Speaking of jazz in Indonesia, Bandung is, without a doubt, one of the earliest home of jazz. The city has already had many musicians who fancied this genre at least in the 40’s, plenty of venues to play and supports from medias. One of the buildings where we could trace the history of jazz in Bandung is Balai Pertemuan Bumi Sangkuriang (Bumi Sangkuriang Meeting Hall).

Located at the northern part of Bandung with the cool climate and comfy surroundings, Bumi Sangkuriang has been standing proudly as the favorite recreation point for families for decades. Historically speaking, it was established in 1879 by the name of Societeit Concordia, still located at Gedung Merdeka at that time. In 1957 this club moved to Ciumbuleuit, Bandung under a new name, Balai Pertemuan Bumi Sangkuriang. The same building exists there until today, with many members enjoying many events and facilities provided around the venue.

In 1981 this building launched the legendary regular jazz event named Jazz Break, made by Hari Pochang. It was a huge success at that time. Many groups were born from it, one of them is the supergroup Krakatau. In 2008 the event was brought alive again by KlabJazz as Jazz Break Revival, running well for about 2 years. When this second installment got discontinued, the event again reappeared to the surface for a while, organized by Hotspot. But then it’s over.

Here’s the good news! After around 5 years in absence, happy to inform you that Bumi Sangkuriang is ready to go jazzy again in 2016! And it is just around the corner. This new chapter is called BUMI SANGKURIANG JAZZ NIGHT, created and organized by Jazzuality.com  in cooperation with the pioneer of jazz school in Bandung since 1988, Venche Music School (Venche Manuhutu and Kanggep Kusuma). What we are going to bring here is pure jazz delight with its variations, played by the competent musicians from Bandung, Jakarta and beyond. As we are projecting the event to come monthly every wednesday of the second week, the premiere of this regular jazz event is right around the corner. Bumi Sangkuriang Jazz Nite Premiere Edition will come next Wednesday, January 13, 2016, starting on 7 pm till 9:30 pm. The event is free of charge.

For this premiere edition we have prepared interesting lineup consisting of jazz stars from Jakarta and some of today’s best from Bandung. Let’s get down to the featured artists and bands/groups for this 1st edition.

First, let’s welcome the cum laude holder from Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA with a Degree in Performance in 2008, guitarist Robert Mulyarahardja or Robert MR. Robert is one of the founders of successful band, The Shadow Puppets Quartet (established in 2009) and also active in supporting fellow musicians as sideman. With Shadow Puppets he has released 3 albums: Extended Play (EP) in 2010, String Attached: Live at Birdcage (2011) and Indonesian Songbook with Harvey Malaiholo (2015). Aside from Shadow Puppets, he has one solo album entitled “Gratitude” and a very interesting duet with key-wiz Riza Arshad: “Piano Duet Guitar”.

It’s always interesting to see where Robert set his course right from the first note. His selection of notes is rich and adventurous. He has a cool style while playing, a real stylish guitarist with complete skills which always reflected in his compositions. He has collaborated with many international musicians for example Joe Lovano and Charlie Haden. Not only busy on stage and in recordings, he is also a reputable lecturer. Robert MR is the future of jazz in Indonesia and he will keep on making us proud internationally.

If you like the seducing sound of saxophone or the sax lines that can funk you up mercilessly, you got to check this dude: Ricad Hutapea. Playing mostly tenor and soprano sax, he adds the long list of greatly young musicians in Indonesia. Music plays important role in his life as he joined a choir when he was little, then started to learn piano and keyboard, until he found his heart in saxophone. Ricad knew for sure he has interest in music since young age, therefore he went to Institut Kesenian Jakarta (IKJ) to learn deeper about art and music with Irianto Suwondo as his supervisor, and he finally lives his passion.

Ricad had a long way in learning classical music but at one point he realized he fell in love with jazz instead. Arief Setiadi, Yoseph Sitompul, and F. A. Talafaral are three important people who shaped him.  Through his achievement in jazz, he has graced many big and prestigious stages in jazzy area such as Java Jazz Festival, Jazz Goes to Campus, Serambi Jazz, Jazz Gunung, Indonesian Jass Festival, JakJazz, Jazz Buzz Salihara. and freedomsjazzFestival. He has played together with several top musicians as Indra Lesmana, Tohpati, Indro Hardjodikoro, Yance Manusama Monita Tahalea and DJ Andezzz with whom he produced two singles. In 2014 he released his debut album, “Jalan Pertama” (“First Step”). Consisting of 10 songs mostly instrumental (except “Someone to Watch Over Me” sung by Monita Tahalea”, this album pretty much talk about his life, both as a musician and a person who experience good and bad times, love and loss. Thanks to Music Gear, Ricad is set to charm you all with his sexy and funky sax lines.

From Bandung comes a group of youngsters who play pure jazz, The New Equinox. By calling the band as The New Equinox means there’s the old version of it. Yes, a couple of years ago there was a promising jazz trio called Equinox, consisted of three players and active in the local Bandung jazz scene a couple of years ago. We haven’t heard about them for some times, but now they are ready to embark a new journey.

The new formation consists of Alman Naufal (drum), Ezra Manuhutu (bass) and Yohan Gunawan (piano). When Eza was younger he actually played saxophone and did very well with it. But now he’s settled with bass. This trio has all young players, but they are capable to play standards with coplex compositions made by senior pianist Imam Pras. About the highlight of their career, they acted as the opening of Dwiki Dharmawan and World Peace Trio concert at the TP Jazz Bandung Festival. As a good jazz trio is quite hard to find in Bandung, The New Equinox is more than ready to fill in that category. For this event their performance will feature pianist Vico Wibowo.

Last but not least to mention is a stunning duo who is on its way to fame. The name is Agis Bape, consists of soul sister with 5-star voice Agis Kania and skillful all-rounder guitarist Opik Bape. They were together in a band with gypsy swing Satura, but since 2014 they embarked a new journey as a duo. After appearances in many events for a year, they finally stepped higher by releasing their debut single, “Embun Pagi” made in two version: combo and duo. This feel good, happy mood pop swing song should be easy to love by jazz fans and music listeners in general. Free flowing, groovy, soulful, swingin’ and full of spontaneity played by an awesome guitarist and singer that share chemistry to each other will hook you up.

During the event, you can also enjoy delicious food and beverages in special price to make your jazzy night feel even better. In order to keep jazz alive in Bumi Sangkuriang and Bandung, we do need your support by attending it. Mark your calendar from now. Come, enjoy and support the new Bumi Sangkuriang Jazz Night on Wednesday night on January 13, 2016, starting 7 pm onwards. It’s a FREE event and open for public. Feeling jazzy on Wednesday night? You can have it here. See you.

Watch the trailer:

Bumi Sangkuriang Jazz Night #1

Date: Wednesday, 13 January 2016
Time: 7:00 pm – 9:30 pm
Location: Ballroom Bumi Sangkuriang
Jl. Kiputih 12, Bandung

FREE EVENT!

Balai Pertemuan (Meeting Hall) Bumi Sangkuriang has been known as the home of jazz for many decades. The first regular jazz event ever held in this historical building was Jazz Break in 1981 by Hari Pochang. It didn’t take long for this event to bear fruit. Other than being an attraction to jazz lovers in Bandung and beyond, many successful groups were born from it too, for example Krakatau. This first installment stayed strong for about 8 years. Almost a decade later, in 2008 the regular event ran again under KlabJazz with the word ‘Revival’ being added to it. After two years the event was cancelled and re-appeared by Hotspot. Unfortunately it didn’t last long. Shortly after, the regular jazz event was gone from this building.

Now, 5 years later jazz is finally back again to its home. The name of the event is new: BUMI SANGKURIANG JAZZ NIGHT, brought by the cooperation between Jazzuality.com and Venche Music School (Venche Manuhutu and Kanggep Kusuma). For us this is an important mission. There have been many art and music events held in this building throughout the years, but we have to say that jazz probably is the strongest identity. We are proud that this important mission is now on us and will do our best effort in carrying the legacy. The spirit from the past will be kept as we are writing the new chapter in order to bring jazz back to its home.

The first edition featured two stars from Jakarta, guitarist Robert Mulyarahardja (Robert MR) and saxophonist Ricad Hutapea. These two players are the iconic jazz figures from young generation who have been contributing a lot for the development of jazz in Indonesia. From the local Bandung we brought one of the most happening duo in Bandung recently, Agis Bape and a group of young guns who play pure jazz, The New Equinox.

Robert MR graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA with a degree in Performance in 2008. He has a group named the Shadow Puppets Quartet, he has his own solo project and also active as sideman. With Shadow Puppets he has released three albums, including the latest one Indonesian Songbook with Harvey Malaiholo (2015). One solo album ‘Gratitude’, a duet album with Riza Arshad, a quartet with Nial Djuliarso and also participating in some other albums of his friends. Speaking of style, he is stylish and calm, but if you listen to the notes he produces, you will find something rich and adventurous.

Just like Robert, saxophonist Ricad Hutapea has graced many prestigious stages as well. Ricad started learning classical but then fell in love with jazz. He has released one album titled “Jalan Pertama” that tells stories of his life and his true-self. His appearance in Bumi Sangkuriang Jazz Night was made possible by Music Gear as his endorser. Ricad can go really funkin’ wild with his sax, but he can also be seducing.

This first edition started late because of the heavy pouring rain. A brief introduction of Bumi Sangkuriang jazz history presented by Jazzuality.com, Senior Advisor of Bumi Sangkuriang, Mr Sukar Samsudi greeted everyone and gave an inspiring opening speech. “This event will stay on as long as we all spread the news together. The media, the organizer, the venue, and the audience, keep spreading the good news about the return of regular jazz event in Bumi Sangkuriang.” he said. A token of appreciation then given to us on behalf of the organizer.

The first in action was The New Equinox. This promising trio consists of brave, skillful young talents from Venche Music School who play jazz the right way.  This band began their career a couple of years ago as Equinox, but with some changes in the lineup, they decided to add “New” in front of their old name.

Ezra Manuhutu (bass), Alman Naufal (drums) and Vico Wibowo (piano) filled the hall with pure jazz extacy starting with John Coltrane’s “Moment’s Notice”. The edgy, rock punching jazz continued on with 2 more songs, Miles Davis’ gem from 1963 “Seven Steps to Heaven” and  followed by Miles’ other song almost a decade earlier, “Solar”. This last song includes a wild solo run by Alman.

All of these compositions of senior pianist Imam Pras are complex and not easy, but The New Equinox executed them well. Knowing that they are still young, this trio still have more than enough time to grow. There are not so many pure jazz groups in Bandung today, especially the young ones. As we care about the regeneration, we can put our hope to New Equinox to stimulate musicians around their age to follow their footsteps.

Next on stage was a dynamic duo, Agis Bape. This duo consists of two great talents: soul sister with 5-star voice Agis Kania and skillful all-rounder guitarist with tasty swing on top, Opik Bape. They have known each other for many years. They were once together in a band with gypsy swing Satura, but since 2014 they embarked a new journey in more simple formation, just a duo and got their first shot at Duotone Concert two years ago.

Agis Bape stunned the audience right from the start, covering the notorious “Gloomy Sunday”, a creepy song that has been connected to so many death ever since it was written in the 30’s. Agis sang it deep in haunting vibe, locking everyone’s eyes on her and Opik.

The soul swinging delight continued on with several more songs, including “One for All”, the vintage “Nuages” and a beauty from the past, Rose Murphy song, “Peek a Boo”. The swing was so alive, many of the audience clapped their hands and swayed following the melody and rhythm.

One of Billie Holiday’s evergreen, “God Bless the Child” was covered triumphantly. Agis sang it in perfect control with amazing singing skill, created goosebump on our shoulder, so good that she bagged the most applause on this one. Their debut single “Embun Pagi” was next. This feel good, happy mood pop swing song again proved its strength as the audience here loved it too. This song has a good chance to be a major hit, no doubt about it. They gave one final swingin’ picnic with a popular song from the 50’s, “Singing the Blues”.

Free flowing, groovy, soulful, swingin’ and full of spontaneity played by an awesome guitarist and singer that share chemistry to each other. . At the moment they are strengthening the character with vintage as the key. “We are now narrowing our song choice, selecting the gems from the vintage era because that’s where our soul seems to be at ease” says Agis. There are many factors that make them shine. Other than they are both high quality artists with remarkable skills and strong chemistry, they also put all their souls into any song they sing. They learn what the song is all about, catch the spirit and then share the story to the audience That’s why their performance always feels heartfelt and memorable.

Before the last band played, we invited Hari Pochang to share how it was back then in 1981 when he made the first regular monthly jazz in Bumi Sangkuriang. Accompanied by Venche who played a lot in there at that time, he brought us into the memory lane and sincerely wish us the best. We are proud to have him come to give us blessings. What also makes us happy is some other jazz community leaders/founders and VIPs also came, including Tri Budi Waskito (Margo Jazz Friday), Angga Wardhana (Butterfield Jazz Society) and the program director of Jendela Ide, Djaelani (Bandung World Jazz Festival).

The final segment featured two guest stars Robert MR and Ricad Hutapea. Supporting them were the attending players of New Equinox: Alman (drums) and Ezra (bass). They played together for the first time, but this instant shaped quartet showed tight connection to one another.

Standard “On Green Dolphin Street” directly filled the hall with wonderful jazz spirit. Robert and Ricad shared their moment evenly, supported fully by the two young guns from Venche Music School. Charlie Parker’s “Au Privave” opened up the chance for them to do tradings, followed by another Parker’s collection from the late 40’s, “Scrapple from the Apple”. Robert and Ricad did really, really well in spreading jazz joy to everyone. Tight, clean and sharp, connected and united. Like two builders they worked together side by side in building each song to perfection. Alman and Ezra also did great in supporting them, resulting explorative yet ellegant show where people could both enjoy and learn from.

More standards coming in such as “All the Things You Are” and the smooth, romantic “My One and Only Love”. “Still want us to play?” says Robert. Of course, who wouldn’t. To answer it, Robert led Ricad and the two boys to play not only one but three more songs: Wes Montgomery’s “4 on 6” and two more Miles Davis’ gems: “So What” and “All Blues”. The show reached the end about ten minutes before 11:00 pm.

Since there was heavy rain almost the whole day, we got not so many audience. But we are still satisfied with the result. Unlike making an event in the mall, the audience are jazz fans who come because they want to watch the concert.  More than 50 appreciative people were there, so we think it’s not bad at all.

For us it was a success for many reasons. We managed to serve real jazz with its variety, a successful collaboration between experienced musicians from Jakarta and the young guns from Bandung, we got surprisingly many audience, and most importantly: jazz has finally returned home to Bumi Sangkuriang. We are happy to see the progress of jazz development in Bandung lately. More playground to play, more players, more supportive audience.

With no intention to compete against other regular events, we do hope we can provide another alternative for jazz talents to explore and for the fans to enjoy. The more, the merrier, that will be good for jazz in Bandung and Indonesia in general. Another important mission we put in this regular event is to bring the real jazz, the right way. May we be able to follow the success of previous regular jazz events ever made in this historical building. We look forward to see future supergroup born from here. We will be back again next month in February. It’s going to be on the second Wednesday. Until then, keep jazzin’ everyone!

Special thanks to/Supported by: Music Gear, 3 Negeri, Infobdg, Pikiran Rakyat and Yoga Ogoy

See more pictures:

Reporter: Riandy Kurniawan
Photographer: Aditya Prinera
MC: Bintang Steffy Tania
Team: Vierna Mariska, Debby Siahaan

Group photo is credited to Indra Purnawan

With a merry Christmas edition in December 2015, Braga Jazz Walk has sealed its second year in service. This regular community jazz event is the brainchild of Jazzuality.com in cooperation with the venue, Braga CityWalk and KPH Music who provides the instruments and some equipments. We have launched 18 edition plus some Special Edition in accordance to the upcoming jazz festivals held in the capital city of Jakarta. There are hundreds of musicians being featured, consist of newcomers, potential young guns, child prodigy, the top stars and legends. Some use this event to gain experiences, some for promotional purpose and some others happily come to share what they have to the young ones. Speaking of nation, this humble stage which is located at the ground floor of the mall have welcomed not only musicians from Indonesia but also from other countries such as Australia, Mexico, Italy, Malaysia and USA. It’s just a small stage inside a mall, but everybody can gather and share based on one common passion: jazz.

Entering the new year, we are happy to announce that we are ready to continue this event. The next stop or the first edition in 2016, Braga Jazz Walk #19 will be on January 28, 2016. The location is still the same, at the Main Atrium of Braga CityWalk (in front of the GiggleBox and Little Tokyo). It will start around 7:00 pm until 10:00 pm when the mall closes. As usual we are preparing 4 batch of performers. Two full bands, and, for the first time, we are going to introduce two newcomers. They are both still in their early and mid-teens, but they are different than most of the kids their age and have a good chance to be stars in the future.

