Barbershop Quartet: A holiday introspective

Somehow Christmas is connected to organ music for me. 

I guess it has to do with the connection of church and these massive pipe instruments that many of them are home to. Or it could also be the music my father chose to play because of the mood Christmas used to put him into.  

Secondly it was a dreary day. I had taken my bicycle out in the rain in the morning to work and it was still or maybe again raining when I returned back in the late afternoon.   

Weather in the Netherlands is usually quite similar, as it was the second day of Christmas in Singapore. Except for the fact that it is about 25 degrees colder than here, it looked and felt pretty much the same; grey and damp!  

It was actually my wife who suggested to go to Barbershop, to see the Barbershop quartet’s impressive line up of

Richard Jackson vocals

Rick Smith Guitar

Tamagoh on drums

And fitting to my Christmas feelings the Organ masterfully played by Oliver von Essen.

Those of you who have been reading several of my posts may have come to the conclusion that I have a strong preference for vivacious characters on stage, preferably women, and that may be true.

But as I am reading the last chapter of Quiet, the power of introverts in a world that cannot stop talking, I recognize several of the observations made in this book in Richard. 

 

To anyone that considers calling someone an introvert a negative thing, I recommend the book strongly and others should read it as well, I think. It is an interesting perspective on the kind of people we all know and you may even be yourself, society just did not allow you to know it.

So Richard, as I know him, is calm and quiet, appears pensive often and speaks using few words, a strong contrast to the jumpy, crazy, bubbly characters I am admiring so often.

Yet I enjoy watching Richard as much as I enjoy hearing him sing. Observing Richard is like staring into the open fire of a fireplace, watching the flames that reach out into the darkness  chimney.

It somehow absorbs your mind and allows you to float away listening to soulful music, while you can feel the warmth it radiates.  What is nicer on grungy grey days like last Friday.

I will have finished the last chapter of Quiet probably by the end of the weekend and then I will be closing that book…! Finally perhaps, because I am a slow reader and even slower in learning. My encounter with the introvert side of people did teach me several lessons though and I will end a good year with quite a bit of new perspectives!

 

The last song of the second set happened to be a pretty version of a rainy night in Georgia. At that point I thought we had enough rain for one day. So we decided to pay up and head home to play our fireplace DVD.

 

Leandra Lane: Girl on fire

We are having a visitor from New York. A cousin who has been living in the heart of Manhattan for the past 20 years and came to check out our lives in Singapore. Of course you do your best to find something special something truly Singaporean. Since I am more familiar with some parts of the music scene here than any other attractions, I of course dragged her to a gig at the Sing Jazz club in the Sultan Hotel, which in itself is a charmingly restored shop house complex and a true representation of typical Singapore.

So that for one was a good choice.  We got lucky in many ways with the feature at Sing jazz that evening.  The lead singer Leandra Lane is a daughter of an American father and a Eurasian/Dutch mother; a nice hotchpotch of cultures that is predominantly found in this region.

Her orientation was hits from almost any pop era, in a variety of genres, I vaguely remember Queen and Elvis, reggae, pop, soul and R&B, she did it all...with conviction and a strong sense of entertainment.

With eyes lashing out  (they are real) into the audience firing off jolts of fun, 

she quickly hit them in the heart. Many, as if re-animated, jumped to their feet to dance to the music of the swinging band.

 Sebastian Ho

G-Man

Jordan Wei

William Gathright

I can say many praising things about how Leandra managed to get almost all present to the dance floor. It grew and grew in size, by peoples’ initiative to move the furniture. Even G-Man, usually the animator, could sit back and relax most of this evening, 

because Leandra was in the driving seat.

A special note goes out to Sebastian, who regularly managed to sweep things up to a greater height by whipping up some cool guitar solos.

Willie, always a solid bass player came out fabulously well in some of my photos if I say so myself.

Jordan behind the piano, looked and sounded equally good, even though he was a bit tucked away in the darker corners of stage and sound.

The buzz at SingJazz that night that Leandra is the daughter of a Drifter, now that in itself is not unusual for any culture but in this case it is Drifter with a Capital DEE; the doo-wop band from the 50’s and beyond. 

Maybe to some that is a credential that is of value to fame for Leandra Lane, I don’t know if that holds true for the big bad world out there, but here in safe Singapore, Leandra can grab the lion by the ears and take entertainment at venues and events like Sing Jazz, on her own, until deep in the night… to a higher level!