ROAD TO the 32nd JGTC – Bandung: The Report
The 32nd Jazz Goes to campus (JGTC) is being very busy with pre-events all through November. The organizers from The Student Excecutive board of Faculty of Economics at the University of Indonesia must be fully occupied with all the preparations, still they spend some times to socialize the events at several cities through the “road show” series. Just several days ago, on Wednesday, November 11, 2009 JGTC has visited Jogjakarta. They came to the UGM (Gadjah Mada University) for this occasion. As we all know, there are many jazz fans from UGM, as jazz is a popular music among many of the college students in there. So it was a good decision to visit that university to spread the news about JGTC. The next stop happened today in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. This time they visited ITB (Bandung Technology Institute), before the next stop, the last one, at Margo City, Depok, this coming Friday. Again, it was a right decision to visit ITB, because ITB has been consistantly linked to jazz for many, many years.
Many senior jazz lovers should have known that ITB has given a lot contribution to jazz for some decades now. ITB was one of the important forerunner of jazz in Indonesia. It was the place where jazz developed very well, long before it became one of the big and influential form of music in this country. Many years ago, the students of ITB used to make many events at their West and East Wing, also at the open Veranda of LFM. Jack Lesmana who once lived close to ITB was often included at their events. The students were also came to Jack Lesmana’s house quite often to discuss about jazz, or even just to listen to jazz together. Until today, jazz and ITB are still related tightly. ITJazz is a very strong and active jazz community found in ITB today. From time to time we see the presence of strong jazz sense coming from ITB, and it was perfect for JGTC to make a visit on the road show series.
The performers were all ready to give their best. The bands of ITJazz, ApresITB and also from duo guitarists Sketsa, Indra Aryadi and Friends and very special performance by Syaharani and the Queenfireworks.
“It’s the november rain,” said someone who was also waiting for the show to start. Yes, we got heavy rain the whole day, and that situation forced the show to start late, about two hours late from the schedule. Still, the rain couldn’t do enough to stop the show, because when the show started, the audience started to gather close to the stage. The show was opened by ApresITB band, who brought the groove on, filling the whole area of ITB. One of Barry Likumahuwa’s song delivered nicely, followed by the ever-lovely “Just The Two of Us.”
Indra Aryadi and Friends was the next band. The guitarist Indra Aryadi was the alumni of JGTC. Bringing the flag of Indra Aryadi and Friends, he brought Demas on drums, Saad Syah on flute, Shadu Rasjidi on bass and Yessi Kristianto on keyboards. After some nice instrumental compositions, Brinet, a vocalist joined them and brought “Andaikan Engkau Tahu”. The last song from them was “Bright”. Stay tune for their debut album that will be released soon.
After that, ITB Jam Set came on. The first song was taken from Bhaskara 86’s classic song “Betawi”. The continued with two songs, one of those was Jaco Pastorius’ “Chicken”. Buy 3 Get 4 wasn’t listed on the lineup we received, so it was a surprise to see them performing tonight. Sadly enough it was Bayu’s last performance. He will retire from the jazz scene for a while due to the job he’s going to take soon. We wish you the best with your new career. Tonight Buy 3 Get 4, the runner up of last year’s JGTC competition brought a delicious pop bop version of Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely”. The next and last song was taken from Joe Zawinul’s collection, the famous “Mercy Mercy Mercy”.
Sketsa is a very interesting band of two with Gerald Situmorang and Dimas Wibisana both on guitars. Blending jazz, bossanova, ethnic, pop and more in one enjoyable sounds, acoustically, this duo is a very promising group who I believe will have a strong ability to go beyond the music lovers in general. It’s the concept which will be easily acceptable widely. If you like Depapepe, Sketsa will be your kinds of group for sure. And they brought different nuance on stage. The audience were stunned by the tremendous skills of this stunning duo. They started with “Zephyr”, the song with some middle east and latin nuance, then continued with the rhytmic “Farm Time.” After that they asked another guitarist, the one we in Bandung already know so well, Tesla, to join them on stage. From duo they now became trio. Together they brought “Waltz for Alice”. Amazing performance were shown on stage, even when they only had the chance to practice just before the show. Still on trio, they brought another original song by Sketsa named “Hop Hop”. Promising duo with promising future is here, filling up the music category almost nobody thought lately in our own music world.
The audience went closer to the stage to see the final performer for tonight. Syaharani is on the way of releasing her new album under the flag of ESQIEF a.k.a Syaharani and the Queenfireworks. With or without ESQIEF, Syaharani has been one of the finest Indonesian female jazz vocalist for many years. Jazz is written all over her deep voice. She would be very success if she continued her solo career, but with ESQIEF she has more rooms to explore, as ESQIEF is a band that always thirst for new innovations. It was a perfect decision as we see her continuously bring something new to our music scene. She’s the kind of person that never want to stop learning, and that makes her stand out steps higher than just a singer with great vocal.
If I had to describe Syaharani and friends’ performance for tonight, I’d describe it in 3 words: cozy, spontaneous and entertaining. ESQIEF appeared without Ahmad Fareed “Didit” Saad and Kristian Dharma were unable to perform for tonight, so basically it was only Syaharani and Donny Suhendra came representing the main team of ESQIEF. 
But still they brought such quality players that could cover the performance as perfect as the main team. The great pianist who could sing very well Fajar Trias, the groovy drummer Sirhan M Bahasuan and two backing vocals, Febri Wattimena and Dave Laurent. Together they formed a very solid unit. The first song was taken from Syaharani’s upcoming album, a very relaxing song called “Anytime”. It’s such a lovely song that I strongly believe will become a hit on radio stations once it’s released. The next song was another brand new song, “Kiranya”. Next they delivered the evergreen from the 70’s, “Beautiful Love” nicely. Then came the twist. Donny Suhendra left his guitar and took bass, something that was very rare for him to do. While Donny changed from guitar to bass, spontaneously Fajar Trias improvised on Minnie Riperton’s classic “Loving You”. That soon became their next song, brought with full improvisation on different styles. He went on improvising with the bass, until his body burned with some smokes appeared from his shoulder. One of the cool funky dance song from ESQIEF’s previous album came up, “Bermain Api”. Syaharani and the Queenfireworks closed their session with “Tetaplah Disini”. Grace Sahertian, the vocalist of Palm from Moodytunes was called on stage and did a Broadway-ish scat duet with Syaharani. It was a very interactive performance that involved the audience to participate in almost every song they sang. Absolutely superb.
The message was sent successfully at ITB. It was a little teaser of what’s going to happen next week at the main event, the 32nd JGTC (Jazz Goes to Campus 2009) which will be held on Sunday, November 29, 2009 from 10 AM to midnight at Campus grounds, Faculty of Economics University of Indonesia, Depok. It would be perfect if fellow college students from ITB who are happen to be jazz fans could join the jazz party on next Sunday. The next stop will be at Margo City, Depok, this Friday, November 20, 2009 from 8 PM to midnight. There will be Margo Friday Jazz, Komunitas Jazz Kemayoran (KJK), Likumahuwa Brothers, Soulvibe and 21st Night performing there exclusively for JGTC. For you who are in Jakarta, don’t miss the next and the last road show.
The main event, 32nd JGTC will be held at:
Date: Sunday, November 29, 2009
Time: 10:00 AM – 00:00 PM
Location: Campus grounds, Faculty of Economics University of Indonesia (Depok), Jakarta
Tickets:
On Spot: IDR 40.000
Early Bird: IDR 37.000
Reporter: Riandy Kurniawan, Adott Jumbo
Photographer: Eghi Gabred
Popularity: 2% [?]
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