Let’s start with them. First, say hi to the cute girl, Nayra Dharma. If you look at his family name, you may get a hint that it’s like the name of senior bassist who co-found the legendary supergroup, Krakatau. If any of you think of it, you are right. Nayra is the daughter of Pra Budidharma. Nayra is still 15 years old. She started showing her interest in playing guitar just a while ago in April 2015. “She came to me all of a sudden and said, “Dad, I want to be a jazz guitarist.” says Pra. Of course, Pra delightfully responds. From that moment on, Nayra spends many hours a day in order to shape herself according to her wish. After a couple of months of intensive practice under the guidance of Pra, Nayra got her debut gig. She performed at the Jazz @ Kota Tua in October 2015 together with the Farabi Rising Stars band. After that, Nayra has been having regular gig as vocalist and guitarist at the Uncle Storage Cafe every Saturday night. Throughout December 2015, Nayra’s involved in some Christmas events made by Anthony Entertainment, visiting some nursing home care for elders and the choir competition for elementary and junior high school children in West Java.

Today she is still learning both guitar and vocal. Many people find it hard to believe that she actually started less than a year ago. From what we heard, many musicians are amazed with how good she brings jazz out of her guitar, flowing beautifully from her soul to the audience and the fact that she plays jazz the right way. Perhaps is easy to think that she’s lucky to have a father like Pra Budidharma, the master of jazz with mystical ethnic nuance who have been in business for many decades, but clearly she gets talent and also willing to work really hard to achieve her dream. After seeing her playing with Riza Arshad and Donny Suhendra at the TP Jazz Festival like what you see in the picture above and in the choir competition which we acted as one of the judges, we are more than happy to have her gracing the Braga Jazz Walk for the first time. She’s pretty, cute and sometimes still shy like most of the teenagers, but this young girl plays jazz really well.

Next is a young boy, still 12 going 13 year-old, Philip Manfred P. We got to know him when we visited Venche Music School and talked to the senior teacher of that school, Yahya Salam. When we asked if he has any recommended student, he directly introduced us to Philip. He was born in 2004, started learning classical piano since 2009 from Nancy Sugiri which still continues on until now. In 2008 he once took a piano lesson at Elfa Music School. In 2013 he showed interest in jazz. His parents signed him up to Bandung Conservatory of Music, learning jazz piano from Yahya Salam.

In his young age, Philip can already take bebop improvisations, playing standards like “Donna Lee” and even the old, pre-jazz songs like Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer”. What makes it more interesting is that he also learns saxophone at d’Boom under the guidance of Alfred D Ampouw. Speaking of sax lesson, he’s been doing it for almost two years.

Throughout the editions of Braga Jazz Walk and our other events, we have been consistently featuring kid prodigy in jazz. There are Kafin, Nadine and Jeremy, and now it’s time for us to introduce another sensational boy who plays not only one but two instruments. As Joey Alexander is surprising the globe by becoming Grammy Award nominee in two categories, we are more than happy to tell the world that Indonesia actually have so many amazing jazz kids. Philip will demonstrate his ability in swingin’ and boppin’ by using both piano and saxophone. Let’s support him by watching his show.

Speaking of band, there’s a long time guitar teacher from Purwacaraka Music Studio (since the millenium) who are going to bring his own project for the first time. His name is Jhonny Edwin Sitompul, and his band is simply named Jhonny Sitompul Project. He graduated from Faculty of Cultural Science of North Sumatra University majoring Ethnomusicology. He’s been teaching for 16 years, but not many knows that he has written songs since 1986. So, he must be having a lot of songs now.

Being as a senior teacher and also active player makes Jhonny stands as a skillful guitarist with strong sense. He’s an all-rounder who knows what to do in diferent situation. This time he’s ready to bring some of his original songs with his band. Joining him are Wandi (drums), Donald Tobing (bass), Mbot Irul (guitar/vocal) and Caroline Boenardi (vocal). Enough teaching, it’s time to have some fun on stage! Let’s have fun together with him.

We are delighted to have our friends back filling up this event after the last appearance more than a year ago. It’s Chakraborty. This band was established in 2013 at Aru Studio in Bandung. From day one this band shares their pleasure in digging wide array of jazz, from swing, cool jazz, fusion to blues and bossanova. They worked hard, playing everywhere and locked themselves in studio. It was all good, but at least half of year 2015 became a difficult year for them. Some of the members left the band, but the band leader Joo Yang gave all he got to keep the band alive. Some new players filled up the formation and they reshaped themselves fast. The band then proved its endurance and strength not only by still alive but climbs even higher than ever.

At present, Charkaborty consists of Joo Yang/Joe Yeung (drums), Nicodemus Horrison (keyboard), Tamara Sayidina (vocal), Jere Fernando (bass) and Jerry Gates (guitar). Joo and Nicodemus are the sustaining players from the original formation, Jerry was with them too then quit, but now he’s back again to the band. While Tamara and Jere joined the band a couple of months ago.

Speaking of achievement, this band recently became the 3rd winner of International Music Crowd Challenge 2015 with their single: “Kepahitan Termanis (The Sweetest Bitter)”. This song can be found in their mini (EP) album, “Seven Sense” released in August, 2015. While this song got the third winner, two other songs from the album entered the list of Best 10 tracks. The band is also mentioned in 15 Best Band in this competition. About the album, 600 pieces are already sold out in Jakarta, Bandung, Palembang, Medan, Hong Kong and China. Other than these marvelous achievement, they seem to run smooth by getting a lot of gigs so far.

We knew how good they were before. However we haven’t got the chance to see the new formation. With new players, often band will have new colors. How do they sound now? From two guitar to one, does it affect their concept? We are curious. And we think, the best way for us to find out is by inviting them to Braga Jazz Walk. Let’s check the new Chakraborty together.

The open jam session will be provided after the showcase. Anyone can join, no matter what your musical backround is. Besides drum and piano, just bring along your best gear and enter the pool right in. The jam session will be open all the way until the mall ends its service at 10:00 pm.

That would be all. Remember, the Braga Jazz Walk #19 is coming next week on January 28, 2016, starting 7:00 pm at Braga City Walk. It’s totally FREE and open for public. Come, join us and let’s have loads of jazzy fun!

Braga Jazz Walk #19

Date: 28 January 2016
Time: 07:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Location: Braga CityWalk
Jl. Braga 99 – 101, Bandung

FREE EVENT!

FEATURING:

:: CHAKRABORTY ::
Joe Yeung (drum)
Nicodemus Horrison (keyboard)
Tamara Sayidina (vocal)
Jere Fernando (bass)
Jerry Gates (guitar)

:: JHONNY SITOMPUL PROJECT ::
Jhonny Sitompul (guitar)
Wandi (drum)
Donald Tobing (bass)
Mbot Irul (guitar/vocal)
Caroline Boenardi (vocal)

:: NAYRA DHARMA ::
Nayra Dharma (guitar/vocal)

:: PHILIP MANFRED P ::
Philip Manfred (piano/saxophone)

The value of community could mean so many things to different people, but mostly it’s related to connectedness and sense of belonging. The members could gain mutual benefit either by what the community provides or from the other members. School students can already get something good out of it. Since community is usually based on the same hobby, background or goal, the kids could learn how important it is to interact and connect with others, and then grow together in harmony. It happens to in music. Community-based music events are the place to learn, to practice and to socialize. It should be easy since most likely one would share something in common with other people found in the community.

What about music school? Of course, it is very important too. They can practice what they have learned, gaining experience by playing in front of real crowds, and also meeting new friends. Community-based event is a perfect playground to start with.

Venche Music School (VMS), the pioneer of jazz school in Bandung, established in 1988 knows it too. With almost 30 years of experience, this jazz school have produced tens of successful musicians in the local, national or even international jazz scene. Now the school  The founder, senior guitarist Venche Manuhutu believes that a community-based event will give many benefit to the current students, former students, instructor and everyone connected to the music school. The successful ones could share their experience and skill to their junior, how to live in this field, what to do after graduate.

The name of the event is: VMS Jazz Community Performance. The vision is to develop and socialize jazz, and the mission is to provide a meeting point for communication and appreciation for the active students and alumnus of Venche Music School, also jazz lovers in the society. This event is coming soon on Sunday, January 31, 2016, from 8:00 pm to 10:30 pm at Seven Cafe & Lounge, Jl. Setiabudi 182, Bandung. This event is totally free and open for public.

For this edition VMS has prepared 3 showcases. First, the proud student of VMS, Nadine is featured. Nadine is still 9 year-old, but she’s already able to play jazz the right way. From what we saw last time, both of her hands are alive and equal. This little girl can arrange songs too. She’s a fast learner and an explorer, you can see how she grows in each concert she’s involved in. You will love her, no doubt.

Next: LAY Jazz Trio. LAY stands for the initial of members: Leo Hansen (bass), Alman Naufal (drums) and Yopi D Nafis (piano). All of them are good players and connected in tight chemistry. Yopi Nafis is one of the stunning West Java Syndicate and also with Tesla Manaf ft Mahagotra Ganesha. We know Leo Hansen after he played in our event with Olteje. Alman Naufal is a wild drummer of The New Equinox, also serves as the drum instructor for VMS.

Speaking of trio, the other trio will be great to stand as the example of good fruits produced by VMS: the VMS Jazz Trio. Alman will also play here, together with two other compatriotes: the young but sensational jazz guitarist who currently learns in Jakarta, Anjuan Julio and Steven on bass. What makes it even more interesting, there will be open jam session after all the showcases, so if you’re a musician, you can come and have fun with them.

A jazz community event presented by the pioneer of jazz school in Bandung. Meant to be a meeting point for the students, alumnus, teachers and also for all jazz lovers in Bandung and beyond. Let’s welcome the new jazz community event and come if you’re looking for a free event to jazz with.

VMS Jazz Community Performance

Date: Sunday, 31 January 2016
Time: 08:00 – 10:30 pm
Location: Seven Cafe & Lounge
Jl. Setiabudi 182 Bandung

FREE EVENT, OPEN FOR PUBLIC

Braga Jazz Walk was born on September 25, 2014. Jazzuality.com as the conceptor set this event to be a regular jazz community event, served as friendly as possible to accomodate wider segment of music listeners/players in the society. We wish to see people enjoy the show, and the musicians to have the stage as a fun playing ground. Entertainment and education are in our consideration. Musicians from different backgrounds can always come and try to play some jazz. The newcomers can have early promotion for their band, it can also be used by the experienced musicians to promote their album or simply to share what they know to young ones who are following their footsteps. We want it to be a home to everyone, one of the places in Bandung who enable you to have some jazzy fun. The venue Braga CityWalk and KPH Music who provides the instruments and some equipments have been supporting our move from day 1. Here we are now, still running strong and ready to have another journey in 2016.

Ocassionally we also introduce new talents who have potentials to go big in the near future. Surprisingly, we found many diamonds in the rough. Some of them are still in their childhood, the youngest one playing in our stage is 8 year-old, and the oldest is 74 years old. Many of the newcomers started their journey on our stage. Some are already succeed, some are still on the way. We are more than happy to introduce more interesting talents that perhaps you haven’t heard just yet, in a hope that we can give our support towards their career.

In Braga Jazz Walk #19 we featured two bands and introduced two young players who already played remarkably well in their early and mid teens. Performing first was a 12 year-old Boy by the name of Philip Manfred P. He is still a boy in his early teen, but hey, he already shows his passion in jazz and able to execute it well too. If usually kid that age still plays one instrument, Philip moves fast by learning two at once: piano and saxophone. For jazz piano he has the senior piano teacher Yahya Salam at Bandung Conservatory of Music and saxophone with Alfred Dicky Ampouw at d’Boom. Both Yahya and Alfred were present supporting him.

Philip directly showed his magic right after he placed his fingers on the keys by playing Miles Davis’ composition often credited to Charlie Parker, “Donna Lee”. Immidiately we knew how good this young boy is in doing the improvisation. According to his teacher Yahya Salam, this bebop standard gives Philip the chance to learn how to do jazz improvisation language. Philip did very well in executing this very complex arrangement. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” then served beautiful and dreamy.

Based upon our request, Philip played a very old song, a ragtime classic published in 1902 by Scott Joplin, “The Entertainer”. It was really fun! Then came the time for us to hear how good he does the harmony over advanced dissonant chords through “When I Fall in Love”. “Scrapple from the Apple” again wowed us.

Yahya Salam took over the piano as Philip moved in front with saxophone. The student-teacher connection delivered more songs, starting with “Take the ‘A’ Train”, Luiz Bonfá‘s gem “Samba de Orfeu” and finished with Dave Koz’ “Faces of the Heart”. He played with such heartfelt dynamic as if the songs were played by a senior pro.

We have watched how good Philip played from Yahya Salam’s Youtube channel and Facebook before, so we already knew what he’s capable of. But still, watching him playing right in front of us makes us certain that he’s indeed a very special boy, blessed with magical skill to play jazz music. Looking at the fact that hes fully supported by his parents in doing music, we can be sure that Philip will be one of the stars to look up to in the future. He’s playing jazz great, he can already do complex and difficult bebop improvisations, he knows where to stream during his play, how to redress any song into jazz in the right way and craft them all into a heartfelt soundscape, but he’s only just begun. If he continues doing what he does, imagine how he will become later. We want to keep our eyes on him and plan to invite him again a couple of months from now. Simply awe-inspiring.

The other teenager was in the second session. This time it’s a young girl, still 15 year-old named Nayra Dharma. Nayra Dharma, the daughter of Krakatau’s legend Pra Budidharma actually started learning not long ago, not even reaching a year. But other than having her dad’s jazz talent running inside her blood, she’s diligent and persistant too. She practices many many hours every day. From a source we were told that she spends 6 to 8 hours a day to practice under the guidance of Pra himself. No wonder she hatches faster than normal.

We have heard about her from many musicians who might have seen her at some festivals such as Jazz @ Kota Tua or TP Bandung Jazz Festival, or in regular gigs. We have seen her played some Christmas carols at the kids choir competition last month. Now we got the chance to see her pinning jazz standards.

Nayra put a spell on everyone from the start. She began smooth with “Satin Doll”, showcasing her ability to sing and play fingerstyle guitar at the same time. Like a magnet she drew more and more mall-goers into her show, not only at ground floor but also the upper levels. Love was in the air even more with “Dream a Little Dream of Me”.

Nayra demonsrated such high skill by playing Joe Pass’ version of “Misty”. From there, she moved on to embrace bossa without leaving her strong jazz-self, playing a timeless work of Jobim, “Wave”. It was interesting to see her play another gem from Jobim, “Watch What Happens” by inserting Ted Greene’s solo guitar piece. She gave another surprise by singing “La Vie en Rose” in French. As much as we loved her appeareance, she reached the finish line with a cool version of “L-O-V-E” .

Nayra Dharma told her dad that she wanted to be a jazz guitarist. A year later she already got her wish came true. At 15 years old and a year of intensive practice she already plays like a pro. But since she is still learning both guitar and vocal, we can expect to see her in more enhanced ability in the future. If she keeps the pace, it won’t take long until she emerges as the supergirl of jazz from the new generation. Especially since a girl who sings and plays fingerstyle guitar in Indonesia is very, very rare, she has all the chance to climb really fast to the top. She’s adorable, the camera loves her and she plays good jazz in the right way. Her skill is remarkable, her voice has a strong character, sweet but round and firm. Mark our words, she will be big soon.

Third session was taken by a long time teacher of Purwacaraka Music Studio Jhonny Edwin Sitompul. He has been teaching since 2000, but actually he’s not just a teacher because he’s been writing songs since 1986, even before he entered the Faculty of Cultural Science of North Sumatra University majoring Ethnomusicology. A few months ago he told us that he would love to play his original songs, we directly responded by giving him a slot.

He played under a group simply called Jhonny Sitompul Project, consisting of his friends Wandi (cajon), Muhamad Choirul Rifki aka Mbot Irul (guitar), Donald Tobing (bass) and Caroline Boenardi (vocal).

The team began with a song Jhonny wrote 9 years ago: “Kata Hati”. Caroline joined them on stage to sing Marc Anthony’s song, “My Baby You”. As Irul is now promoting his album, he sang his second single. Caroline replaced Irul for a cover of Charlie Puth’s recent hit, “One Call Away”. The first single of Irul titled “You” was next. Irul stood in front with energetic performance, carrying this upbeat track to cheer us up.

For the last song, Jhonny gave a winning song, “Let Us Play”. This song may become his masterpiece as well as showing his ability to infuse the influence of Melayu and Batak into a fusionesque track. A very, very good song indeed.

Jhonny Sitompul is known as a great guitar teacher in Bandung who have produced many successful musicians. He’s also known as a skillful all-round playing musician. Now let’s add another points: a good band leader and superb song writer/composer. Tonight he introduced to us and the public some of his best original compositions. Having a strong team mates inside the band is another key factor that makes his songs feel alive. We hope the Jhonny Sitompul Project be continued, not ended up just as a one time project. Surely there are many more songs to play, and let’s hope we can have him again in other editions. Nice ethnic fusion from him. Hail to the guitar teacher.

The final show marked the return of a band we knew so well, Chakraborty. The last time they performed on our stage was at the end of 2014, so we are happy to have them back again. There are many things going on since then with this band. First, now they have new formation. Other than the original members: band leader Joe Yeung/Joo Yang on drums and Nicodemus Horisson on piano, the former guitarist Jerry Gates is now back into the band. They have new bassist Jere Fernando and new vocalist Tamara Sayidina. They have launched an EP titled “Seven Sense” in August 2015 and successfully sold the album out in Bandung, Palembang, Medan all the way to reach Hong Kong and China in just around 2 months. Other achievement is by being mentioned as one of 15 Best Bands in International Music Crowd Challenge 2015. Their single “Kepahitan Termanis” became the 3rd winner of this competition, while two other songs entered the Best 10 Tracks. Quite an achievement for them, but they do earn it.

