Jeremy Monteiro@TAB and then Oranje boven (Orange on top)

It was many months ago that I visited TAB. I don't even remember what the gig was. I think we came to check it out on a whim. I vaguely remember the female singer alone on stage being totally lost in the acoustics of the place. It was noisy like in a canteen. So I have been avoiding the place, till last night when they were hosting Jeremy Monteiro's super jam session.

An event organized in honor of Tuesday being international jazz day!! The fact that we already missed one if Jeremy's gigs at TAB, made me think that, acoustically, things must have improved. And it had. Visual evidence of objects around the stage and on the ceiling, that may have an effect on the sound made an audible difference. It will be well worth it to keep an eye on what TAB has to offer. A side advantage is that it is located next to one of our favorite tapas places “Bodega I Tapas”. A name that briefly disappeared from the map, but to our delight came back to it's original form. The event started early so no time for a leisurely tapas dinner, but it will be on the agenda next time. So TAB, much more pleasant than last time, and early in the evening already nicely filled with a good crowd of listeners, as well as musicians, a prerequisite for a successful jam, looked promising. Another feature to look forward to was the original line up.
 
Main band line up:

Anne Weerapass vocals

Brian Benson on bass

Eugene Pao guitar

Jeremy Monteiro on keys

Richard Jackson voc

Shawn Letts saxophone

Tamagoh on drums

Jeremy’s set of keys included the Hammond that I praised in an earlier blog.

With the evening starting off slowly, and a little later than announced, we were well settled in before the first tunes came into the, by then, pretty much filled TAB. The next pleasant surprise for me was, there was light, something that always improves my ability to take pictures, which is of course what any amateur snapper like has as an objective; improve! Following some good tunes to warm up, Jeremy invited Richard to the stage. 

Little did we know that this was only a prelude for things to come. King Richard the only, together with his right hand man Rick Smith, 

pleased his audience with a beautiful rendition of Gingi only to ready the carpet for a line up of Singapore's Lady's of Jazz;

starting with Lady in red Lady Anne Weerapass

Followed with Lady in love Lady Melissa Tham

 
Then Lady of leisure Lady Rani Singam

To finish off with the Kings' Lady herself Lady Alemay Fernandez

In the mean time we had seen Kerong come and go, to return to the KeyBorgan, in parallel with Jemery on the piano for a last burst of energy, because 10 PM was approaching like it was Cinderella's midnight and we had to clear out for what ever event was to follow in TAB. 

It turned out to be a true grand finally with Kerong practically ripping the Keys of the Borgan and Jeremy following closely on the piano, so much intuned to each other, that their expressions became near equal

The 10 PM deadline was convenient to us because there was the transition of the Dutch Queen to Kings day to be celebrated on the top of this unusual Asian city.  Already at a high by the cool tunes and a bit of alcohol we lined up at 1 Raffles place to be taken by lift to 1Altitude where a place filled with people in orange and various states of intoxication were singing to some of the wonderfully tacky and cool dutch party Sing-a-longs. "Een eigen huis (I wish) een plek onder de zon??" SingaporeNL, echt wel!!