Men In Groovey shirts

I am catching up already. This act was not already a few weeks old. I feel it's a little special too, because of the music style; New and old Tamil/Hindi ballads and sing-alongs (if only I knew the language) brought by MIG ++. The Men In Groove must be familiar to a lot of you already, as a band but most certainly as individual performers. For those of you who do not know them, it is an eclectic band made up of:

Mohamed Noor (Drums and vocals)

Leonardo Mendoza (EWI)

Casey Subramaniam (Guitar)

Navin Kumar Nagpal (Tabla ++)

The ++ were:

Mohamed Rafi (Guitar, vocals, stories)

Pravin Saivi. (Guitar and vocals)

All names with plenty of reference to India, no matter the origin of the individuals, but in my experience, also names with a guaranty for entertainment.  I had not seen Mohamed Rafi perform before though, but his friendly face with generous smile and his groovy shirt indicated to me he was there for only two reasons one to make music and two to have fun doing it. 

He may have had a couple of smaller intentions on his agenda, like gluing the songs together with interesting narrative, but I’m clubbing that under the “have fun” chapter.

In all honesty it was difficult to say who was the largest animator on the stage, except for Leo, they were all laughs and smiles throughout when they were playing. I have never played an instrument, let alone this electronic instrument of wind, but I figure it is quite impossible to produce a sound while smiling ear to ear, and Leo was producing one solid solo after another, hence he had to forgo on the smiling, I’m sure, but... entertaining never the less!

To add more fun to all this, was to observe the various friendly battles going on on stage like Navin and Noor battling it out on percussion and drums,

Casey and Rafi  on Guitar

and the battle of the voices between Pravin and Mohamed Rafi.

Looking over my shoulder, around the well-filled floor of Blu Jaz’s 3^rd story… again I saw lots of smiles and singers, as people took every opportunity to happily sing along with whatever melancholic Tamil or Hindi love song they were familiar with.

I maybe a bit biased to Indian origin, so I enjoy listening to a lot of the music that has it’s origin in the cultures there, including the classical stuff.  It is great that bands like MIG are bringing the music in a blend of Indian originals together with a bit of “western” rock? Especially if there is an underlying intent to promote the Indian. All in all, Romba nanna irukku!!!!!

 

Stephen Francis and friends featuring Lily dressed to the frills

It’s a rainy day so not a big deal to spend it behind the computer. I am hoping to catch up on some of my posts today I have “only” 3 more to go. The after effects of procrastination are painful but I think all three are very much worth my attempt to draw attention to the music and the musicians and of course my pictures.

This one is about a show I saw at the Sultan. I am using the word show deliberately, instead of gig, concert, act, etc… because any performance with Lily Anna Nuris is a show. 

She has a large personality with lots of soul and blues and a big voice to top it up.

This evening Lily was a feature on Stephen Francis’s (Keyboard and Vocals) band that meant a very promising soulful play list to begin with.

The vocalist where supported or should I say enhanced by the presence of

Sebastian Ho (Guitar)

Ignatius Bong (Bass)

Jimmy Lee (Drums)

A line up like that leaves no doubt that those who were smart enough to be present at the Sultan were thoroughly entertained by great soul classics and awesome vocals

, but no less because if a swinging bass man,

 virtuoso guitarist

and a smooth as silk drummer

to keep the audience on the fringes of their seats

 

Teriver Cheung: A Singapore detour

This has been a while, both that I posted anything and the subject of this particular one. But it is interesting from several perspectives. Primarily that there seem to be more people that are successful in getting foreign Jazz talent to play in Singapore. As in this case, where Nicole Duffel managed to pluck the guitarist Teriver Cheung off his tour through Asia to play a couple of evenings here.

I happened to catch the B28 gig. Teriver was in good company with Kerong Chok on organ

 and Wen Ming Soh on drums.

No doubt a couple of them met in the U.S., which must have helped raising interest for Teriver to come over. Singapore’s growing talent base, with members like Kerong Chok and Wen Ming Soh, is likely putting this island state, with it’s growing potential for any arts scene, on the Jazz map while on their own international ventures. 

Entrepreneurial initiatives like at a larger scale the new Singapore International Jazz Festival and at a smaller scale but hopefully with a regularity spread over the year, by people like Nicole, can cement it all together. Nicole's B28 International Jazz Series are hoping to bring more International glory to Singapore. I understand the regularity is dependent on opportunity like last month’s visit by Teriver.

Thursday nights are probably not that hot anyway at B28, and it being a Halloween evening did not help either, I guess, so the audience was regretfully modest in number.

 That did not keep the musicians back from putting up a lovely show, thoroughly appreciated by those who did attend. 

A small pictorial impression below.