“Spain” became a cool opening before the vocalist came in, followed by Fourplay’s song featured in their 1991 selftitled debut album, “101 Eastbound”. Tamara, the new vocalist then led with Adera’s “Lebih Indah”. Not only sing, she’s also expressive with swaying body language expressing her total immersion in music.

Their winning single “Kepahitan Termanis” became the last presentation. This song has all the reason to succeed. It’s happy beat, ear-catchy melody and lyrics that represents what we experience in our love life.

Not every band can sustain after losing some of its members, but Chakraborty isn’t only survived, they managed to get some achievements too during that kind of weather.  The new members did very well in keeping the pulse of the band and ready for a better future. We knew them not long after they were formed, now we are seeing them more often playing everywhere from small to prestigious big stages. Chakraborty is a good band with a strong sense of jazz that at the same time friendly to non jazz listeners.

With this new formation they sound fresh. Some new colors and vibes are in, all in the good way. We need bands like this to introduce jazz to more and more music lovers. Keep moving up, Chakraborty! It’s only a matter of time until you reach your ultimate goal.

Jam session took place right after. 9 year-old magic finger Nadine, who had been enjoying the show from the beginning gave a solo piano, playing “Footprints” after being inspired from Joey Alexander’s gig she found in Youtube. It’s amazing how a girl still in that early age could be doing this. What we are trying to do is to support her by giving her a lot of time to play. By having a lot of playground, she could gain experience fast as she upgrades her skill.

Sabine (vocal) and Ilham (guitar) of Roja Blues also took part in the jam session. Together with some of the Chakraborty, they pinned “Route 66”. Tamara and guitarist Anthony Joseph jumped in for one last drop, covering Tulus’ hit “Teman Hidup.”

So that’s what happened at the first Braga Jazz Walk in 2016. This 19th edition again served wide variation of style, age and format. From young teens, students to senior teachers, from the new project to an active band. We think it’s another good round.

Starting February, we are moving the schedule to the third Thursday of the month. There are more new names to feature, there are more bands in our circle that we want to keep updated. Thank you for your support fellas. We do need it in order to keep this event running. See you again in the month of love, February.

Watch the highlight on our Youtube channel:

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Reporter: Riandy Kurniawan
Photographer: Elvin Octavian
Video Editor: Vierna Mariska Kurniawan

How important is it for a music school to have its own regular event? We believe it is important. A regular event can become a meeting point of the founder, teachers/instructors, alumni and active students. It can be a display case to promote the school to the public, and also the event can become a good playground for the students to apply what they have learnt.

Venche Music School is the pioneer of jazz school in Bandung, established in 1988 by senior guitarist Venche Manuhutu. They have produced many succesful musicians in the local, national or even intenational jazz scene. With that kind of experience, this school realize the importance of having a regular community event to support its curriculum. Other than that, the school wishes to synergize with friends, colleagues and other people that are connected with them. The name of the event is VMS Jazz Community Performance. The first edition was held last Sunday, January 31, 2016 at Seven Cafe & Music Lounge, Bandung.

Venche Manuhutu addressed those as the mission in his welcome speech, and also stated that this event is totally open for public especially the jazz lovers. Mr Wawan, the manager of Seven Cafe welcomed everyone and appreciated the cooperation which was made through intensive dialogues between the cafe and Kanggep Kusuma. The playing drummer Alman Naufal also acted as the MC.

Performing first was the  Nadine. It’s a wonder how a girl who is still 9 year-old could play jazz in such way. She played in solo format, presenting jazz standards like  a gem from 1942 “Things Ain’t That Used to Be”, “Blue Bossa”, Sonny Rollins’ “St Thomas”, “On Green Dophin Street” and Chick Corea’s masterpiece, “Spain”. Nadine played light fingerstyle harmonics but full with jazz voicings. Both of her left and right hands complemented each other, making each song flew in mainstream style. It was a very nice first session.

The second round was filled by a piano-drum duo, a showdown between YD Nafis and Alman Naufal. Alman’s wild solo drum triggered the first song, “Softly As In a Morning Sunrise”. They carried on with “All the Things You Are”, then a ageless piece of Dizzy Gillespie, “A Night in Tunisia” and reached the end of the line with “Spain”. What’s unique from this duo is that they were doing more solo with loose improvisations. The melody of the songs mostly only appeared near the end. YD Nafis and Alman have been playing and supporting each other for quite some times. They know each other’s style and know what to do when one goes solo. An interesting showdown between two musicians from different range of age but tight as a unit.

From one player, then two, finally three. The last show featured a trio called VMS Jazz Trio. Alman stayed behind the drum. Joining him were Anjuan Julio (guitar) and Steven (bass). This team played 3 songs: Miles Davis’ “All Blues” and 2 songs from Herbie Hancock, “Chameleon” and “Cantaloupe Island”. These young lions embraced mostly upbeat rhythm in fusion style. Guitar and drum solo played an important part in this session.

Jam session occured right after. The first batch was taken by VMS Trio and YD Nafis. They played “Billy’s Bounce”. Basically it was like a trio became quartet, they gave one solid round with tradings and solo from each of them. For the second and final batch Nadine took over the keys and played one of the most recent favorites of Nadine, “Footprints”. A group photo session sealed the event.

This event is scheduled to run on the fourth Sunday of each month. VMS Jazz Community Performance brought to you by Seven Cafe & Lounge and Venche Music School, arranged by Kanggep Kusuma and supported by Jazzuality.com

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Article and photos are provided by Kanggep Kusuma
Written by: Riandy Kurniawan

The year 2015 wrapped up in fine style with a series of jazz performances at venues such as The B-Flat Bar, the best gathering spot for live jazz in Bangalore! The featured bands included a number of local and international artistes, covering a range of styles: straight-ahead jazz, soul, Cuban jazz, Arabic fusion, Indo-jazz, blues, blues-rock, ambient jazz and electro-jazz.

In our regular annual deep dive, we look at some of the groups who delighted jazz fans this year at B-Flat. Performances were also held at other Bangalore venues such as The Blue Frog, Windmill Craftworks, Counter Culture, Humming Tree and Alliance Francaise. See my earlier article for a 2014 roundup: http://jazzuality.com/jazz-event-report/2014-roundup-indo-jazz-and-blues-rock-delight-bangalore-fans/

Guitarist Amit Heri and drummer Ranjit Barot had the audience enthralled along with Karim Ellaboudi on keyboards for a terrific set early in the year. Amit Heri blends Indian music with jazz, rock and funk. He has played at Montreux Jazz festival, Berlin Jazz festival, WOMAD, London Jazz festival, and the Paris Jazz festival. He has collaborated with Charlie Mariano, Zakir Hussain, U. Srinivas, Salif Keita, Angelique Kidjo, Trilok Gurtu, and Dominique DiPiazza. His albums include ‘Jhoola’ and ‘Elephant Walk.’ Ranjit Barot has been on the international circuit since the 1980s, is now part of ‘John McLaughlin and the 4th Dimension.’ His debut album is ‘Bada Boom.’ Pianist Karim Ellaboudi shuttles between the UK and India.

Bodhisattwa Trio is an experimental jazz-rock outfit, and featured Bodhisattwa Ghosh on guitars, Bijit Bhattacharya on bass and Premjit Dutta on drums. Based in Kolkata, the band’s album is titled ‘Intersections.’ Ghosh has been playing the blues for over ten years, and bassist Bijit also plays with electronica outfit Zoo and folk fusion act Charon. Dutta has studied tabla and Latin jazz, and teaches at Calcutta School of Music.

Music faculty from the Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music (SAM) played on two separate occasions. The Latin jazz lineup included Steve Zerlin (bass), Natalie John (vocals), Karina Colis (drums), Carolina Calvache (piano) and Brian Metreyon (guitar). Natalie has sung at the Peru Jazz Festival and the Seoul Jazz Festival, and has appeared with the Youngjoo Song Trio, Joshua Davis Group, guitarist Prasanna, Ingrid Jensen, and the Bjorkestra. Her albums include Unveiled (2010), and Natalie and Maya (2012).

Another awesome Afro-Latin jazz lineup from SAM featured Marcos Nimrichter (Brazil) on piano, Greg Diamond (US) on guitar, Mili Vizcaino (Spain) on vocals, Johann Berby (Reunion/France) on bass, and Andre Sousa Machado (Portugal) on drums. Marcos is a Grammy Award winner, and has played with Wynton Marsalis, Al Jarreau, Michel Legrand, Stanley Jordan, and Billy Cobham. Greg is at the forefront of the contemporary Latin jazz scene in New York city. Johann ‘s music reflects his own mixed family background: Indian, Malagasy and Mozambican; he has played with Trilok Gurtu Band, Jan Garbarek, Marcus Miller, and Oumou Sangaré Group. Sousa attended the Academia dos Amadores de Musica (Portugal) and has performed with Tete Montoliu, Steve Slagle, Phil Markowitz and Conrad Herwig.

Guitarist Bhrigu Sahni and drummer Agneya Chikte showed how much diversity and texture a talented duo is capable of generating. Bhrigu is based in Brooklyn, New York, and is a graduate from the Berklee College of Music. He has played with Angelique Kidjo, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Karsh Kale. He also works with Dharavi Rocks and Make a Difference, to teach music to underprivileged and highly talented slum kids. Agneya Chikte is a percussionist and faculty member at The True School of Music.

Karthick Iyer is a violinist, composer and vocalist in the carnatic style of South India, but has also journeyed into new territories over the last two decades. He launched his new album ‘IndoSoul’ which aims to ‘take Indian music to the world and bring the world to Indian music.’ Iyer has also worked with Oscar winning music composer A.R. Rahman, and won a number of awards himself (see my interview here: http://jazzuality.com/interview/exclusive-interview-with-karthick-iyer/). He performed along with Vikram Vivekanand (guitars), Naveen Napier (bass), Sumesh Narayanan (mridangam) and Ramkumar Kanakarajan (drums).

The Homi Rustumji Quintet performed an upbeat set of Latin jazz, with Homi Rustumji on bass, Arun Haridas Kamath on vocals, Siddharth Pandit on keyboard, Sahil Shah on drums, and  Harshvardhan Gadhvi on guitar. Homi was born in London and raised in Bangalore. Arun is skilled in Carnatic music, and Siddharth plays Indian classical music as well as jazz. Sahil Shah is a graduate of the True School of Music, and Harsh plays across a range of genres.

The Beer Puppets are a young neo-soul and funk band with strong jazz influences. The lineup includes Shreya Bhattacharya on vocals, Avishek Dey on bass, and Srinjay Banerjee on guitar. These Calcutta-based musicians performed along with Chennai musicians Shyam Rao on drums and Anthony Karuna on keyboards.

Sulk Station performed lush, moody and hypnotic music, showcasing Tanvi Rao’s sultry vocals layered over Rahul Giri’s minimalist electronic production. Their songs are a mix of contemporary electronic genres (trip-hop/ambient) with traces of Indian classical music and jazz. Their albums include ‘Till You Appear.’

One of the most unusual Indo-jazz fusion lineups featured funk group Sylvester Trio along with Santosh Jayaram on electric veena. Sylvester Pradeep (guitar, vocals), Joel Rozario (drums) and Snehal Pinto (bass) teamed up in 2013, and blend jazz with blues and progressive rock. They have also collaborated with Mumbai-based Santosh for a string of performances, and the Bangalore gig included guest vocalists Arati Rao and Carlton Braganza.

Another fine East-West fusion lineup, Animata, included Sarah Buechi (Swiss vocalist), Prakash Sontakke (Hindustani slide guitar), Kartik Mani (Indian percussion) and Christoph Haberer (drums). Buechi graduated from Lucerne`s Musikhochschule and has collaborated with Steve Coleman, Nils Wogram, Christy Doran and Christoph Stiefel. Sontakke is an award-winning musician spanning Indian classical and jazz music, and plays with the groups Lehera, Moonarra, Food, and Figura Ensemble. He has collaborated with Thomas Strønen, Iain Ballamy, and Ciro Hurtado, and produces the Sontakke Global Music Festival. Karthik is a percussionist in the carnatic-jazz fusion tradition, and has performed with U. Sreenivas, Mysore Manjunath, Praveen Godkhindi, Ravi Chary, Mory Kante, Dhafer Yousuf, and Mokhtar Samba. Christoph is a jazz drummer who also blends in electronic effects.

Jazz from Down Under also came to Bangalore, thanks to the Alex Stuart Quintet (Australia/France). Alex was promoting his third album, ‘Place To Be,’ which featured African and Latin grooves along with Asian influences (Vietnam, India). He was accompanied by Warren Walker (US) on tenor saxophone, Nishad Pandey (Australia/India) on guitar, Adam Teixeira (Canada) on drums, and Mishko M’ba (France/Reunion) on bass. See also my earlier interview with Mishko: http://jazzuality.com/interview/exclusive-interview-with-mishko-mba/

The 2015 programming at B-Flat ended in fine style with the final tour performance of keyboardist Aman Mahajan’s project, ‘Refuge.’ The set included a blend of folk and classical influences. Aman was accompanied by Matt Littlewood (saxophone), Mishko M’ba (electric bass) and Jeoraj George (drumset).

Other great venues to check out jazz in Bangalore are the Blue Frog, Windmill Craftworks, Counter Culture, Humming Tree, Indigo Live and Alliance Francaise; malls like VR Bangalore and Phoenix Market City also have large open spaces for live performances. Here are some of the other bands which played at these venues in Bangalore.

Kiriaka, a samba-reggae band from Sweden, is a 36-member percussion band from Gothenburg, and brought the sounds of Brazil and the Caribbean to Bangalore. The thunderous performance, with waves of choreographed collaboration, kept the audience on their feet for the whole set. The band members also danced their way in a chain through the audience, with many others joining the procession.

The Rémi Panossian Trio, whose earlier albums are ‘Bang’ and ‘Add Fiction,’ performed an energetic and lyrical set. They have performed at the Tokyo Jazz Festival, Jarasum Jazz Festival (South Korea), Taichung Jazz Festival (Taiwan) and Nanjing Jazz Festival (China). The lineup includes Remi Panossian (piano), Maxime Delporte (bass) and Fredric Petitprez (drums).

German saxophonist Roger Hanschel played along with Indian musicians Deobrat Mishra on sitar and Prashant Mishra on tabla as the group ‘Trio Benares.’ Roger studied at the Musikhochschule Köln in Germany and School for Fine Arts in Banff, Canada. He also founded the trio Triosphere, quarter Heavy Rotation, and a duo with the singer Gabriele Hasler, and has teamed with Dutch cellist Ernst Reijseger as well. See my interview with Hanschel here: http://jazzuality.com/interview/exclusive-interview-with-roger-hanschel/

Farah Siraj played a wide-ranging world music set with influences of Arabic, flamenco and jazz elements. Regarded as Jordan’s ‘Musical Ambassadress,’ she has been described as the ‘Norah Jones of the Middle East.’ The vocalist-composer was joined by Carolina Calvache (piano), Karina Colis (drums) and Abhinav Khokhar (bass).

Cuban jazz by way of Holland came to Bangalore thanks to percussionist Lucas Van Merwijk and his Music Machine. He has been at the forefront of the European Latin jazz scene for 30 years. He was elected ‘Best Jazz drummer’ in the Benelux countries for six years running (1993-1999), and teaches in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Lucas was accompanied by ace Cuban pianist Ramón Valle. The band also conducted an afternoon workshop at the Bangalore School of Music.

Kolkata-based Latin jazz band Latination teamed up with Paris-based percussionist Emmanuel Simon for a gig. Emmanuel has played at World Percussion Festival (Nehru Park, Delhi), Kolkata Jazz festival and Bengaluru International Arts Festival. Pradyumna Singh Manot (aka Paddy) has performed across Asia, along with Premjit Dutta (timbales) and Bijit Bhattacharya (bass).

The fifth annual ‘Ode to the Blues’ festival at Counterculture was a massive draw for blues fans. Held across two stages – one indoor and one outdoor – the festival featured a range of 15 international and Indian artistes. Rick Payne is an established acoustic blues guitarist from the UK, and has been featured on BBC World Service. Steve Treble, from Bristol, showcased bass and rhythm techniques on the lead guitar. A highlight was Madou Sidiki Diabate from Mali, who has been playing kora since the age of three. His elder brother is Grammy Award winner Toumani Diabaté. The Indian lineup included Ministry of Blues, The Chronic Blues Circus, HoodooGas, and Windozem, and culminated with Soulmate. The blues rock band from Shillong is spearheaded by Rudy Wallang on guitar and the phenomenal Tipriti ‘Tips’ Kharbangar on vocals.

Will Galison and his quartet enthralled the audience with the wide range of creative sounds from the humble harmonica. He was accompanied by Yoshi Waki on bass, Billy Test on keyboards, and Darrell Smith on drums. His music has been featured in the soundtracks of a number of Hollywood films as well.

