and it was also him who made bossa as a family member of jazz.

A few years back, we have made a tribute to ‘Tom’ Jobim, brought by now-retired young singer, Billy Likumahuwa. At that time, Billy was accompanied by his friend, Joe Bastian. Joe is a bassist, but he surprised us by playing bossa with guitar so well. So well that we still remember even until now. After that, Joe has been focusing on his own project named JOE PROJECT, made under our advice to help establishing his name in Indonesia’s music industry. In his project he mostly takes jazz fusion, RnB and Pop, but then when we offered him and his project to play Bossa for all times’ sake, he joyfully agreed.

To our surprise, Joe featured an amazing young girl whom he’s been wishing to play with for so long: Nayra Dharma. Nayra is a fast rising star in our jazz scene. Imagine, she hatched only in around a year after she decided to have a career in music like his father, the maestro who co-found the legendary fusion band Krakatau, Pra Budidharma.

She is special. She plays guitar like a pro, with enhanced skill and technique. We called her female Joe Pass due to the way she plays. What’s amazing is, she also sings, most of the time along with playing guitar. To be able to do so, this girl has been working extra miles. She practices around 6 hours a day, and often still stubbornly does it while her hand’s injured or not feeling well. Another interesting thing about Nayra and her music is, while she is indeed an amazing jazz guitarist with a passion of digging Sundanese ethnic in her group/band (she has been doing it for more than a year), she is a fine and natural bossa artist. She sparks magic whenever she does it, as if she lives in Brazil and has been doing it for many more years than her age, which is just turned 18. She even sings in Portuguese, that’s unbelievable. Nayra has a deep, true bossa soul.

For this gig Joe brought in two friends: Steven on drums and Surya on saxophone. If before we saw Joe and his project digged mostly Jazz Fusion and RnB/Pop, this time as JOE PROJECT ft NAYRA DHARMA they got to boldly explore complex and tricky chord progressions in Bossanova world, something Nayra’s highly capable of. Look at how ellegant and stylish they played a song considered to be the first ever recorded Bossa song, “Chega de Saudade”. It wasn’t an easy version at all, but amazingly it appeared as an ‘ear-friendly’ product, even to the non jazz listeners.

A prove of brilliant composition came up in the second song, “So Danço Samba”. This song appeared much complex in melody and rhythm, but still feels cute and smooth. There were a lot of twists found in this one, so tricky yet pleasantful, which let us enjoy a fresh approach over a very well known song. As Steven worked the Brazilian rhythm with having happy smiley face, Joe sticked up tight to Nayra, following her wicked chord progressive every step of the way. Meanwhile, Surya did his best to add more flavor with his saxophone sound.

The third song is not from Jobim but written by Michael Legrand and made famous by Sergio Mendes and his Brazil ’66, “Watch What Happens”. Again, Nayra made it fully hers, much different than the way Lani Hall of Brazil ’66 sing it. They both have silky soprano vocal, but the outcome appears new. Although this song wasn’t made by Jobim, this song gives a warm, graceful tribute to him. For the last song they pinned Jobim’s masterpiece “One Note Samba”, originally named “Samba de Uma Nota Só”. Just like “Chega de Saudade” and “So Danço Samba”, Nayra sang fluently in Portuguese like a native while exploring her guitar fret at the same time.

A new collaboration is always nice to see. Both Joe and Nayra is passionate and serious in building their career. Both of them know how to deliver it ellegantly to the audience. We think this collaboration is promising. For Joe and his team, this would surely enhance their musical horizon, and Nayra could have team to play with when she needs one. We haven’t brought bossa in this event for quite some times, so glad that it’s back in an ellegant way from Joe Project and Nayra Dharma. Sparkling, graceful and vibrant, smooth, sweet and pleasuring, like breezing through the exotic paradises.

The last segment was out of the box. We presented a special tribute by THE HEDGEHOG to a legendary Psychedelic Rock band from the past, a band that’s highly influental for the generations after them even until today. A band that made musical breakthrough with their sound. It’s THE DOORS.

Why Rock? You might ask that. Well, perhaps we should explain a bit of the idea. True, The Doors is a rock giant, fronted by the charismatic vocalist who is gone too soon, Jim Morrison, who was like singing poems rather than lyrics. Eventhough the band was active only for 8 years (from 1965 to 1973), the band made a big impact in music history even until today. The band has sold over 100 million records worldwide, received 8 consecutive gold and platinum LP’s. All true. But let’s not forget the contribution of its keyboardist, Ray Manzarek in infusing some jazz into The Doors’ distinct sound. For example, listen to the long piano solo by Manzarek on one of their most popular songs, “Light My Fire” for example, which goes on for more than 2 minutes. The improvisation, the dynamic and progressions, all are the magic essence that we usually find in jazz, only this time amazinglyn printed in rockin’ frame. Another solid example is of course their song “Queen Of The Highway” which is clearly built within jazz.

