Dji Sam Soe URBAN JAZZ CROSSOVER 2009 : Surabaya Report
Finally , Dji Sam Soe Urban Jazz Crossover 2009 found the final city, Surabaya. As we all know, after they remarkably grooved 4 previous cities (Medan, Bandung, Semarang and Jakarta), finally they came to the end of the 1 month tour at Surabaya. In this final city, Urban Jazz Crossover was held at Empire Palace building (May 29, 2009) .
Here’s how it looked outside the ballroom. The crowds looked excited and couldn’t wait to enter the hall. There were long queues on the ticket boxes, showing how much Surabaya’s music lovers were expecting this event to happen in their hometown. Almost all of them were the young music lovers. Not only came from Surabaya but there were also from other cities such as Gresik, Sidoarjo, Malang even Bali and so on. They simply just didn’t want to miss the greatness of this show that they heard from friends and medias.
The doors were open at 8 pm sharp. Those who already got the ticket slowly entered the hall, meanwhile ticket booth were still had long lines. When we checked out the stage, we could find some unique spots and designs. Like the backdrop on the back of the stage which had some big boxes and some of them were filled with dancers, also supported with cool animations.The lightings were fabulous as well. Brilliant !
The show began about an hour later. At 9 pm the lightings began to shine. And as the opening , the great band HUMANIA started with “Y’ all be there”. Eq Puradiredja welcomed the crowds and got huge replied by the audience. The second song was “Lepas Kendali” delivered with some new touch and arrangements. Then Humania brought their previous hits like “Jelita”, “Bersama” and closed with “Terserah” that made the crowds enthusiastically sang with them. This very recent Humania formation along with the Urban Jazz Crossover All Star band clearly had some new arrangements to the song they brought which created geniously by Eq Puradiredja (vocalist), Heru Singgih (keyboard, synthesizer) and Lawrence “Larry” Aswin (sequencer) . Humania surely stimulated the crowds, preparing their mood so they would be ready to enjoy the show and had lots of fun. Eq said, all the performers would give their best until the end of the show in Surabaya as the last city.
While waiting for the stage to be prepared, the famous DJ in Jakarta, DJ Cream played some titles on the turntable. Almost all of them were classic songs from 70-90’s including “September” by Earth Wind and Fire. These song selections made the peoples jived.
After jiving with DJ Cream, Dira came on stage. She looked as beautiful as always wearing the black tops and stretched pants. Her stunning voice mesmerized everybody. The quality of her singing vocal along with good singing techniques were just fantastic. Together with Dana the rapper, Dira sang Yarbrough & Peoples‘ hits “Don’t stop the Music” first, then continued with “American Boy” (Estelle feat Kanye West’s hit). A beautiful collaboration between Dira and Ali Akbar on keyboard came next. It was the classic jazz standard from the 1937 that has appeared in no less than 1300 albums, “My funny valentine”. Then Dira closed her first appearance with “Bring it On” , a brand new song taken from her new album which will be released really soon. Dira brought a great star.
Ari Lasso came next. He’s a big rock star in indonesia, and here at the Urban Jazz Crossover he had the chance to explore some jazzy side of him. Opened with his own hit “Mana Kutahu”, he directly rocked the stage and that attempt got huge response from the crowds. We all sang along with him. Next Ari Lasso sang “Hampa” in a sweet swingy-jazzy touch, while in the backdrop stage there were beautiful silhouette dancers danced following the rhythm. Sometimes in the middle of his performance he tried to get closer with the crowds and tried to talk in Javanese language. He simply made the room warmer.
“Walk this way” the classic hit of Aerosmith and later by reformed again by Run DMC shocked the crowds by Candil “Serieus”and Dana great collaboration that came out suddenly from the backstage, plus some attractions from Edwin “Cokelat” with his guitar playing.
Then the show continued with the performance of LALA, a very beautiful vocalist with beautiful voice and loads of talents. LALA looked simply stunning with a white dress. She sang Radiohead’s “High & Dry” which also popularized again by Jamie Cullum in a soft and smooth way, making the room got cozier. The interesting part of LALA’s performance came when she held her guitar and played George Michael’s “Faith” . This song featured Candil in one of the backdrop’s box together with Edwin’s raunchy guitar. Then LALA introduced herself to the crowds, saying how happy she was to perform in Surabaya. Then her own composed song came next, “What About You”, acoustically. LALA gave a very sweet performance.