 Vasundhara Vee and Sanjay Divecha delivered a terrific set with soaring blues and jazz. Vasundhara is very active in the soul and jazz scene in India – on radio, TV and live performances; her earlier album is ‘Ampersand.’ Sanjay is a composer and guitarist based in Mumbai, and has played along with Angelique Kidjo, Carlos Santana, Dumazz and Sambaguru. He graduated from the Guitar Institute of Technology, and has played in cities ranging from New Orleans to New Delhi. His albums include ‘Full Circle,’ and his music currently blends jazz with Indian folk and classical.

Sean Roldan (aka R Raghavendra), a professional Carnatic classical musician, showcased a fusion blend with blues and folk music. His witty song-writing and guitar playing drew rousing applause, along with Pradeep on slide guitar, Sooraj on bass and Praveen Sparsh on percussion. See my writeup of his earlier performance here: http://jazzuality.com/jazz-event-report/big-bang-blues-4th-element-a-new-generation-of-blues-and-jazz-in-india/

Roots blues by way of France was presented by the charming band Lil’ Red & The Roosters. Ohio vocalist Jennifer Milligan, with 35 years experience, is now based in Paris and also plays snare shuffle and washboard scratch. She was accompanied by French blues guitarist Pascal Fouquet and the incredible Thomas Troussier on blues harp.

One of the highlights of the year was the performance by legendary jazz-fusion guitarist John McLaughlin. His earlier Indo-jazz lineups include Mahavishnu Orchestra and Shakti. His current lienup, ‘The Fourth Dimension,’ includes Etienne Mbappe on bass, Ranjit Barot on drums and Gary Husband on keyboards and drums. The Bangalore performance marked the final leg of the band’s international tour of 2015.

Mumbai-based guitarist Dhruv Ghanekar performed along with drummer Gino Banks, keyboardist Karan ‘Mad Fingers’ Joseph and bassist Sheldon D’Silva. Dhruv has performed overseas at the Borneo International Jazz Festival and Java Jazz Festival, and has played with Vieux Farka Toure, Richard Bona and Raul Midon.

Indian violinist Jyotsna Srikanth promoted her recent album ‘Bangalore Dreams,’ featuring carnatic violin along with drums and keyboards. Based in London, she blends Indian classical music with Western classical, folk and jazz. She has performed at WOMAD, Red Violin Festival, and The Music Academy, Chennai. Jyotsna is the Artistic Director of the London International Arts Festival, and has performed on soundtracks of over 200 films. She performed in Bangalore along with Shadrach Solomon on keyboards and Manjunath N.S. on drums.

I picked up over a dozen CDs for review and radio play from the artistes, and already look forward to another terrific lineup of bands at B-Flat and other Bangalore venues in 2016!

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

Last month we initiated the first edition of Bumi Sangkuriang Jazz Night, which marked the return of regular jazz community event back in the legendary, historical hall of Balai Pertemuan (Meeting Hall) Bumi Sangkuriang Bandung. As you might probably know, this building which was established in 1957 is one of the earliest homes of jazz here in Bandung. In 1981 Bumi Sangkuriang got the regular jazz event for the first time which stood strong for 9 years. Almost a decade later the regular event was back again and stayed for 2 years. Then it was off, and on again for a while, and then it’s gone, for 5 years.

Jazzuality.com are happy to be able to bring it back. By collaborating with Venche Music School (especially the founder Venche Manuhutu and Kanggep Kusuma) and of course the venue, we are planning to provide an alternative for everyone to enjoy good quality of jazz without having to pay anything. We want to feature the best talents who know how to play jazz the right way, at the same time we wish to support young talents. Providing reliable and prestigious playground while at the same time giving them a chance to be known by the society, especially jazz lovers.

Here we come to Bumi Sangkuriang Jazz Night #2. We actually try to fit it to our original schedule, but since Bumi Sangkuriang has another agenda, the event is moved to Thursday, February 11, 2016. Starting at 7:00 pm to 9:30 pm. The event is open for public and totally free of charge. If last time we brought prominent jazz musicians from Jakarta (Robert Mulyarahardja and Ricad Hutapea), this time for Bumi Sangkuriang Jazz Night #2 we carry it on by inviting another important name in jazz: Dion Janapria.

Guitarist Dion Janapria was born in Jakarta on 23 September 1980. He studied under Marcel Karreman and Eef Alberts at Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht, and Martijn Van Iterson at Amsterdam Conservatory. Dion Janapria’s venture in music ranging from the eclectic Tao Kombo Collective Messkeepers sessions in 2009 to the experimental Aksan Sjuman’s Committee of The Fest in 2012. He’s also known for his studio works and sessions for Sandhy Sondoro and Rieka Roslan among others.

Step aside from all these, he has also established his solo career by releasing his critically acclaimed trio album, “Silver is The Color of The Blues” produced in 2014. For this album he plays as a trio with Kevin Yosua and Othman Djuliarso. In the educational side, he is a music teacher at Djazz Music School, Jakarta, a lecturer and jazz guitar coordinator at Pelita Harapan University (for Jazz Guitar, Jazz History and Improvisation Concepts).

He often looks reserved and calm while playing, but the way he serves jazz elegantly with his guitar will hipnotize you. He has graced many prestigious international jazz festivals including the Java Jazz Festival in Jakarta and Ubud Village Jazz Festival in Bali. Other than playing music, he is also a good writer. Plenty of talents can be found in this humble man,  you will love his play right from the very first note.

To accompany him, VMS sends its two young guns under the name of VMS Rhythm Section: Alman Naufal (drums) and Ezra Manuhutu (bass). Alman serves as a drum instructor for this music school, while Ezra is now settled with bass after sax. He is ready to follow his elder brother David Manuhutu’s footsteps. Collaboration like this will give benefit to the young musicians since they can learn and get a lot of experiences from stylish jazz musician like Dion. It’s going to be fun!

Also representing jazz from Bandung is Continuum. Continuum is a jazz trio built as a vehicle for the young aspiring musicians in Bandung to express themselves through their music. The band formed exactly a year ago in February 2015, consisting of guitar-bass-drums connection and occasionally, an additional vocal when needed. Today the band has three skillful players who are passionate with jazz: Hajar Asyura (guitar), Willyam Yuzaq (drums) and Satya Bayu (bass).

Continuum draws influences from wide array of jazz greats including Robert Glasper Brad Mehldau, Gilad Hekselman, Eric Harland, Wes Montgomery, Oscar Peterson, Lionel Loueke, Ben Williams and Herbie Hancock among others. So far they have participated in jazz communities in Bandung, Depok and Jakarta. Willyam is also the drummer of Radhini. As for Hajar, he’s very active in the jazz circle both in Bandung and Jakarta and often joins jam sessions whenever possible. Speaking of jam, he has done it with some renowned musicians, including German-American pianist Benny Lackner. It’s true that this band is still considerably new, but make no mistake because they ‘speak’ jazz fluently and sharp as a team. Claiming themselves as one of the strongest players in Bandung’s jazz scene today, we say you will agree once you see them.

For the first time we are going to feature a magical little girl, still 9 year-old but full of jazz spirit. Her name is Nadine. If usually children around that age are still enjoying and having fun with their childhood lives, Nadine is already very motivated in responding her passion in jazz. Think about it. This girl is still studying. She has to attend lessons after school, both for her formal study and piano. But hey, she still forces herself happily to attend any jazz events everywhere. Staying from the start until the end, even if she has to fall asleep here and there during the show.

What she loves is the chance to play on stage during the jam session. She loves to browse the Youtube, finding the songs she likes and then plays them her way. And we are talking about a 9 year-old girl.

We have invited her to play a couple of times in our other event, and we see a tremendous growth. She has the ability to re-arrange the songs she found on the internet to suit her style, not making it simple but also contain cool jazz improvisations. She has overcame her nervousness and now enjoys her moment on stage. Another good thing is that her left hand is as strong as her right. She provides strong rhythm with the left hand that support the swinging sensation produced by her right hand.

The world is recently surprised by Joey Alexander who got nominated in two categories for Grammy Awards, now here’s a girl, younger than Joey who is ready to follow his footsteps.

In a hope to bring jazz back to home, we think hard to feature variety of highly talented players who we think could represent jazz in a good way. What’s interesting is that, in jazz there’s no age limitation. And Indonesia, including Bandung, is blessed with amazing musicians who are deeply passionate in jazz and also knows how to paint more vibrant colors over the pallette. A community event needs your support in order to keep going. So please be there. You can enjoy variety of performance while at the same time supporting us and this event. See you.

Bumi Sangkuriang Jazz Night #2

Date: Thursday, 11 February 2016
Time: 07:00 – 09:30 pm
Location: Balai Pertemuan Bumi Sangkuriang
Jl. Kiputih 12, Bandung

FREE EVENT!

Supported by Tiga Negeri Music House, Music Gear, AB Production, Infobdg and Roemah Enak-Enak

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It feels just like yesterday, but our community event Braga Jazz Walk has been running for more than a year. So far we have featured tens of groups, hundreds of musicians who participated in the showcase and jam sessions. Not only from Bandung, other musicians from other cities and even, other nations have graced our small stage. Renowned musicians from Mexico, Italy, USA, Australia and Malaysia have been captured on stage. We intend this event to be friendly for everyone, even to those who are not into jazz yet. We are happily welcoming everyone to participate and enjoy the event, provided totally free from any charge. We got full support from the venue, Braga CityWalk and KPH Music to make all of this possible.

In this month of February, Braga Jazz Walk #20 is ready to roll. If before this event ran every fourth Thursday of the month, starting this February the event will be held on the third Thursday. FThis 20th edition is coming next week, Thursday, 18 February 2016, starting at 7:00 pm up until the mall’s closing time. For this edition we are going to feature variety of jazz-related music, from pop jazz, bebop, fusion and even some classical, gypsy swing with the twist are to be there. It’s going to be interesting! Oh yes, jam sessions will be open afterwards, musicians from any backgrounds are welcome to be a part of it.

Now let’s see the featured bands for this Braga Jazz Walk #20. First, allow us to introduce a beautiful girl with beautiful gift in her voice: Rizka Adlina. Other than having a sweet, soulful voice, she also plays some instruments including piano and guitar.

Rizka began singing as early as 3 years old when she took lessons at the Elfa Music School (EMS). She was active in some singing competition for children and already performed with other fellows from EMS here and there. In her high school years she started writing her own songs and played in some cafes, school parties, birthdays and so on.

After finding out about her from her Youtube channel and Soundcloud, we finally met her when she performed alongside MotionVibe at Braga Jazz Walk Special Edition: Road to Indonesian Jazz Festival 2015 (read the report here: http://jazzuality.com/jazz-event-report/braga-jazz-walk-special-edition-road-to-kita-indonesia-indonesian-jazz-festival-2015-report/) and directly think of her as a diamond in a rough. She is a good soulful singer who can put all the notes in all the right places, she has her own character, she got style, and the camera loves her too. Now in 2016 we think it’s about time to invite her not as part of a band but as herself. Some friends are going to support her, including Farhan Faikar (bass), Raka Rizkyandi (drums), Rifqi Mochamad (keys; also the member of pop band Panorama), Achay ‘Elpucino’ (guitar) and Ayu (backing vocal).

What we also think important to share is that she is taking Korean Language as her subject at the university. “In the future, I would love to sing Korean songs because I can understand the meaning of them.” she said. She also told us that she is going to write song in Korean language too. That would be something different, and since the K-pop is taking over the world, Rizka may have succeed in that.

Rizka is looking forward to release a single and mini album, which she believes it’s going to be different than other singers. Pop jazz exploration is what she loves the most, and so far we think she’s doing very, very well in digging this scene along with soul and RnB. You can watch her Youtube video above. If you like her, do come and watch her performance at this edition.

We are happy to invite a pure jazz group Etudiant for another round. Etudiant originally consists of a trio: Tiurma Tizadya Ramadhani Siregar (piano), Ilham Septia Inda Nugraha (bass) and Galih Cahya Nugraha (drums). But lately they have been having a reinforcement from a lethal young jazz guitarist currently studying in Jakarta, Anjuan Julio. Anjuan is going to participate in this act. Since the drummer Galih won’t be able to come due to his schedule, Alman Naufal is going to take over his position.

Etudiant is a French word means Student. What does the band mean by this name? According to Ilham, they use that name as a reminder that they were all students from Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (UPI), also a reminder that they have to keep learning and practicing.

We still remember how cool it was when they played at the 9th edition (read the report here: http://jazzuality.com/jazz-event-report/braga-jazz-walk-09-the-report/). At that time they served stunning straighteahead by covering jazz (swing and bebop) standards. Their version of “My Favorite Things” was really nice. Strong, tight and clean performance in digging the pure jazz territory can be expected from this group. Another thing that makes us curious is how much color will Anjuan add into their already cool pallette. For you ‘hardcore’ jazz lovers, this group will satisfy you in every drop.

Perhaps some of you remember an artist from Yogyakarta named Fay Ehsan who surprised the judges and the audience at Indonesia Mencari Bakat season 3 in 2012 with his unusual way of playing guitar. Unlike others, the guitar is used to serve beat like drums, and the way of abusing the strings is also unortodox. The experts said that he is a rare talent, but that doesn’t mean he is the only one. We have invited fingerstyle guitarist to participate in Braga Jazz Walk, but here comes a sensational, ground-breaking duo who play music like no other: Gigitaran.

Gigitaran (a Sundanese word means ‘playing, having fun with guitar’) is a dynamic acoustic guitar duo consists of two string stuntmen: Bondan P Sakti and Arma Gautama Joshua Elkens. They are using the normal acoustic guitar that we know of, but they go further using it in totally different approach. They can lay the guitar down on the floor or table, then play it like harp, drum and so on. They are producing mind-bending music in sharp chemistry, letting their fingers do the dance just like a showdown of two wizards. Do watch this video of them:

Bondan and Arma, the Gigitaran is going to hook you up with sensational act. The basic is classical, but they embrace borderless genres as they wish. You can hear some post rock, gypsy swing, jazz, pop and even the Middle Eastern sound from them. In letting out those sounds, they don’t just play the string and body, but they can go up to the fret all the way to the head stock. There won’t be any part left from their touch. A very unique duo this is, you won’t believe your eyes.

The last to mention is a brand new band with unique name: Dream on Diminish. The band was established in 2010 when some regular musicians had a meeting for an event. Basically this band consists of three main members: Razaqa (guitar/bass), Fariz (guitar) and Rivandi (drum/cajon). During performance they can extend the formation with more sessionists too. In this event they are going to bring 3 more players: Angelica Siahaan (vocal), Maya (violin) and Sandi Lesmana (bass).

They have played regularly and participating in some events all over Bandung all the way to Depok. The claim their music lies in between blues, rock n roll and jazz by being inspired by the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan, B.B King, Rolling Stone, The Beatles, George Benson, Jaco Pastorius and Incognito among others.

While we love to keep track of bands who have played on our stage, We are always happy to welcome new ones to join us. Dream on Diminish is going to participate in this event for the very first time. It’s time for us to check them out.

For musicians who are not scheduled for this ediiton or even those who still have no band, we invite you to be a part of the event by playing in the jam session. As we said before, the jam session is totally open for everyone. Other than drum and piano, just bring your gear, let us know and you can jump right in. Braga Jazz Walk #20 is coming soon, no longer than next week, Thursday, 18 February 2016. Mark your calendar and see you then.

BRAGA JAZZ WALK #20

Date: Thursday, February 18, 2016
Time: 07:00 – 10:00 pm
Location: Braga CityWalk
Jl. Braga 99 – 101, Bandung

FREE EVENT!

FEATURING:

:: RIZKA ADLINA ::
Rizka Adlina – vocal
Farhan Faikar – bass
Raka Rizkyandi – drums Rifqi Mochamad – keys
Achay ‘Elpucino’ – guitar
Ayu – backing vocal

:: ETUDIANT ::
Ilham Septi Inda Nugraha – bass
Tiurma Tizadya Ramadhani Siregar – piano
Anjuan Julio – guitar
Alman Naufal – drums

:: GIGITARAN ::
Bondan P Sakti – guitar
Arma Gautama Joshua Elkens – guitar

:: DREAM ON DIMINISH ::
Razaqa – guitar
Fariz Gafar – guitar
Rivandi – drum/cajon
Angelica Siahaan – vocal
Maya – violin
Sandi Lesmana – bass

Keb Mo, Soulmate, Heritage Blues Orchestra, Joss Stone and more – only at the Mahindra Blues Festival!

The sixth annual Mahindra Blues Festival wrapped up this weekend in Mumbai in fine style, with a final jam featuring three-time Grammy award winner Keb Mo and platinum-bestselling British soul singer Joss Stone. Chart-leading female guitarist Malina Moye and top Indian blues band Soulmate also took the stage, along with The Heritage Blues Orchestra (Chicago) and King King (Scotland).

Blues giants at earlier editions of the festival include Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker Jr., Taj Mahal, and Jimmie Vaughan. There was also a talent hunt for the best new blues band in India, and the winners were Lal & The People, followed by Kanchan Daniel & The Beards. The music competition for the Mahindra Blues Band Hunt was held at The True School of Music, with composers Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa as the judges.