In his life time, Manzarek was really into jazz. In an interview he admitted that in the band he was operating in an area that combines rock AND jazz. Not OR, but AND. He said that he always liked jazz but he expanded his musical territory by learning the Southside Chicago Blues. Post The Doors, he kept digging jazz until his life in this world reached the end of the line in 2013.

As far as we see, Manzarek’s jazz contribution in their music is still rarely digged. We have had the idea of highlighting this for some years, finally now it happened since we found a band that’s rooted in vintage avant-funk jazz-rock sound. The band has four personnels: Rinomulat Sembhada (drum), Mikhael Martin (guitar), Leo Hansen (bass) and Ditra Prasista (keys). They built the band to accomodate their wish to have an avant funk band like John Scofield’s Überjam Band, MMW (Medeski Martin and Wood) also the famous old school funk band Lettuce. They are still considerably young, but these dudes are full with passion and skill that can make their music appear differently in such class. Looking at their ability and music style, we offered them to play The Doors in loving spirit of Ray Manzarek (and respect to Jim Morrison, Robby Krieger and John Densmore), luckily they agreed.

“This Tribute to The Doors actually covers some of our vision of making up this band.” said co-founder Rinomulat. He told us that they have wide musical horizon, without border. Instead of going towards chord progressions and melody, they explore more of the rhythmical aspect of each song. Time signature, syncopation, groove, modal, each personnel is given big space to express their taste. “That, without neglecting the importance of communication to one another.” Rino added. As a result, we got ‘simple’ re-interpretation of The Doors but with intense dynamics. If other bands try to craft neat, they go bezerk in dark tone, compact and naughty.

It became apparent right from the start. Look at how they reinterprate The Doors’ most famous song, “Light My Fire”. If this song has a memorable solo runs from Manzarek and also Krieger and Densmore, The Hedgehog made the solo part even more open by using 7/8 time signature. Really an out-of-the-box approach none of us would have predicted. Rino was like banging the heaven’s gate with his twisted drumming, Ditra explored his keys uniquely, while Mikhael pushed rock to edges and the bassman Leo came handy in providing them the noir tonal color. In their hands, the song got a new psychedelic outfit. Dark, mysteriously quiet at times but intensely challenging everything we remember from this gem.

A super-big space is provided for Ditra in their second choice. He played his own special solo piano arrangement of “People Are Strange” and used it as an intro to “Riders On The Storm”. It’s simply surprising to hear his solo part which is likely made in 5/4 spiced with some Middle Eastern touch but then seamlessly turned to 3/4 when the second of the medley arrived. This song got deeper jazz components. Swingin’ with 12 bar minor blues. Just like the first one, this one also served chilled and dark.

The Doors’ first UK big hit written by Jim Morrison and released in 1968, “Hello, I Love You” came next. If the original feels flirty, The Hedgehog made it rushy and chaotic. Plenty of goodies were found in this one, from half-feel groove to explosive rockin’ solo guitar by Mikhael. He used the wah-wah effect which perfectly resonates the glorious sound from the 70’s.

For the last song Rino announced that they were going to play a less popular song from The Doors’ debut album in 1967 titled “Twentieth Century Fox”. This seems to be the sweetest and the most ear-catchy arrangement from them for tonight, which is perfect to be the last drop. Catchy guitar riffs were found almost throughout the song, while the drum and the cheeky bass licks were like inviting everyone who watched them to groove. A cool antidote after series of murky songs.

Far exceeding our prediction, The Hedgehog delivered a very interesting, out-of-the -box reinterpretation of The Doors. They were not just playing covers, they didn’t just rearrange the songs jazzy, they infused their own style that somehow opened a new dimension for The Doors’ music. It’s not easy to cover songs from a band who has highly charismatic (and poetic) figure on vocal without using any, yet The Hedgehog’s reinterpretation worked brilliantly. If this is an album, it could very well be a cult classic. We will definitely keep our eyes on this band and put big hopes in them. Not everyday we see a band of really talented young lions with such deranged, dangerous brains and visionary. Never stop exploring guys. Break on through, to the other side!

Rino, Leo and Ditra stayed on stage for a jam session. The 12 year-old girl Favel came back to join the jam for the very first time. Hardi also joined the gang, positioned himself near Ditra. A bluesman who came almost regularly to our event Eki Johan gave punchy rockin’ blues color into it. This batch played “Fly Me To The Moon” nicely. It was neat, so neat that some audience thought they have reheased beforehand. The fact is, some of them were just met in this event. Next, they took Herbie Hancock’s masterpiece “Cantaloupe Island.” It’s unique to have a bluesman roared wild over this hard bop classic. Hardi then being replaced by Favel’s music partner, Luqmanul Hakim. John Coltrane’s “Mr PC” was their choice. Again, eye contacts and communication between players on stage made this song appeared chilled. Too bad we ran out of time, so we had to end this edition right here with a group photo session.

Two tributes and one debut painted the Braga Jazz Night #48 with unique colors. We thanks every participating musicians, all supporters and the audience for coming. We hope everyone enjoyed this episode and keep supporting local talents and our community. We will be back again in July with another interesting batch. Thank you once again, see you again next month.