Dji Sam Soe Urban Jazz Crossover : Medan Report
Medan starts as the first round of the whole five town where this unique concept event take places this year. The 2nd Urban Jazz Crossover now became the smaller scale of the organizer’s attempts to spread jazz wider, yet with the power as strong as the other bigger ones. Eki Puradiredja, the well-known vocalist of contemporary jazz band Humania, who also took great parts in organizing Java Jazz Festival, still in as the music director of the festival. 
And conceived bigger than the first last year’s event, 2009 Urban Jazz Crossover presenting Ari Lasso, Glenn Fredly, Humania, Candil (ex-vocalist of Seurieus) and two our new jazz divas sensation, Dhira and Lala. While Dhira known famous with her collaborations with Incognito (who also produced her upcoming album) and appeared in Jason Mraz’ show in this year’s Java Jazz Festival, Lala (Sekarmela Kartodirjo, 22 years old Indonesian-Phillipine singer) has already became a jazz sensation in Phillipines, won many music awards with her debut album entitled Stars, which featured two massive hit singles “Waitin” and “Unsaid” (duet with Christian Bautista). In the gueststars’ list, there’s Edwin Cokelat, Andre Kahitna, Yuyun and Daniel (each take parts in Sinden ; Javanese traditional music) and Seriosa ; Indonesian’s opera style), Dana (Pradana Rizki) in the rap zone and DJ Reza Arnanda Putra (DJ Cream) and the whole Jazz Crossover band with the stagedancers.
Held in the ballroom of free-smoke concept JW Marriott Hotel Medan, the show which brought the luxurious 14×10m multi-level stage with 16 bars of par lamp, 45 moving 300.000 watts lights and 20.000 watts indoor soundsystem, 18 cube holographic screens and 18 of 7000 ansilumens synchronization projector for the first time, starts with Humania. About 1000 audiences got hotter with the performance from Dhira feat Dana, Lala to the two of the most awaited performers, Ari Lasso, who transformed his two hitsingles, “Mana Kutahu” and “Hampa”, Led Zeppelin’s “Rock N Roll” and U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” in jazz atmosphere and Glenn Fredly voiced his jazz touch with two songs, “Jejak Langkah Yang Kau Tinggal” & Sheila Majid’s “Sinaran”, as the climax who brought all the artists collaborating together.
As the theme of this year’s event, “The Music You Know With A Twist”, the crossovers not also jazzin’ their tunes, but also gave wide touch from another genres such as our own traditional sinden and seriosa, hiphop and the most special highlights in the middle of every performance, rock, in the form of Candil who voiced Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way”, Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” and George Michael’s “Faith” with the wanna-be theatrical extravaganza. It’s not only jazz. It’s An Urban Crossover, and It’s Really Fantastic!
Reporter: Daniel Irawan
Popularity: 21% [?]
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