Day One

The first performance was by festival regular Soulmate, formed in 2003 in Shillong, Northeast India, by guitarist Rudy Wallang and vocalist Tipriti Kharbangar. Their opening set featured a fast-paced mix of funk, blues and rock, showcasing the soaring vocal range of Tipriti, right from soft whispers to gale-force wails. The tracks ‘Footloose Girl’ and an instrumental inspired by Peter Green really stood out.

The Heritage Blues Orchestra from Chicago has kept alive songs dating way back to the 1920s and earlier, and given them a new interpretation with harmonica and New Orleans-style brass. Vocalist Chaney Sims drew loud applause for her powerful vocal renditions, with Bill Sims and Junior Mack on guitars; Vincent Bucher wowed the audience with sizzling harmonica solos. The drum-dance combo, twin trumpet duet (replete with plungers), and acoustic solo by Junior Mack were among the highlights of their session.

The final act was Keb Mo, who is hailed as a visionary roots-music storyteller, blending Delta blues with folk and jazz. He showed how he is aptly regarded as the ‘living link’ to the roots of Delta music. He switched between four guitars during his set, with solid backing by Stan Sargeant on bass. The audience loudly requested his tracks “Just Like You” and “Gimme What You Got”,  and Keb happily complied, coming back later for two encores.

Day Two

The second day kicked off with King King, a blues-rock band from Glasgow, lead solidly by Alan Nimmo (vocals/guitar) and Lindsay Coulson (bass). The Scottish wit and humour showed right from the start of the set, when Alan walked onto the stage in a kilt, saying it was “too hot for trousers or underwear!” They promoted a range of tracks from their new CD, “Reaching for the Light”.

The energy climbed up several notches with Malina Moye. The award-winner guitarist is left-handed, but plays a Fender Stratocaster upside down. Her high-energy act was more rock and funk than blues, and she kicked off her set by actually playing amidst the audience and then walking on stage. She changed her costume towards the end of her show as well, and wrapped up with a fiery rendition of “Foxy Lady.” “My guitar always has something to say,” she explained, with her trademark full flashy smile.

The headlining act was Joss Stone, with her wide musical range spanning blues, soul, pop, ballads and reggae. She drew loud applause from the audience for her Indian-styled red-and-gold ghagra-choli dress, for greeting them with ‘shukriya’ (thank you), and for including a sound sample of the sarod instrument in one of her songs. The audience kept requesting her to sing the blues instead of her other material, and she eventually obliged with renditions of tracks like “I Put A Spell On You” and “Son Of A Preacher Man.” ‘Love is not always unconditional like music,” she said, perhaps a fitting message on the day of her performance, Valentine’s Day.

The Festival ended with a rather all-too-brief jam with Rudy Wallang, Tipriti Kharbangar,

Bill Sims, Junior Mack, Keb Mo, Alan Nimmo and Malina Moye joining Joss and her band on stage. Still, the sight of all these greats together on stage for a once-in-a-lifetime jam was enough to send the audience into loud raptures, and a perfect note to end the 2016 edition of the Festival.

The Festival Story

The blues is about putting up with hardships in life but moving on – transforming the pain through a burst of creative energy, and sometimes a laugh, drink and stomping dance as well. That also seems to sum up the spirit of the city of Mumbai, home of India’s legendary Bollywood industry and hub of many jazz and rock bands.

Blues and Bombay (Mumbai) come together perfectly in the Mahindra Blues Festival, as conceived by corporate conglomerate CEO Anand Mahindra, for whom the blues was an early musical influence. (Bangalore has a much smaller but popular blues festival called ‘Ode to the Blues’ – see my writeup here.)

There is also a radio programme called the Mahindra Blues Show hosted by Brian Tellis on Radio One. The festival has a Chicago incarnation as well – called The Mahindra Blues Weekend, hosted by none other than Buddy Guy.

Organised by OranJuice Entertainment, the Mahindra Blues Festival is held every year at Mehboob Studio in Bandra, with the main acts in two large halls and an open-air dining area in between. Bars, a lounge, vinyl store, and DVD kiosk are popular draws for the festival attendees, who come from across India and overseas as well.

For such a well designed and branded event, one feature is surprisingly missing: branded T-shirts and related merchandise! I have a huge collection of T-shirts and bags from the Montreal International Jazz Festival, Java Jazz Festival, WOMAD, Jazz International Rotterdam, Rainforest World Music Festival, Borneo Jazz Festival, Penang World Music Festival, and so on – fans love to lap up such merchandise and wear it on their travels around the world. It would be great to see such additions next year at the Mahendra Blues Festival too. The choice of T-shirt design could even be ‘crowdsourced’ to the global design community, thus creating more pre-event buzz.

The Festival curators also have a lot of work cut out for them in terms of artiste lineup for next year – many festival goers this year complained to me that the artistes on Day Two were more of ‘rock, pop and noise’ than real blues, a big let-down from the ‘blues high’ of Day One.

Still, I was delighted to meet many fellow blues fans some of whom had also come from Bangalore, a number of college friends from my Mumbai days whom I hadn’t seen in years, and even an American IT professional from Dallas who is a blues guitarist as well – he ‘arranges’ work every year around this time in India so that he can attend the Festival! We all look forward to the next edition of the Mahindra Blues Festival already, in 2017.

See more pictures:

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

Bumi Sangkuriang Jazz Night is a new regular jazz event,  located in the Balai Pertemuan Bumi Sangkuriang  at the upper side of Bandung. It is served inside a luxurious grand hall of Concordia, but presented friendly and intimate, providing a perfect setting to enjoy live jazz concert. The bands perform on a medium-sized stage at the front area near the entrance.

As you might probably know, this building which was established in 1957 is one of the earliest homes of jazz here in Bandung. The history of regular jazz gig in this building began in 1981 which stayed on for 9 years. Almost a decade later the regular event was back again and stayed for 2 years. Then it was off, and on again for a while, and then it’s gone for 5 years. Jazzuality.com is proud to bring it back, collaborating with Venche Music School (especially the founder Venche Manuhutu and Kanggep Kusuma) and some other supporting partners.

This is the report of the Bumi Sangkuriang #2. Following the premiere held in January (read the report here: http://jazzuality.com/jazz-event-report/bumi-sangkuriang-jazz-night-1-the-report/), once again we invited one of the best jazz musicians from Jakarta. If last time we got Robert Mulyarahardja, this time another jazz guitarist who served both as active musician and lecturer happily involved in this edition. His name is Dion Janapria. Two other sessions were given to Bandung talents. One is a trio who speaks jazz fluently, and the other one is an amazing little girl aged 9 with 10 fingers hunger for jazz. They are Continuum and Nadine.

Nadine opened up this edition. This 9-year-old musical prodigy has been making waves recently with her beyond-her-years skills in Piano. She has paticipated in our events, but this is her first time to grace the Bumi Sangkuriang Jazz Night. She is cute, innocent but once she sits behind the piano, that’s a different story.

She gained a lot of applause right away from the first song from Charlie Parker, “Billy’s Bounce”. After greeting everyone, she carried on with Dizzy Gillespie’s song from the early 40’s,  “A Night in Tunisia” before pinning Stevie Wonder’s hit, “Isn’t She Lovely”. Not easy songs to play for a girl her age, yet she did it very, very well. For the last song, Nadine played the song of Wayne Shorter as the final presentation entitled “Footprints”.

Nadine started learning not that long ago, but she clearly improves faster than normal. She now can compose on her own, playing anything she found in Youtube to fit her style. Surprisingly, she doesn’t make it simple but already able to play it in jazz harmony with delightful swing. Both of her hands are equally strong. While her right hand dances freely over the keys, her left often supports with strong sense of rhythm. we are proud that she began her musical journey on our stage a year ago and we will continue our support. Nadine brings magic in jazz, lets give her a chance to be the next Joey Alexander. Can she? Yes, absolutely.

We are honored that the founders of two previous regular jazz gigs ever made in this building came to this second edition. We already invited Hari Pochang last month to join us on stage and shared the memory of the past, back to the time when his Jazz Break was on during 1981 to 1989. This time we invited Dwi Cahya Yuniman, the founder of solid jazz community who ran Jazz Break Revival from 2008 to 2010 in Bumi Sangkuriang. He shared us the story from that time range. It’s really an honored for us to have their coming and support.

Continuum is the second performer of the night. Continuum was established in february 2015  consisting of guitar-bass-drums connection and occasionally, an additional vocal when needed. The band consists of three players: Willyam Yuzaq (drum), Hajar Asyura (guitar) and Satya Bayu (bass). We knew them individually as good musician who are passionate with jazz from a couple of years ago, but this is the first time for us to have them as one unit in our event.

Unfortunately Satya Bayu couldn’t come tonight. So his place was taken by also a good bassist, Dyva. Continuum started sailing with a song from John Meyer, “Stop This Train” which gave different nuance. They are like harmonic laboratory who produced the beauty of jazz by involving their whole instruments on stage.

They featured a female singer Mirna Nurmala afterwards which directly gave a heartfelt and emotional song, “Distance” originally by Emily King.  Mirna has a unique voice, smooth, soothing and deep. Next, she sang the first track from Monita’s new album Dandelion titled “Kisah Terindah.” They kept the folk music but infused some jazz too. Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One” appeared in totally different arrangement, and then ended with The Jongens’ “Miss Jones” in which Mirna demonstrated her ability in humming throughout the song.

Continuum develops unique sound of jazz by fusing a bit of new age and even healing music within their songs. You can tell that they play jazz, but somehow it sounds slightly new. That’s how Continuum is, based on their performance tonight.

Beautiful play by three musicians inside this band. Their instruments are also complimenting one another. Good chemistry between them, standout skills and ability to arrange. Plus an additional vocalist with good voice and charisma, Continuum gave out a lovely performance.

Not many pure jazz bands found in Bandung today, so Continuum has a very important mission to preserve the sound of pure jazz in Bandung and our national music scene. Looking at their ability to play jazz the right way, speaking it fluently and their passion, we know that this band has good chance to succeed. The future of jazz in Indonesia lies in the young lions, Continuum is simply one of the bands we could hope for.

Following our move to feature one or some artists from Jakarta, this second installment featured another superb jazz guitarist, Dion Janapria.

Dion is relatively still young, but he is one of the most important names to mention if we talk about jazz in Indonesia today. He studied under Marcel Karreman and Eef Alberts at Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht, and Martijn Van Iterson at Amsterdam Conservatory. He has been contributing a lot either as an active musician and teacher. He has been going through such illustrious career, ranging from his involvement in the eclectic Tao Kombo Collective Messkeepers sessions in 2009 to the experimental Aksan Sjuman’s Committee of The Fest in 2012. He’s also known for his studio works and sessions for Sandhy Sondoro and Rieka Roslan among others. But he’s not only a sessionist, because he also maintain his solo career by releasing his critically acclaimed album in trio format, “Silver is the Color of Blues”, released in 2014. In the educational side he is a music teacher at Djazz Music School in Jakarta, a lecturer and jazz guitar coordinator at Pelita Harapan University (for Jazz Guitar, Jazz History and Improvisation Concepts) among others.

For the very first time we got this superb jazz man in our event. Joining him were two musicians from Bandung, Aries Ardiansyah (upright bass) and Alman Naufal (drums).

Dion, Aries and Alman began with “If You Were the Bell”, a song from the 50’s which became jazz standard since it was featured by Miles Davis. Alman showed his smooth side by using brush sticks. One of Dion’s most favorite song, “My Ideal” brought the audience into even more romantic mood.

“Fried Pie Blues” was tasty and uplifting. And then another beautiful rendition came with a classic from 1928, “Softly As In the Morning Sunrise”. Dion’s guitar playing was very ellegant and full of feeling. The audience gave him applauses many times, also to the rhythm sections especially after they did cool solo during the songs.

They went swinging faster with another classic from the 30’s, “Beautiful Love”. Jerome Kern’s “All the Things You Are” kept all the beauty of swing right in pocket, serving a memorable ending.

It was supposed to be the end, but the audience actually wanted some more. Dion, Aries and Alman fulfilled the wish by playing one last song, another gem from the 30’s written by Jimmy McHugh, “I’m in The Mood For Love”. Cool long tradings were given in this song, much appreciated by the audience.

Playing with Dion Janapria should give benefit to Bandung musicians. They can gain more experience and learn something out of it. As for Dion, we hope he enjoyed playing with young musicians that he hadn’t played with before and also enjoyed playing for Bandung jazz lovers. “I’m very happy playing with them. They are awesome.” he said. It’s surely nice to hear the clean soothing sound of Dion’s guitar inside a big ballroom hall of Concordia. In a hope to provide an event where young musicians could learn from, we hope those who came could learn something from Dion Janapria. As for the campaign of ‘bringing jazz back home’, Dion and all the participating musicians tonight have fulfilled our mission in style.

We hope by attending this concert people would be more aware of the diversity of style and compositional techniques inherent, particularly enjoyed the perfomances brought by all multi talented people and learn something from them. The expression of audience tonight summarize the skills and quality of all musicians performed in this concert. On a personal level, this concert offered us a revitalizing perception in jazz and the limitless harmony it can create. Apart from this, we also developed a deeper experties for the diverse talents among local jazz musicians and for the musical experts to find more ideas and alternatives in expressing themselves into music.  This is one of the biggest benefits we can get by attending jazz concert, and we would do our best to provide so. Thank you for coming and supporting, we hope to see you again next month. Jazz on, guys!

See more pictures:

Reporter: Debby Siahaan, Riandy Kurniawan
Photographer: Titus Firmanto

Supported by Tiga Negeri Music House, Music Gear, AB Production, Infobdg and Roemah Enak-Enak

Special thanks to: Krisda Komara, Kanggep Kusuma, Yoga ‘Ogoy’ of Bandung Blues Society (BBS)

For you who are looking for variety of art and culture events in Jakarta, the Komunitas Salihara should be one of the answers. It’s a cultural enclave established in 2008 and known as the first private multidisciplinary art center in Indonesia since then. Stood on a 3.800 m2 plot at Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, Komunitas Salihara is divided into three main buildings: Teater Salihara, Galeri Salihara and office space but now expands to provide more facilities such as rehearsal studio, guesthouse and also an amphitheater. Komunitas Salihara has been featuring wide varieties of program including Jazz.

Similiar to the previous couple of years, Salihara once again kicks off the new year with Salihara Jazz Buzz 2016, providing series of jazz concerts presenting nothing but the best players in the field with fresh new ideas, compositions, interpretations and so on where the words innovative, smart or even genius live on, different than what you can find elsewhere.

So, what’s on the menu this year? There are Lecture Concert Jazz and four jazz concerts, each got its own schedule. Let’s break them down one by one.

LECTURE CONCERT JAZZ with TJUT NYAK DEVIANA DAUDSJAH

In this Lecture Concert Jazz, madame Professor Tjut Njak Deviana Daudsjah is going to tell the history of jazz right from the moment it was born in USA in the early 20th century. Different than most of us know that jazz was developed by the African American slaves, she believes jazz is the fruit of America’s diversity success story. While the harmony and melodic structures came from European classical music, it got advanced rhythm from the African soils.

Tjut Nyak Deviana is said to play some videos about jazz, from the moment it was born, the beginning to it’s life in 21st century, along with presenting variety of jazz which will be played both by herself and in trio format.

Tjut Nyak Deviana is a senior musician and professor graduated from Musichochschule Freiburg, Germany in 1980. She holds Bachelor Degree in Classical Piano Performance and Composition, Master Degree in Jazz Vocal and Doctorate Degree in Music Educaion. She has spent a great deal of her life abroad, no less than 36 years. When she was still active at Jazz and Rock Schulen Freiburg and served as a rector and professor for Music Academy in Basel, Switzerland, she designed a curriculum for moern music based on classical discipline and modern vocal study which was validated by German Federal Government and Schweizerischer Musikpaedagogischer Verband. Speaking of career, she is an artist with several record albums (national and internationally released), pianist, vocalist, arranger, composer, conductor, professor and music educator. She founded Institut Musik Daya Indonesia in 2001.

Date: Wednesday, 17 February 2016
Time: 7:00 pm

DINO AND IMAGINATIONS by TRODON

Formerly called Tiamat, the group decided to change its name to Trodon in 2014, exactly a year after its establishment. From this moment on, they don’t have to worry anymore of being mistaken with a Swedish death metal band with the same name.

The name Trodon was taken from one of the dinosaur’s species, Troodon. Troodon is believed to be the smartest dinosaurs in Creataceous period, approximately 145,5 to 66,5 million years ago. Trodon consists of Biondi Noya (electric guitar), Irene Pattinaya (keyboard), Nadya Romaneta (alto saxophone, flute), Aprila Sitompul (bass) and Peter Lumingkewas (drum).

Trodon plays instrumental songs influenced by progressive jazz/rock, the unusual instruments combination and complex musical structures. Their progressive instrumental pieces have been adding unique colors onto the jazz stages in Indonesia. Not only their musical concept, the name of their songs are also unique, such as “Tyrannosaurus Rex”, “A Mynour”, “Apep, “Highway Pluton”, “Cyborg Rex”, “UFO” among others.

Trodon has performend in numerous events such as Rock Campus: Indonesia Maharddhika, Rolling Stone Cafe (2015) and Music is Music #4, Piston Brake Cafe, Jakarta (2014).

