Jazz Legacy 3 : The Report
Following the success of Jazz Night 1 (December 2008) and Jazz Night 2 (March 2009), now the third edition is coming. It used to be Jazz NightJazz Legacy but now it’s called . It was brought by Sony’s Music Studio owns by Yason Gunawan, the playing musician for tonight as half of C & G Project.
Using the title Jazz Legacy 3 : The Series, Yason started the show using saxophone in a duet with Krisna Setiawan. Krisna is a contemporary musician, he played the piano so well. They played 2 songs “All about Love” and “Kalih”. Kalih is an original composition by Krisna Setiawan that means two in Javanese.
Yason Gunawan moved to the piano, joined by Benny Chen on drums, and Rio featuring Thya Anhar as vocalist. They played “Falling in Love with Love”. It was a great combination on the stage. Unfortunately at the next song, an error occured on the audio system. The sound system gave a very loud noise. This situation forced the band to play it unplugged without any vocals. They didn’t want the audience be disturbed by the problem, so they decided to improvised with the situation, making sure that the show must go on and that was they actually did, with the power of jazz. The show was saved by one thing that no other kind of music could get easily, and that is improvisation, one of the thing that famously related to jazz. What a great spontaneity, Yason, Benny and Rio still continued to improvised playing their instruments while the crews were hardly trying to get the sound system back to normal. Yason Gunawan was the man of the show since he always tried to be positive in convincing the audience to stay and enjoy the show no matter what the sound quality turned out to be. The claps from audience showed how they understood the situation nobody wished to happen, and showed their big support for the band.
In the next session, Yason and Benny presented two guest musicians Simon Tan, a prolific bassist from Philippines and Tots Tolentino as saxophonist from USA who is currently active in Asian jazz circuit. They kept playing songs no matter what. Still playing with confidence and kept inviting audience to enjoy their performance. We really admire their efforts and spirit. Finally, the sound systems went back to normal and they successfully hypnotized the audience with a classical Beethoven in Jazz style. They were all so creative! Tots played his saxophone in full energy.
Eryka the newcomer from Surabaya and Dyan Alvin were unable to perform in Jazz Legacy 3 caused by the sound system problem and of course the limited time. After playing Beethoven’s composition, Yason invited Benny Kartono to sing “Lir Ilir”, a traditional Javanese song. It sounded so playful and cheerful. The combination of Yason, Benny, Simon and Tots were truly fantastic! They showed such a great performance in the tradition of jazz mainstream and post bop. The last song was “I Will Wait For You” and Yason said to audience “i’m so sorry about this inconvenience and see you in Jazz Legacy 4 on March 2010″.
From the back stage after the show, Yason Gunawan stated that the Jazz Legacy will perform regularly at Surabaya and the next show its gonna be on March 2010. His C & G group with Benny Chen are focusing on pure jazz. When we asked him why they choose the mainstream, Yason explained that they had a mission to focus on becoming strong players that rooted deeply in jazz. He believes that if they succeed mastering the basic, they can bend it in any jazz genres, As all jazz lovers know that jazz is the undisputed source for improvisation, Yason Gunawan also agreed with it and said that was the reason why he choose jazz in the first place for his music. “I can express my feeling, and my heart through this kind of music”, he said. Those were the statements from a man who were once learned jazz in Canada for 4 years. His passion to jazz music and his big love to his city Surabaya are always the energy to keep him going. We are sure he will be able to rebuild the jazz scene of Surabaya with this continuous event. As Yason said, Surabaya seems to be on its way to have jazz music as one of city’s main entertainment, where many jazz event will come up and make the town sparkling with jazz. Keep the spirit up, guys! We know you can. See you all again on Jazz Legacy 4 on March 2010!
See more pictures:
Reporter: Dyaz Chan
Photographer: Apey Idris
Editor : Riandy Kurniawan
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