Singapore International Jazz Festival 2018 Recap: Lalah Hathaway and Lauryn Hill Deliver Uplifting Performances

PUBLISHED April 10th, 2018 05:00 am | UPDATED July 24th, 2024 11:12 am

Five years is a huge milestone for any festival, let alone one as large in scale as the Singapore International Jazz Festival (or Sing Jazz, as it is affectionally called). Still, the premier jazz music extravaganza showed no sign of slowing down, returning for three nights from 6 to 8 April at Marina Bay Sands with three stages and everything from R&B and funk to soul and hip-hop. Here’s our recap of what went on.

Festival standouts go to Lalah Hathaway and Lauryn Hill

Have you ever heard someone sing two notes (called overtone singing) at the same time? Well, we did – courtesy of five-time Grammy winner Lalah Hathaway. We don’t know which was more impressive: the ability to do that or her extraordinary vocal range and innate musicality. No matter the case, she had the audience braving the light rain as she belted out 90 minutes of soulful renditions on Saturday evening. She got the crowd singing to ‘I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know’, a track first sang by her father, the legendary Donny Hathaway, and covered R&B classics like ‘Angel’ and Luther Vandross’s ‘Forever, For Always, For Love’. In true Hathaway style, there was a lot of scatting going on, and boy was it crazy. Crazy good.

Later that night, Lauryn Hill took the middle slot at the Late Show, and let’s face it, most of the audience was there for her. She, like Hathaway, has five Grammys to her name, first achieved as a member of The Fugees (‘Killing Me Softly’) and later with her solo career – an electrifying blend of reggae, rock, and soul. Together with her 13-piece band, the impassioned singer threw out fresh takes on songs like ‘Everything Is Everything’ and ‘Doo Wop (That Thing)’, as well as a number of Fugees tracks like ‘How Many Mics’. It wasn’t easy to sing along, due to her offhand ad libs and intense raps, but it was mind-blowing all the same.

Jamie Cullum drew a full house at the main stage

Oh, “what a difference a day made”, or so went Jamie Cullum’s cover of the María Grever jazz classic. And if the full house at the main stage was anything to go by, his set undoubtedly made a difference as he closed off Saturday night’s main show. The Sing Jazz alumnus and jazz-pop superstar brought back the same acclaimed music he first showcased at the festival’s inaugural event in 2014, and more, with tracks like ‘Save Your Soul’ and ‘Don’t Stop the Music’ (which happens to be his most played song on Spotify).

Part of Jamie Cullen’s charm, besides his devilish charisma and playful English humour, is his ability to jump between musical styles with uncanny ease, and he sure delivers, even finding time for a jazzed-up cover of Radiohead’s iconic ‘High and Dry’. The man ends off his set, as he always does, with ‘Mixtape, and it’s the most ‘jumpy’ we’ve seen the audience all day. The good kind.

#SingaporeRepresent

Closer to home, we saw Tim De Cotta, Weish, MAS1A and Jeremy Monteiro flying the Singapore flag – it is the Singapore International Jazz Festival after all. While singer and loop artist Weish (one half of electronic duo .gif) and hip-hop reggae queen MAS1A are hardly the first people to come to mind when you think jazz music, we’re hardly complaining.

From tracks fresh off Tim’s newish album The Warrior to Weish’s version of Justin Timberlake’s ‘Cry Me A River’, they are evidence of the fact that locally made music has reached a world-class level that shouldn’t be ignored. As for the Cultural Medallion awardee Jeremy Monteiro and his big band (from The Jazz Association of Singapore), we can safely say that they, quite literally, blew it out of the park.

Incognito brings industry buddies to the stage

Anyone who’s followed the previous editions of Sing Jazz would know that Incognito, the British acid jazz band with deep roots in the 70s jazz and funk scene, has been a festival mainstay since the very beginning. As regular attendees at every festival, things ran the risk of getting boring, but lo and behold, this time saw the addition of Leee John, the leader of 80s supersoul group IMAGINATION, as well as Omar Lye-Fook, also a British soul musician. It’s a killer combination, to say the least, in between tunes like ‘There’s Nothing Like This’ and ‘Still A Friend Of Mine’.

The first ever Sing Jazz Festival Village

This year’s edition of Sing Jazz also saw its first-ever Festival Village at the Marina Bay Sands Events Square, because every festival needs one of those, right? Plus, it was free to enter for the public – great for those who didn’t manage to get tickets. It was there that nearly 20 local and regional bands, including Singapore’s Cold Cut Quartet and Havana Social Club, Indonesia’s Dua Empat, and George Washingmachine from Australia, took to the sizeable Ebenex Stage in a series of fringe performances from as early as Wednesday afternoon.

And let’s not forget the festival food from the likes of Hafudog (which dishes out gourmet fusion hotdogs in the CBD) and Three’s A Crowd – a collective of three guys from different industries bringing in Southeast Asian cuisine with a Western flair. Will this be a recurring facet of Sing Jazz next year? If so, we hope it’s even bigger.

The 5th Singapore International Jazz Festival took place from 6 to 8 April 2018 at the Marina Bay Sands Event Plaza. Stay tuned to the official Facebook page for more information about the next edition.