Date: Saturday, February 20, 2016
Time: 08:00 pm
Duration: 60 minutes

TESLA MANAF

Tesla is a unique talent with unique background. Starting with classical piano and guitar since age 9, he switched to jazz to accomodate his wish to have convenient space where he could unleash his passion in total freedom. He was raised in 60’s-70’s styles of rock progressive ranging from Mahavisnu Orchestra, Gentle Giant, ELP all the way to Soft Machine that he got from his father. This scene made him familiar with complex music which are rich in details. Not only progressive rock, he was also familiar with contemporary music from maestros such as Debussy, Bela Bartok and Krzysztof Penderecki that has been influencing him in terms of composing something with odd melodies. From her mother he heard pop songs in the 70’s and 80’s, then from his brother his ears encountered death metal.

As a guitarist, Tesla is the kind of brave young man that’s willing to risk everything in order to pursue his dream to become a musician. His first chapter of success came when he established Tesla Manaf feat Mahagotra Ganesha which combined a modern progressive jazz with traditional Balinese gamelan ensemble. This album caught the attention of US label MoonJune Records and made him a fresh, new recruit from Indonesia joining simakDialog, Tohpati Ethnomission, Dewa Budjana, Ligro, Dwiki Dharmawan and I Know You Well Miss Clara. To answer the challenge given by this label, Tesla quickly worked on the concept and came out with something he called Progressive Acoustic Experimental Music. His works as a quartet is titled “A Man’s Relationship With His Fragile Area”. His international debut album released on November 26, 2014 which soon followed by the hard copy (CD) about a month later, being distributed worldwide by MoonJune.

With this album, he received bags of praises from around the world. Mark S Tucker, a critic refered this albu as “one of the best CDs of the decade.” And that’s only one from so many wonderful reviews he’s been receiving. Tesla Manaf is the name he simply chose for his international debut. Joining him are his skillful fellows including Hadis “Hulhul” Hendarisman (clarinet), Rudy Zulkarnaen/Krishna Alda Radiansyah (bass) and Desal Sembada (drum).

Just a couple of months ago he became the headline especially among jazz enthusiasts by touring to Turkey for a couple of month. Now he’s here, joining the lineup of Salihara Jazz Buzz 2016. But after that, he’s going to go to Japan, playing at Sub Store (Tokyo), Half Tone (Tokyo) and GC Live (Nagoya) in March.

His unique approach to modern composition assures that you won’t necessarily find the traditional song elements of verse, chorus, solo, bridge or refrain. They don’t occupy the accepted position or possess the interrelationship you have come to expect. This “turning on its head” approach to composition, along with each player’s technique and choice of instrument tone color, gives great impact to the experience of listening. More ‘hardcore’ than usual, with his new progressive acoustic experimental model, it’s difficult to argue with the fact that he is now standing amongst world’s guitar giants that are mostly much older than him.

Date: Sunday, 21 February 2016
Time: 8:00 pm
Duration: 80 minutes

I KNOW YOU WELL MISS CLARA with Special Guests: ROYKE B KOAPAHA & IWAN HASAN

Here’s another example of the great Indonesian bands from the new generation who can stand equally to much experienced and senior international progressive jazz-rock bands, probably even the all-time giants. The name is unique: I Know You Well Miss Clara, founded by four students of ISI, Yogyakarta in 2010. Inspred by vast diversity of modern music’s most visionary pioneers from Jimi Hendrix, Soft Machine and Matching Mole, to the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman, just to mention a few, their music captures the energy and essence which characterized some of progressive jazz’ and fusion’s most defining artists.

The band is led by highly productive adventurous guitarist Reza Ryan, keyboard prodigy Adi Wijaya, the impressive bassist Enriko Gultom and sharp drummer/percussionist Alfiah Akbar. They released the debut album “Chapter One” in 2013, released internationally by MoonJune Records. The album made into The Best 100 Top Album 2013 (ProgArchives), Best Progressive Album 2013 (Progsphere), Best Debut Album (Jazz Journalist Association) and nominated in AMI Awards 2015. As their second album, Chapter Two is on its way, this concert will include songs from both albums.

This band redefines the jazz-rock progressive jazz fusion scene by staying true to their nature. For us they are showing that there are still unexplored terrains in this musical category. These four brave stunts are exploring the area and bring their listeners along the journey.

To spice things up, they will be accompanied by two special guests: the man behind the phenomenal band Discus, Iwan Hasan and lecturer of ISI Yogyakarta, Royke B Koapaha. MoonJune Records says the album is “a feast for your ears”, or “like an exotic delicacy or a vintage wine”. If you love progressive musics, this band will remind you why you first fell in love with it first of all.

Date: Saturday, 27 February 2016
Time: 8:00 pm
Duration: 110 minutes

TRIBUTE TO EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER by MANTICORE PROJECT

Are any of you a fan of Emerson, Lake and Palmer? If you have listened to music since the early 70’s, most probably you would be one of this legendary classical-progressive rock group from London, and you should be interested in this concert.

The tribute is going to be presented by Manticore Project. Manticore Project consists of Dameria Hutabarat (grand piano/pipe organ), Krisna Prameswara (Hammond organ, minimoog, keyboard), Dave Lumenta (bass, guitar, synthesizer, vocal), Riyandi Andaputra (drum/electro percussion) and Farman Purnama (main vocalist). They come from different musical disciplines/backgrounds.

Manticore Project is especially formed for Jazz Buzz Salihara 2016. Band leader Dameria finished her music study at Yayasan Pendidikan Musik and simultaneously attended electronic organ lessons at Yamaha Musik Indonesia. She graduated from Trinity College of Music in London mastering pipe organ. Krisna Prameswara is a multigenre musician who is known as an important person behind Discus and Cockpit Band. If usually you see him playing keyboard, this time he will play minimoog and Hammond. Dave Lumenta is an anthropologist who finished his doctoral program in Kyoto University. While in the college he once played with Elfonda ‘Once’ Mekel.

Riyandi Andaputra is a lethal young drummer. We first met him when he served as the drummer of Ginda & the White Flowers. Today he is active in many bands/projects: Indro Hardjodikoro’s The Fingers, Groovader, Six Strings, Emerald BEX and his newest duo, Dua Drum. He has played with Hadrien Feraud (including in our event: Terraz Jazz Special Edition http://jazzuality.com/jazz-event-report/terraz-jazz-special-edition-the-report/), Agnez Mo, Tompi, Andien, Dian Pramana Poetra, Dewa Budjana and Tohpati. Last to mention is Farman Purnama, a tenor who got his master degree from Utrechts Conservatorium, Netherlands. These 6 artistic musicians are ready to bring you back in time to visit the soul and spirit of Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Simply looking at the instruments involved in this concert, you will directly know that this one is going to be different than almost any other concerts you have ever watched.

Date: Sunday, 28 February 2016
Time: 08:00 pm
Duration: 120 minutes

Performers at Salihara Jazz Buzz 2016 are jazz musicians who have made great strides and achievements in the past few years, those who are respected, well noted, even hold shining international reputation. As an annual series of performances intended to widen the horizon of jazz appreciation in Indonesia, the featured bands for this year are magnificent. If you wish to have a new experience in watching jazz concert, write down the schedule and be there.

Location: Teater Salihara
Jl. Salihara No. 16 Kebagusan, Pasar Minggu, Jakarta

Ticket price: IDR 75.000 per show (IDR 35.000 for students)

Buy the ticket here: http://www.salihara.org/programs/music

A long running music schools should have its own community event, since they should have many alumni, teachers, friends and of course, those who are currently learning in it. Other than that, it’s a good way to promote the school to people, penetrating the public directly by presenting good quality concert featuring all players that are related to the school, including the young guns who are still learning at present time.

Venche Music School realizes the importance of this. VMS, the initial of this school is the pioneer of jazz school in Bandung. It was established in 1988 by senior guitarist Venche Manuhutu. With almost 30 years of experience, the school has produced uncountable fruits. Many of them have gained popularity as a music stars, many are following their footsteps and some are still taking lessons as much as possible from this school. Today VMS has reached Jakarta, as Venche Manuhutu also acts as the head master of D’Jazz Music School located at the Western part of Jakarta. With so many talents related to this school, it’s about time for them to establish their own community event. This event is called VMS Jazz Community Performance.

The first one was launched last month, featuring their youngest student Nadine to join the instructors, friends and alumni of the school. Since we are close to the end of February, the second edition is ready to roll. VMS Jazz Community Performance #2 is coming soon, on February 28, 2016 located at the same venue, Seven Cafe & Music Lounge. This event will feature live performances and jam session. It’s free and open for public.

Two bands are set to play in this second edition. First, it’s Continuum who is going to continue their series of performances in Bandung after Bumi Sangkuriang Jazz Night 2 earlier this month (read the report here: http://jazzuality.com/jazz-event-report/bumi-sangkuriang-jazz-night-2-2/). This band originally consists of Willyam Yuzaq (drums), Hajar Asyura (guitar) and Satya Bayu (bass). Since Satya Bayu still can’t play, they found a reliable compatriote who could fill in that position well, Dyva Septiansyah, plus a new vocalist they just met but proved to work perfectly with the band, Mirna Nurmala.

What this band brings is quite unique. They do play jazz the right way, but they don’t play it in pure, traditional way. Instead, they infuse some other musical atmosphere like New Wave or even Healing Music. At times it could be mysterious and noir, at other times they play cheerfully using the pure jazz elements. Mirna helps to capture people’s attention with her strong aura and smooth but sharp vocal style. Since this is a VMS community event, it’s important to mention that Hajar Asyura was one of the success students of VMS, mentored by Venche Manuhutu himself. Hajar studied all the way until the advanced class and got good grades. It’s good to see that now he has a strong band to build his career. Yuzaq is also the drummer of Radhini. Playing real jazz doesn’t always mean that one has to adapt the traditional style of playing too strictly. There are always new possibilities to explore, and Continuum is giving a good example of it.

Then, VMS Jazz Trio. This is like a ‘home band’ to this event that can be filled with different players from the school. For this time, the band will have three energetic young guns: Vico Wibowo (keyboard), Steven (bass) and the drum instructor of the school, Alman Naufal (drums). This will be a good session to find out how far could young talents go in pursuing their jazz dream. Mild to wild straightahead can be expected from them.

There will be open jam session after all the showcases, so if you’re a musician, you can come and have fun with them. The event will start at 8:00 pm, located at Seven Cafe & Music Lounge located at the T-Junction of Setiabudi street and Geger Kalong. Since the event is held on Sunday night, you should be able to reach the place without having too much trouble.

VMS Jazz Community Performance #2

Date: Sunday, 28 February 2016
Time: 08:00 – 10:30 pm
Location: Seven Cafe & Music Lounge
Jl. Setiabudi 182 Bandung

FREE EVENT, OPEN FOR PUBLIC

Bawean Bakery started its business just a year after Indonesia’s Independence Day. Counting it today, this bakery factory with a Dutch background have been running for exactly 70 years, thus standing as one of the oldest bakeries in Bandung. It was called “Sweetheart”, but since the government discouraged foreign names in Indonesia in 1995, this legendary Bakery changed its name to “Bawean Bakery” in line with the street where it was located during that time. Today they are still alive and growing. You can take selection of cakes, breads, donuts, snacks and sweet desserts home, but you can also enjoy it there. Bawean now has expanded from just a Bakery to Gelato, Resto and Cafe.

Now, here’s the interesting part. Imagine if you can eat their delicious traditional recipes while enjoying jazz from the best musicians? What if you can dine their signature and legendary baked goods and enjoy the performances of jazz legends at the same time? That sounds great doesn’t it?

Well, listen. It’s not just an imagination anymore, but soon you can have it for real! Bawean proudly presents Sweetheart Jazz Romantic #1, featuring 3 performances from amazing jazz talents from both Bandung and Jakarta. Since they put the number #1 in the title, that means this event will run regularly. From what we heard this is going to be a quarterly event. If what we heard is true, you can expect to have three more series in 2016. How cool is that. This premiere edition of Sweetheart Jazz Romantic will come on March 1, 2016 at Bawean Resto, Jl. Gandapura no.43 Bandung. The event will start at 6:00 pm.

If you look at the poster, you will find mouth-watering list of internationally reputable artists who can guarantee the presence of delicious swingin’ jazz sound to match the delicious foods served in the resto. Let’s take a quick look at them.

Harvey Malaihollo and Shadow Puppets

Just a couple of months ago Shadow Puppets made a very interesting and important move by presenting some of the gems from our own music treasure during the 50’s to 60’s. Thanks to them, we can now listen to the songs written by our finest composers from the old days and admire how beautiful they really are. In doing this, Robert Mulyarahardja and Irsa Destiwi are collaborating with the legendary singer known as “Macan Festival” or “Festival Tiger” due to his reign over many festivals around the world throughout the 80’s: the one and only Harvey Malaihollo. The album’s called “Indonesian Songbook”, consists of 10 best-ever Indonesian songs from the past written by the likes of Ismail Marzuki, Bing Slamet, Rahmat Manthovani, Sam Saimun, Iskandar and Mochtar Embut.

They have promoted the album in Bandung by performing at the TP Jazz Bandung Festival 2015 and now here they are back again. It’s your chance to enjoy the fresh re-arrangements over the songs made by Robert and Irsa which still capture the real beauty of the originals. Joining them are Kevin Yosua (bass) and Ignatius Adrianta (drum). Looking for a beautiful journey through memory lane? Harvey Malaihollo and Shadow Puppets Quartet are more than ready to give it to you.

Pattiselanno Trio ft Nial Djuliarso

This is simply one of the best Jazz Trios in Indonesia today. The group consists of jazz legends with illustrious career for over decades: Oele Pattiselanno (guitar), Jeffrey Tahalele (bass) and Arief Setiadi (saxophone). These gentlemen are very well experienced, both individually and as a team. They have been supporting each other for many, many years, so you can always expect a lovely swingin’ session flows naturally from them.

This trio will feature a pianist graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA and The Juilliard School, New York (where he was mentored by jazz master Kenny Barron) who build his career both in USA and Indonesia: Nial Djuliarso. This trio has graced Bandung by performing at TP Jazz last April 2015, while Nial and Oele gave one intimate session at the TP Jazz Bandung Festival last year. The combination of three seniors with younger team mate, all possessed with strong jazz spirit should be a catch. If you dream of having a dreamy, romantic swing, this one is yours.

Agis Bape

Here’s a magical duo, a harmonious pairing between swingin’ acoustic guitar of Opik Bape and artistic, well-crafted, heartfelt soulful voice of Agis Kania. Together they called Agis Bape. They were great when we first saw them, amazingly they are still getting better and better. A lot of emotions attached in each song, making anything they sing a winner. Lately Agis Bape is strengthening their concept by digging more specific songs from specific era, staying true to their ‘old soul’ nature. Other than working on the concept, they have released a single entitled “Embun Pagi” (“Morning Dew”) and an EP that you can buy in one package with their official T-shirt.

The way they sing is like telling stories. Even when you don’t understand the lyrics, you will sense what’s the story is all about. Five-star quality, charismatic appearance, perfect chemistry and smart song selection, all created one finest session that would bring the romantic theme to perfection.

Regular jazz gig, every Tuesday

After this special event, Bawean Resto will start its regular weekly jazz gig every Tuesday night, featuring the top, well experienced jazz musicians and icons in Bandung. The schedule is as follows:

8 March: Imelda Rosalin Trio
15 March: Pineapple Corner: Venche Manuhutu (guitar), Imam Pras (piano), Rudy Zulkarnaen (bass), Arifandi ‘Ari Aru’ Renaldi (drums), Brury Effendy (trumpet) and Puspallia Panggabean (vocal)
22 March: VMS Jazz Quartet
29 March: Pineapple Corner

There you have it. Three sessions with legends and masters who have been spending their lives in jazz. It’s only a few days away. Find the RSVP below or up there in the e-flyer and secure your seat. This event will run not in the romantic month anymore where people celebrate Valentine, but of course, you can still feel the romantic night, when love is in the air, right at the first day of March.

Sweetheart Jazz Romantic #1

Date: Tuesday, 1 March 2016
Time: 06:00 pm – onwards
Location: Bawean Resto
Jl. Gandapura no 43, Bandung

More info and RSVP:  +62 22-4212229

It’s not easy to keep a regular jazz event in Indonesia. There are many difficulties, problems and obstacles to deal with, and at many times some sacrifices have to be made just to keep it alive. We experience this too since we started running regular jazz community event 2 years ago.

We have been settling in Braga CityWalk for around one and a half year with the regular (now) monthly community event, Braga Jazz Walk. We are thankful to be able to run it that long, and certainly hope to have more fruitful episodes to come. The cooperation between us (Jazzuality.com) with venue Braga CityWalk and KPH Music who provides the instruments and sound equipments are the engine, but most of all we have to thank all the musicians who have been participating since day one and everyone who come join us. Without you this wouldn’t be possible.

Here’s the report of Braga Jazz Walk #20. As what we shared in the info event since last week, there were four performances presenting different jazzscapes. From full band, a quartet to duo, from pop jazz, bebop to crossover with classical and Gypsy swing elements. We just loved this edition so much. Again, we got crowds spreading from the ground floor to the third, in the cafes and standing nearby.