Next, we had one of the previous performer who also participated in the first Urban Jazz Crossover last year, Andi/rif. He sang U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” in a modern swingy style. In this song he was accompanied by Seriosa singer named Daniel, delivering a whole new concept of the song. It was a surprise twist. Rihanna’s recent hit, “Umbrella” came next still in a jazzy swingy tunes with some dancers who brought black umbrellas. Then Andi/rif sang his hit “Radja”, twisting it brilliantly from the original heavy rock arrangement to smooth and easy listening jazz. Andi /rif closed his performance with Coldplay’s “Clocks”, again with blending in with Daniel’s seriosa singing technique. Pleasantful twists were all over in Andi/rif’s part of the show. And we could see how comfortable he was doing the jazz swing style. Wow.
Candil came on stage again. This time he surprised the crowds by his interesting performance. He wore a red jacket and leather pants with curly hair impersonating Michael Jackson. That was a hillarious plan because he then sang “Beat it”, feat Dana. Mimicking Michael Jackson and sang the song so twisted in lyrics, as he took the joke version that was popular by a legendary Indonesian comedy group named Warkop. The crowds enjoyed it.
Then came the final performer, Glenn Fredly. The crowds screamed excitedly. He looked cool wearing a white tee and black vest with fedora hat. He opened his performance with “Jejak Langkah”. A lovely song with lovely performance that made the crowds sang along with him. Then Glenn made a warm greeting to the crowds and bonded with the crowds through some jokes and some statements about the great band and musicians on stage. Glenn continued with another Radiohead’s hit “Creep” , featuring Yuyun (a sinden, traditional javanese singer) who danced and sang in sinden’s way at one of the top box at the backdrop, with some lightings and animations. Glenn said it was very special to him having her unique Sinden voices into the song. For next title, Glen sang “I Shot the Sheriff”, a song written and made popular by Bob Marley and covered later by Eric Clapton. Then came “Sinaran” , a very famous Sheila Madjid hit from the 90’s featuring great saxophone playing by the Dutch born saxophonist who moved to Indonesia since 2005, Nicky Manuputty. This song also featured Dira and Candil. The crowds grooved and jived with this song. Then Glenn closed his performance by a sincere compliment to Dji Sam Soe for making the great and unique Urban Jazz Crossover, also gave a great respect to all members of the Urban Jazz Crossover All Stars band for fantasticly supporting all the singers with their skills and talents. Awesome !
Then Glen asked Eq as the music director to come on stage closing the entire show. Eq gave his great appreciation to the people of Surabaya for coming to the show, enjoying it, and gave respect to the band who has really given their best support to all the main performers. The bands were Larry aswin and DJ Cream on turntable, sequencer, Ali Akbar and Doni Joesran on keyboards, Rayendra Sunito on drums, Andrie Bayuadjie on guitar, Adjirao on percussions, Bonar Abraham on guitar, Mohammad Abdullah Aziz on sax and backing vocal, Mila Amelia and Dira as the other two backing vocals plus Donny Koeswinarno, Enggar Widodo and Gatut Santoso on the brass sections.
Eq shared some information too that Heru Humania had his birthday that night. All performers then congratulated him on stage. Closing the show, Eq asked all the performer and musicians came on stage saying goodbye to the crowds and wishing for more great events next year in Surabaya.
Overall , Dji Sam Soe Urban Jazz Crossover was a unique and extraordinary event. Those musicians were fantastic, the stage were made beautifully and the arrangements were awesome. The crowds of Surabaya surely got some new tastes of music, giving them a new experience in the music entertainment. As how the tagline goes, “The Music You Know with A Twist”, it was absolutely a big party with lots of twists. Look forward to have bigger Urban Jazz Crossover next year! Hopefully with longer duration and more cities to visit. Thank you Dji Sam Soe and everybody who participated in this grand event. May this event bring Indonesian music, jazz in particular to the top. Bravo!
Reporter: JazzloVa
Photographer : I Putu Surya K.B.
Editor: Riandy Kurniawan
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