Dream on Diminish was the one to go with. This band has begun the journey since 2010. Basically the band is built upon 3 members Razaqa (guitar/bass), Fariz (guitar) and Rivandi (drum/cajon). But during the performance they often got reinforcements. For this event they added 3 more players:  Angelica Siahaan (vocal), Maya (violin) and Sandi Lesmana (bass).

For the very first time Dim on Diminish participated in this event. “Route 66” was the first song with Angelica stood in front. Next, Dras joined her to sing “Treasure.” Jarwo took over the mic to sing “Just the Two of Us” accompanied by Dennis on sax. After “Lullaby of Broadway” and “Come Together”, the last song was Adele’s most recent hit, “Hello”.

The band still needs to learn and practice to find the harmony of playing as a team. They also have to work on the arrangement especially since the band has a lot of players. We hope this first attempt will encourage them to do better. We know they can, and we are looking forward to see it.

Then came the time to bop. Etudiant was back again gracing our stage after two previous performances last year. Etudiant, a French word means student was used to keep their feet on the ground. Yet again, the young players in this group are equipped with enough skill to deliver pure jazz delight. Originally Etudiant is a trio: Ilham Septia Inda Nugraha (bass), Tiurma Tizadya (piano) and Galih Cahya Nugraha (drums). Unfortunately Galih couldn’t make it, so he was replaced by Alman Naufal. However, Galih found out at the last minutes that his schedule was moved, so he came not as a player but to watch and support his band. “It’s kind of cool to come as an audience and watch Etudiant play,” he giggled.

Lately the band got a friend to play with, a sensational young jazz guitarist who’s currently doing well with his group AFA Trio, Anjuan Julio. Anjuan’s participation added more color into the band and changed them from trio to quartet.

Etudiant took a jazz standard written by Sam Jones titled “Del Sasser”. Immidiately the venue filled with festive jazz sound, inviting everyone to sway. A beautiful song originally by Pat Metheny, titled “James” was adorable in light fusion/smooth jazz. Anjuan then played a thick Middle Eastern sound which is familiar to jazz fans as a part of covering Miles Davis’ famous song, “Nardis”. As much as we loved their play, they came to the last song, original song written by Anjuan, “Thursday Night.” This song included tradings and manic solo drums by Alman that drew applause from the crowds.

Sharp, clean, beautiful and pure. What a treat for us and to everyone who are into real jazz. If the trio alone is already solid, Anjuan spices things up. Ilham is one of the best bassists from younger generation found in Bandung today especially in jazz, Tiurma is like a painter, painting jazz over their canvas, while Alman did well in replacing Galih. Since there are not many real jazz band with young players in Bandung, Etudiant has an important mission in order to preserve pure jazz in the local music scene. In the hands of young lions lies the future of jazz, Etudiant is simply one of them. Oh yeah, Anjuan is going to play with AFA Trio at the Java Jazz Festival 2016 soon, let’s wish him and band the best.

The course changed drastically to a very, very interesting and extraordinary acoustic guitar duo. The name is Gigitaran (in English: having fun in playing guitar). This duo is built upon two guitar wizards: Bondan P Sakti and Arma Gautama Joshua Elkens. What they are using is normal acoustic guitar, but the way they play is totally unique. They can play in ordinary style, but at times they could place the guitar on the surface then ‘abuse’ it like playing harp along with letting out some wood beat. They are based on classical but they have strong taste of (Nuevo) Flamenco, Mexican, Latin, Jazz, World Music and even Rock among others. They kind of remind us of Fay Ehsan, a freestyle guitarist who stunned the judges at talent search program, Indonesia Mencari Bakat season 3 four years ago. But this time we got double pleasure. Two amazing self-taught guitarists pouring magic, allowing us to experience the guitar sound in a way that probably not even the inventor thought of it.

They caught a lot of people by surprise. Even before they started, the unique preparation already caught attention. The first song, a cover of Rodrigo y Gabriela titled “Diablo Rojo” stunned everyone who were unaware of how they were going to utilize the guitar more than it’s normally played. Lots of action successfully blasted the venue and dragged more and more mall-goers into their show.

Both Bondan and Arma aren’t just great in playing guitar, they also know how to throw jokes, adding more entertainment into their show. The second song showcased their unbelievable ability in using guitar. It was a medley of “Manuk Dadali”, “Theme song of Mission Impossible”, two of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s famous compositions “Symphony no 40” and “Turkish March” (“Rondo Alla Turca”), “Sway” and a song from 1958 “Volare” which got famous in Indonesia through Gipsy Kings. “Santo Domingo”, also a song of Rodrigo y Gabriela kept the action alive. More and more applause and cheers were given to them.

An original song “The Great Morning Coffee” slowed down the tempo a little bit. This is a smooth relaxing song that gave us a moment to take a breath. Then, Arma was left alone on stage. He tuned his guitar in different way, placed his guitar on the table and played Fay Ehsan’s song, “Pray for Bali.” The sound of peacefulness and the mystical Balinese rhythm were amazingly captured by him. After that, Bondan took over, playing the way Arma did as he showed how fast his hands and arms in doing the work over the whole part of the guitar.

According to Bondan, this is called a Classical Guitar Percussion technique. “Basically it’s like placing a full drumset and turntable inside a classical guitar.” he said. The player should use his elbow to provide beat, then the fingers cover everything else from playing the melody, rhythm and even some extra beat by tapping the guitar body. It’s difficult and challenging to master. Not many people play it anymore. It’s rare and probably near extinct. That’s why we are really happy when we got in touch with these two guitar wizards and excited to promote them to wider audience through this event.

They moved the table to the side and gave one last song, another original from Bondan entitled “The Devil Dance”. This final song was a dope! You could really feel their devilish fingers dance along the fret all the way down. It was fast and furious, wild and dangerous. Huge pop marked the end of their breathtaking performance.

Very complex, really not easy but not only they played well, their soul and spirit were like connected in delivering unbelievable music which utilized every part of their guitar, from string, body to the upper string on the head stock. We have seen many great guitarists, but it’s rare to see guitar being played like this. Mind-bending, highly entertaining, full octane fun performance from Gigitaran. What a show, absolutely insane.

The final round belong to a beautiful girl with sweet, soulful voice Rizka Adlina. Singing is not the only thing she does in music, she is also a multi-instrumentalist, playing at least guitar and piano. She got her own style and the camera loves her too. The last time we met her was at Braga Jazz Walk Special Edition: Road to Indonesian Jazz Festival 2015 last August, performing alongside MotionVibe. This time she was the highlight. Two MotionVibe members Farhan Faikar (bass, also acts as the music director for Rizka) and Raka Rizkyandi (drums) supported her, along with Rifqi Mochamad (keys), Achay ‘Elpucino’ (guitar) and Ayu (backing vocal).

With her background as a Korean Language student, she is planning to write songs in Korean. We thought she was going to sing Norah Jones or Sarah Bareilles’ songs like how she used to, but surprise, surprise, she actually went to dig Korean songs.

Two of IU’s famous tunes, “Shoes” and “Friday” were nicely done. Unlike most of the KPop stars, IU actually wrote her songs with jazzy feels, swing and bossa nova. Since Rizka is passionate with jazz, IU is a right choice.

The third song added more surprise. Not many people still remember that Karen Carpenter actually made one solo album out of her part as The Carpenters. The tracks were recorded from 1979 to 1980, but the album was finally released in 1996, 13 years after Karen’s death. Rizka covered the first track of the album, “Lovelines” which suited her voice so much. The last presentation was her original song, “Menunggumu”. Catchy melody, simple lyrics and very current. This song is strong enough to be a hit once it’s out.

Rizka is looking forward to work on her mini album. For us, she is a rising star. She has all what it takes to be one. She is talented, beautiful, has her own style both in music and appearance. Apart of gifts she has, she also has a strong team backing her up. Starting from Soundcloud, she has made some recordings and video clip, and soon, a mini album. She is getting closer and closer, may everything go smooth as planned. This girl really has potential, we believe it’s only a matter of time for her to establish her name big time.

A very interesting edition with lots of colorful variations. By doing this, we hope we can socialize how friendly jazz is to the society, we can support the young musicians as many as possible and serve an enjoyable event every month. We also hope this event can give benefit to Braga CityWalk and KPH Music, so the partnership could go further for many months or even years to come. Oh yeah, for the first time this event is also supported by ISMARTV http://tv.ismart.co.id who recorded the action on stage for its program. Thank you ISMARTV for collaborating with us in supporting these young talents!

On behalf of everyone behind this event, we thank all the participating musicians, singers, soundman, partners, supporters and of course the attendance. We will be back again next month with another batch of talent. See you again in March!

Watch the highlight of Braga Jazz Walk #20 on our Youtube Channel:

See more pictures:

Repoter: Riandy Kurniawan
Photographer: Titus Firmanto
Video Editor: Vierna Mariska Kurniawan

Venche Music School (VMS) as the pioneer of jazz school in Bandung (established in 1988) started launching its monthly community event since the first month of 2016 (http://jazzuality.com/jazz-event-report/vms-jazz-community-performance-1-the-report/). Calling it VMS Jazz Community Performance, it accomodates the needs of alumni, teachers, current students and other musicians related to the school to have a playground as well as promoting the school to public. This event takes place at Seven Cafe and Music Lounge, located at the northern side of Bandung.

The second edition was held last night on February 28, 2016, featuring two bands and jam sessions. First, let’s take a look at Continuum. This is originally a trio, consisting of Willyam Yuzaq on drums, Hajar Asyura on guitar and Dyva on bass. There were two previous bassists found in Continuum before, Robby Tribuwono Saksono and Satya Bayu. Now they seem to settle down with Dyva Septria Dhisa, who actually plays just as good. The last time we got them was in our event, Bumi Sangkuriang Jazz Night #2 (read the report here: http://jazzuality.com/jazz-event-report/bumi-sangkuriang-jazz-night-2-2/). At that time they featured a female vocalist Mirna Nurmala for the first time. Now she joined the trio again. We think they match really well.

Continuum opened up with “Verona”, a song from Gilad Hekselman found in his album (also in trio format) “Homes”. Soon after Mirna stepped forward and covered “You’re Still the One” (Shania Twain), “Kisah yang indah” (Monita Tahalea),  cool rendition of “Cicak di Dinding”, taken from Dewi Lestari’s “Rectoverso” album (2008) and then The Jongens’ “Miss Jones” which allowed Mirna to demonstrate her ability to hum with strong emotion.

Throughout the performance, Mirna actively explained each song she sang, so the audience could understand the background behind them. The songs were played with heartfelt vocal and free-flowing improvisation on guitar. Bass and drum did very well too in polishing the compositions artistically. They are clearly rooted in traditional jazz, but they serve it more modern with some healing music and new wave feels involved. One of the most interesting jazz bands we found lately, may they keep their existance and climb higher to reach the place they deserve.

The VMS Jazz Trio played a set of 4 songs. Found in this band were three young musicians: Vico Wibowo (keyboard), Steven (bass) and the drum instructor of the school, Alman Naufal (drums, also served as the MC for this event). What the bnd served was different rhythm in each songs.

Starting with a gem from Miles Davis, “Seven Steps to Heaven” in fast bebop, the trio then embraced another composition attributed to Miles, “Solar” in fusion style. Next, the 12 bar minor blues composed by John Coltrane, “MR PC” was pinned in swing feel and for the last song, a Charlie Parker classic from 1948, “Billie’s Bounce” served cool in jazz blues. Trading force and solo runs from drums and piano were captured in all songs, while Steven chose to complete them with his tone.

This band should work nicely as the example of VMS’ products. Looking at young talents play pure jazz ranging from traditional, modern jazz to fusion like this, we know that jazz will still be alive in Bandung at least for the next generation. VMS with its almost 30 years of experience has done tremendously in producing jazz musicians. There are many successful ones, and surely there will be many more to come.

This event is scheduled to run at the fourth Sunday of each month, made possible by the cooperation between Seven Cafe & Lounge and Venche Music School, arranged by Kanggep Kusuma and supported by Jazzuality.com.

See more pictures:

Article and photos are provided by Kanggep Kusuma
Written by: Riandy Kurniawan

It’s been great to see the jazz scene in Bandung lately. There are so many regular community events appearing everywhere, and what makes it even better is that the initiator of each community are united in beautiful harmony. Other than communities, there are more and more place to accomodate the talents and fans. For us, this is a good sign of the future of jazz in Bandung. It will give benefit to us all.

Bawean Resto is a part of Bawean Bakery, a legendary bakery factory in Bandung. It began its business in 1946, so if we count it until today, they have been running for 70 years. It was called “Sweetheart”, but in 1995 they had to change the name to Bawean Bakery since the government discouraged foreign names back in those days. They started with bakery, today the business has expanded to Gelato, Resto and Cafe.

Starting at the first day of March, Bawean Resto will serve jazz alongside their delicious cakes, breads, foods and beverages. From now on you can have some jazz in it every Tuesday night. To mark this new move, they launched a special concert as the premiere edition. The event is called Sweetheart Jazz Romantic #1, featuring legendary, internationally reputable musicians. From those who have been active for several decades (up to 5 decades), a pianist who establishes his career successfully both in Indonesia and USA, and a stunning Bandung duo who never stops getting better. This event was a success. They got many guests, the resto filled with crowd who were eager to match good foods and performances. It was a success.

Robert Tjie and Nelly were the MC for tonight. They invited the owner of Bawean Bakery, Edwin L Kusmana and Venche Manuhutu to share the story about how this event was born.

Agis Bape started the concert. This duo, like we said before somehow keeps on getting better and better. The harmonious pairing between swingin’ acoustic guitar of Opik Bape and artistic, well-crafted, heartfelt soulful voice of Agis Kania build each song to perfection. They have supported each other for many years, including in the stunning Gypsy swing group Satura which is now inactive. Being together for so long makes them able to unite their souls. They are charming, full of emotions and dynamics. That makes any song they sing a winner.

The duo of Agis Bape gave tasty setlist.  A song firstly heard in Charlie Chaplin’s movie Modern Times in 1936, of which melody was composed by Chaplin himself, “Smile” became their choice. They carried on with more songs including Ismail Marzuki’s “Sabda Alam”, Rose Murphy’s “Peek a Boo”, the controversial song once banned “Gloomy Sunday”, Django Reinhardt’s “Nuages” were done nicely. Then they sang their single “Embun Pagi” before pouring one final swingin’ picnic with a popular song from the 50’s, “Singing the Blues”.

A lot of emotions were captured from their show. Even if one doesn’t understand the lyrics, the way they sing the story makes the audience understand what’s the story is all about, at least capturing the feeling. This is a duo that’s decided to being true to themselves. They go digging specific collections from specific era that suits their ‘old soul’ nature. Now Agis Bape has one EP that you can buy in one package with the official T-shirt, let’s hope they can get through the industry, because a very good duo like this really, really deserve to be heard.

The second performance came from a trio consisted of senior musicians who have been playing for many, many years ago. It’s called Pattiselanno Trio. Led by the living legend Oele Pattiselanno on guitar, the trio has his long time partner Jeffrey Tahalele (contrabass) and Arief Setiadi (saxophone). If the trio alone should do, but they got remarkable reinforcement from a pianist graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA and The Juilliard School, New York (in which he was mentored by jazz master Kenny Barron) who build his career both in USA and Indonesia: Nial Djuliarso.

The Pattiselanno Trio recently released an independent album titled “Doa & Restumu”. What’s unique is that the trio has no drummer, yet still they got strong rhythm. Arief Setiadi used a plastic bag to imitate the sound of brush sticks on toms. That of course made an attraction. Miles Davis’ “If I Were a Bell” was first, then they went on with Nial’s composition written for his wife “Hello Gib”, and Oele’s “Song for Maya” and “Song for Geva”.

Remember Nayra Dharma, the 15 year-old freestyle guitarist who performed in our Braga Jazz Walk #19? She joined the team as a guest star, playing and singing two songs, the classic swing ballad written by Glenn Miller “Moonlight Serenade” and a song made famous for the first time by Julie London, “Cry Me a River”. It was really beautiful. Then, a surprise came when a 6 year-old kid named Nada stepped forward and sang “It Had to Be You” which included scat-singing! “Nobody taught me that. I learnt from Youtube”, he said innocently which made the crowd popped.

Pattiselanno Trio ft Nial Djuliarso created a grade-A combination that sparks and glows jazz in its very own nature. This is the kind of group that can give you more than just a lovely entertaining, because you can also learn from how they do it. A showdown of jazz masters like this is priceless. May there be more, may they keep stimulating the young musicians to follow their steps.

The final show was a remarkable cross-generational collaboration between Shadow Puppets Quartet and a legendary singer, Harvey Malaihollo. We saw their performance at TP Jazz Festival 2015 (http://jazzuality.com/jazz-events/tp-jazz-bandung-festival-2015/) a couple of months ago as they were releasing an album entitled “Indonesian Songbook”. This album holds an important mission, to re-introduce 10 of Indonesian masterpieces from the 50’s to 60’s era, written by our own maestros. We got a chance to interview them, you can read it here: http://jazzuality.com/interview/exclusive-interview-with-shadow-puppets-quartet-and-harvey-malaihollo/.

They were back again in Bandung tonight, presenting the classics found in the album. The founders of Shadow Puppets, real life couple Robert Mulyarahardja a.k.a Robert MR (guitar) and Irsa Destiwi (piano) made beautiful rearrangements of these songs. Joining them on stage were two friends: Kevin Yosua (contrabass) and Ignatius Adrianta (drums).

They presented most of the songs from the album. Starting with Bing Slamet’s “Nurlela”, they proceed with two songs of Sam Saimun “Kasih Tak Terbalas” and “Bujang Dara”, Mochtar Embut’s “Biduk Kasih”, Ismail Marzuki song “Siapa Namanya”, Rahmat Mantovani’s “Irama Hidupku”, “Diwajahmu Kulihat Bulan” and then reached the end in style with fast swing on “Ilhamku”. This song included cool tradings by the band.

It’s not easy to find these songs anymore. Some are forgotten, but actually these songs are really beautiful even for today’s ears. Thanks to this triumphant team, we can listen to the songs again, presented beautifully by Shadow Puppets Quartet and Harvey Malaihollo. They made brilliant rearrangement, fitting the songs to their jazz style to suit the modern days, but at the same time still capturing the beauty of the originals when they were first heard around 50-60 years ago. It was a sweet concert. Classy, elegant and holds an important mission. Like a swingin’ time tunnel, they brought us back to those glorious eras and tasted the best of it. We thank you for that.

A beautiful concert, full of legends, masters and giants marked the landing of jazz at Bawean Bakery big time. Starting next week, jazz will be served every Tuesday night. The schedule is as follows:

8 March: Imelda Rosalin Trio
15 March: Pineapple Corner: Venche Manuhutu (guitar), Imam Pras (piano), Rudy Zulkarnaen (bass), Arifandi ‘Ari Aru’ Renaldi (drums), Brury Effendy (trumpet) and Puspallia Panggabean (vocal)
22 March: VMS Jazz Quartet
29 March: Pineapple Corner

In case you are looking for jazz on Tuesday, now you have it. There will be more special edition like this a couple of months from now, stay tuned on our website.

See more pictures:

Reporter: Riandy Kurniawan
Photographer: Indra Purnawan, Reza Aldilla Adiputra, Riandy Kurniawan

As we are in the month of March, the regular monthly jazz event Bumi Sangkuriang Jazz Night #3 is right around the corner. This event continues the historical connection between the venue, Balai Pertemuan Bumi Sangkuriang and jazz which have emerged since the venue was built in 1957. Our mission is bringing jazz back to one of its earliest homes in Bandung. For that we cooperate with Venche Music School who decides the talents and some other supporting partners like 3 Negeri who have been generously providing the sound systems, instruments and other equipments since day one.

Two previous editions got the combination of local Bandung talents and the remarkable jazz representatives from Jakarta. If in both editions we brought in relatively young musicians who have given a lot of contributions toward our jazz scene, this time we will bring in a legend who has been active for more than 50 years. Curious to see who will be featured in this 3rd edition? Let’s take a closer look at them.

The legend we are talking about is the master of Swing, Oele Pattiselanno. Born in Malang in 1946, Oele grew up listening to his father’s collections, from Stan Kenton, Art Tatum to Kenny Burrell. He already started playing in the band since his teenage years along with two siblings, Jacky Pattiselanno (drums) and the late Perry Pattiselanno (bass).

Bandung is not a stanger to Oele. He moved to Bandung from Surabaya in 1968 to play in Savoy Homman Hotel. He called the band Savoy Rhythm. He did move to Jakarta after that, playing with Jack Lesmana in Jazz Riders and involved in recordings in mid 70’s. Howebut he keeps coming and playing in Bandung from time to time until now.

Oele plays guitar with strong character. Ellegant, classy, reserved is his playing style. some say he successfully combines Kenny Burrell, Wes Montgomery and Charlie Christian’s style. If you are not familiar with these names, just know that he will introduce you to the beauty of swing which always flows naturally from his heart.

Accompanying him are two young musicians representing Venche Music School, the VMS Rhythm Section. They are Alman Naufal (drums) and Aries Ardiansyah (contrabass).

Next, let’s see a 15 year-old girl who plays fingerstyle guitar and sings at the same time. That’s really not easy to do, but she does that well. You will be surprised even more if you know that she just started learning last May. She is Nayra Dharma.

Nayra is the proud daughter of a bass master who co-found the legendary supergroup Krakatau and the bassist of mind-bending group of gods Kayon, Pra Budidharma. She clearly inherits her father’s talent, but that’s not the only reason of how she could emerge that fast. another reason which for us even more important is that she is totally focused, determined, hard-working and diligent. She spends around 6-8 hours a day, mentored by Pra himself. Not only she is trained as a guitarist, she also learns to sing. Nayra is not a singer who supports her performance with guitar, she is more like a superb fingerstyle guitarist who sings as well.

What’s interesting is the fact that Pra Budidharma actually formed Krakatau in this very building, at the regular event Jazz Break to be exact around mid 80’s. So, now that his daughter plays at the same stage 30 years later should make another story. And we are looking forward to see Nayra writes another history following his father’s footsteps.

She can still be shy like most of the girls her age, but she has charm. She is compelling when she’s on stage. Camera loves her, and you would too. As we are supporting newcomers to introduce themselves, we are proud to invite Nayra. It’s not easy to play freestyle guitar in jazz and sing at the same time, especially someone who just started learning not even a year ago. But she is really good. That is why we are happy to present her in this edition.

The last to mention is Four Brothers. This band has been running for more than 20 years, starting as a group of high schoolers. The drummer at that time was Bambang Dole, but unfortunately he died because of the car accident. Then they looked for session player to fill the drummer position. Later on when Deva Permana was at ITB, he became their drummer for a while until he moved to Australia. Bassist Ari Firman (the member of The Groove) is now behind the band. We don’t know who he will bring to fill the lineup since we receive no update from him up until this very moment. If you wonder what their style would be, it’s fusion.

So there, you have it. This Bumi Sangkuriang Jazz Night episode 3 will come next week, on 10 March, 2016 at the Concordia Hall of BP Bumi Sangkuriang, starting at 7 pm onwards. The event is free and open for public. You can also enjoy dinner with special price during the event. Mark your calendar and see you there!

BUMI SANGKURIANG JAZZ NIGHT #3

Date: Thursday, 10 March 2016
Time: 07:00 pm – 09:30 pm
Location: BP Bumi Sangkuriang
Jl. Kiputih 12, Bandung

FREE EVENT!

It’s really great to see Bandung’s jazz movement recently. There are many jazz community events appearing everywhere, featuring potential talents dominated by young guns. Other than that, we see more and more experienced musicians from Jakarta who happily take part in the movement. Jazzuality.com currently involves with two monthly jazz community events in two different locations per month, Braga Jazz Walk and Bumi Sangkuriang Jazz Night. On the surface it might look like a competition, but we never thought that way. We actually happy to see how things goes for jazz in Bandung today. We are also happy with the fact that all the organizers actually work in synergy. We support each other, help promoting each other and cooperate since we all share the same vision and mission. At the end of the day, it will give benefit to jazz movement in Bandung and Indonesia, including the regeneration of jazz musicians that we really, really have to think of.

We have been running Braga Jazz Walk for about a year and a half. This event is brought to the public by a harmonious collaboration between Jazzuality.com, venue Braga CityWalk and KPH Music who provides the instruments and some other equipments. This event comes every third Thursday of each month. Since we are getting closer to the third week of March, Braga Jazz Walk #21 is right around the corner. It’s going to come on March 17, 2016, starting from 7:00 pm until the closing time of the mall. There will be four bands to perform and in the end we will open the stage for jam session. Either you just wish to watch or want to jam, we welcome you with open arms. The event is totally free.

Now let’s get down to the business. As we are running community events, we rapidly cooperate with music schools which have jazz in their curriculum and of course, some music teachers as well. We have to give them credits for without them we will not have young talents with good skills. Speaking of which, in this edition we will feature performances of one music school located at the Southern part of Bandung and a band established by a senior guitar/bass teacher who have been teaching for many years.

Let’s talk about the music school first. The name of the school is Michelle Efferin Music Centre. This school was established in 2006 by Michelle Efferin just a year after she graduated from Australian Institute of Music majoring Contemporary Performance. This school is the first one who applies Encore Music Education curriculum in Indonesia. In 2010 M.E Music Centre was appointed to be the Official Representative of Encore Music Education for Indonesia, and the founder was chosen to be the official trainer for this institution.

What’s cool about this music school is that they accept students from really early age, as early as 2 years old who can take Kinderbeat class. Other than that the school has some other classes like Piano (jazz, classical, modern and pop), drum, vocal, violin and guitar. Children from 4 year-old are welcome to join the class. This year the school celebrates its 10th anniversary. They are preparing junior class competition in May, June or July. They are also looking forward to make a concert on October for the 10th anniversary celebration.

For years we have seen how good they create smart children musicians who can already perform on stage along with the teachers, but they have never participated in our event just yet. We are happy to have them in for the very first time. The founder herself is going to play. The name of the band is Michelle Efferin & Friends featuring Jazz Teens Vocal Quartet. Michelle will bring her usual team, including her husband Richard Sirait (drums), Oggie Samuel (guitar) and Iwan (bass). Performing with them are the teenage students including Celline Indrawirawan, Lolita, Naomi Kumala, Patricia Angelica, Madeline Abigail, Sydney Gabrielle and Christopher Emmanuel. If you want to see how well children can do in jazz, you got to see them.

Now let’s see the senior teacher we mentioned earlier. His name is Acep Bachtiar. He was the guitarist of legendary rock band from Bandung, Staccato. Other than teaching in StiMB, he also has private lessons at his home. He has created many successful guitarists that you can easily find in music festivals. There are many students of his have participated in our events too.

A couple of months ago some of his students decided to form a new jazz-rock (fusion) band. The name they chose is Boundless, describing the band’s vision to explore music beyond limit. Three members of Out of 7 are found inside the band: Herman Yulianto (guitar), Abet Darmaji (bass) and Erick Gabe (vocal). Boundless has another guitar player, Joe Luthier. The drummer is John Daurux. Since most of the players are Acep’s students, you can expect to taste his sharp, rich textured jazz rock signature. We have seen many of his students emerge as skillful fusion guitarists, it’s time to check out some more of his students.

Next to mention is the tall, young man playing the seducing instrument, saxophone, Hendike Muzaki. We knew him since he was still a member of 5th Avenue. He already played several times in our event with different bands like Final Script and Lumiere. Noticing his ability to play good soulful smooth jazz tunes with his saxophone, we challenge him to establish his solo career too. He told us more than a year ago that he’s working on his own project. A couple of months ago he informed us that the project is on, so here’s our chance to see how the project turns out to be. The name is Hendike Muzaki Project.

In this project he brings some of his closest friends. The guitarist of 5th Avenue Chris Alfeus is with him. Then lethal jazz pianist Klency Lembono is also in. We have seen some homemade video of Hendike and Klency practicing together posted in Facebook, they do sound cool. Also starring Etudiant’s Ilham Septia Inda Nugraha on bass, Eggy on drums, Bhisma on keys and featuring Palandi on vocal. Knowing that this is the project of a saxophonist, we are curious to see how the saxman would share the front line with keyboard and guitar. Soulful smooth jazz is to be expected from them.

Last but not least, we welcome a band with unique name that sounds like a jazz standard, Green Dolphin Street. Their music was first inspired by blues and jazz, but then grew with more colors from rock n roll, funk and soul. This band was born in December 2011 and now comprises of 4 personnels: Antoni Sidjabat (vocal), Yosia Herdian Widianto (drums), David Alexander Manullang (guitar) and Okapatria Christie Adryan (bass),

What’s also unique from them is wide array of influences found in this band, brought by each personnel ranging from Kurt Cobain, Michael Jackson, Mike Portnoy, John Mayer, The Beatles, POD, Buddy Guy, Nirvana, Sting, Flea, and Rocco Prestia. This enables them to step on different music events and festivals, from rock, blues, jazz and everything else in between.

Last Christmas in 2015 they launched a special Christmas EP titled “Blues Christmas” with the spirit of charity. 30% from the selling was donated to Salomo Foundation in Semarang. Now, they are ready to launch a new EP titled “Extended Play”. Edgy, funky rockin’ blues with some ‘Nirvanattitude‘ is how we think of their music in general. We haven’t featured blues for quite some times, so here, the Green Dolphin Street will bring it on. Time to get funked!

We will open jam session for the rest of the time until the closing hour of the mall. Whoever you are, whatever your instrument is and whatever your musical background is, you are totally welcome to taste our humble stage. Other than drums and piano, just bring your gear and jump right in.

Mark the date and join us. Plenty of musicians, the product of music school and senior music teacher, an edgy, rebelious funky blues, jazz-rock fusion and soulful smooth jazz will be yours. It’s totally free as always. Alright, see you there.

Braga Jazz Walk #21

Date: Thursday, March 17, 2016
Time: 07:00 – 10:00 pm
Location: Braga CityWalk
Jl. Braga 99 – 101, Bandung

FREE EVENT!

FEATURING:

:: MICHELLE EFFERIN & FRIENDS::
Michelle Efferin (piano)
Richard Sirait (drums)
Oggie Samuel (guitar)
Iwan (bass)

:: JAZZ TEENS VOCAL QUARTET ::
Celline Indrawirawan
Lolita
Naomi Kumala
Patricia Angelica
Madeline Abigail
Sydney Gabrielle
Christopher Emmanuel

:: BOUNDLESS ::
Herman Yulianto and Joe Luthier (guitar)
Abet Darmaji (bass)
Erick Gabe (vocal)
John Daurux (drums)

:: HENDIKE MUZAKI PROJECT ::
Hendike Muzaki (saxophone)
Chris Alfeus (guitar)
Klency Lembono (piano)
Ilham Septia Inda Nugraha (bass)
Eggy (drums)Bhisma (piano)
Palandi (vocal)

:: GREEN DOLPHIN STREET ::
Antoni Sidjabat (vocal)
Yosia Herdian Widianto (drums)
David Alexander Manullang (guitar)
Okapatria Christie Adryan (bass)

The 100.4 KLCBS has been fulfilling the needs of quenching the thirst of jazz enthusiasts especially in Bandung for 34 years.The KLCBS Jazz Alliance was born as a media that accomodates listeners (from beginners to jazz enthusiasts), collectors, experts, musicians and journalists. KLCBS Jazz Alliance already has its own regular event called JAZZ NOT JAZZ.

The last edition was held last December 2014 featuring Donny Suhendra Band (http://jazzuality.com/jazz-events/the-4th-jazz-not-jazz/). This coming Saturday, March 19, 2016 KLCBS in cooperation with the venue Novotel Bandung is ready to present the 5th JAZZ NOT JAZZ under the title of “Please Send Me Someone to Love”. This event is also intended to celebrate and support Earth Hour, a worldwide movement which encouraging individuals, households, business and so on to turn off the non-essential lights for one hour.

The 5th JAZZ NOT JAZZ features some of the best and highly experienced talents from both Bandung and Jakarta. This year the artists are:
Riza Arshad – accordion
Imam Pras – piano
Rudy ‘Aru’ Zulkarnaen – upright bass
Mian Tiara – vocal

As the Earth Hour 2016 will come exactly at the same day, Jazz Not Jazz 2016 edition is made in sync with it. Nazar Noe’man, the CEO of KLCBS and Riza Arshad as the band leader agreed to use acoustic instruments for this event. The simplicity sound produced by acoustic instruments represents the strong character of earth.

This concert will present the combination of new arrangement of classic songs from American and Indonesian Songbook, also the original compositions from the playing artists. What makes it even more special is that Imam Pras will play piano from Aksan Instrument, especially designed by Aksan Sjuman himself, originally made and crafted in Indonesia.

Based on the lineup and the stories mentioned earlier, 5th JAZZ NOT JAZZ “Please Send Me Someone to Love” should be considered unique because the concept is different than what you find elsewhere. This event is also made as an effort to increase the appreciation of art performance and insights of jazz lovers.

There will be Photography Exhibition with the theme of “Bandung Corner” by Bandung photographer Dudi Sugandi. Tens of pictures will be showcased, capturing the beautiful corners of Bandung.

Novotel Bandung is going to ask all the audience to support the Earth Hour by turning off the light at The Square Restaurant and corridor areas for an hour, from 8:30 to 9:30 pm. Meanwhile, everyone could still enjoy the lovely sound of jazz played by the artists.

To make it even better, Novotel Bandung is going to serve Buffet BBQ Night Dinner, only IDR 150.000 net for the first 100 pax. This event is sponsored by INDIHOME FIBER , TELKOMSEL and PIKIRAN RAKYAT, JAZZUALITY, WARTAJAZZ & BANDUNG NEWS PHOTO as Media Partners.

5th JAZZ NOT JAZZ: Send Me Someone to Love

Date: Saturday, 19 March 2016
Time: 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Location: The Square Restaurant, Novotel Bandung
Jl. Cihampelas 23-25 Bandung

Ticket Price: IDR 150 K nett/person (including dinner) for first 100 early bird. Normal price: IDR 200 K

For Buffet BBQ and Performance reservation, please contact:
Ai Supartini
Mobile phone: +62 852 2037 9586
Telephone: +62 22 203 2452

Info & ticket box:
Studio 100.4, Jl. Karang Layung no 10 Bandung

For further information please contact: +62 22 421 1001 ext 124

Photos by Mia Damayanti Sjahir