PUBLISHED March 19th, 2018 06:00 am | UPDATED July 24th, 2024 11:12 am
When the ‘King of Swing’ starts lamenting about the lacklustre state of jazz in Singapore, you know that there’s cause for concern. After all, Jeremy Monteiro – the pianist, singer, and composer behind 700 pieces of original music, including One People, One Nation, One Singapore – is the city’s most recognisable jazz musician, boasting a prolific career that spans over 40 years.
Our chat with the man comes in anticipation of the Singapore International Jazz Festival’s fifth edition, which will take place at its long-time home of Marina Bay Sands from 6 to 8 April 2018. On the last day of the three-day event, Jeremy will lead his band, the Jazz Association of Singapore Orchestra (JASSO) on stage for one of its biggest shows to date.
What’s your take on the local jazz scene and landscape in recent years, now as compared to as recent as five or 10 years ago?
For a little bit of context, the jazz scene in Singapore started right after the war. We’ve had great musicians who have performed all over the world, including TV programmes in Germany. Neither I nor any of my recent predecessors invented the Singapore jazz scene. But I can safely say that today, we have more high level, world-class, and regional-class musicians than any time in our history. The thing is that we don’t have enough places to play, so Sing Jazz is a great platform for our musicians to perform. Some places have jazz nights, but there are no regular full-on jazz clubs anymore.
Do you see more people interested in jazz nowadays?
I have to say, in the 80s and 90s, I went to over 60 schools and spoke to over 100,000 schoolchildren, illustrating to them what jazz was and is – from Dixieland to Fusion. Out of these kids, some of them – now they’d be in their 30s or 40s – would have become jazz fans. Some of them come up to me at my Esplanade concerts, and say “Hey, I went to one of your school talks, met my wife at the school hall, and we got married a few years later.“ So I’m also a matchmaker, by the way.
How about jazz musicians?
There’s no shortage of musicians now, unlike 25 years ago, when I felt very alone. There were very few of us, and besides me there was Louis Soliano, who’s basically the elder statesman of jazz here – he’s still active at 76 today and he still plays with me sometimes. But now, there are a number of really good musicians.
I think basically, there is more interest in music in general. People are more affluent, and before, it was reserved for the rich. Now they’d send their children for piano, guitar, or violin lessons. And if they are serious about jazz, whereas there’s no such thing as a degree in jazz last time, there is one now at LASALLE. As a result, unlike other professions like doctors or lawyers where the government titrate how many lawyers and doctors come into the scene, for musicians it’s a free for all. Every year they come out after they graduate, but there’s no work.
What kind of solution would you recommend?
What we need now is to have places for musicians to play. I’m talking to the government, to get them to consider issuing more public entertainment licenses across the island. It doesn’t even have to be alcohol venues. It could be cafes or dining outlets. It’s a quick and longterm fix, to allow musicians to play all over the island. Right now, there are musicians who might migrate here, like Nicole Duffell who plays the saxophone, and Christy Smith – there are musicians like them who make Singapore home, but there are fewer places for them to play.
There are organisations like yours, that are working to promote jazz in Singapore. What kind of programmes can we expect from that?
We have established very strongly in 16 months, and our fundraising has surpassed our target by more than 35%. We are building a lot of government support and we’ve started performing all over the island for public outreach. We’re now going to have two concerts a year at Botanic Gardens, for UNESCO-related activities, and at the same time, we were very lucky to be invited to present JASSO at Sing Jazz.
What kind of music can we expect from your group? Do you find yourself having to play more accessible ‘mainstream’ pieces for general audiences?
In my own career, I didn’t really care what the audiences thought, sometimes to the detriment of my career. I played what I wanted, and people don’t mind you playing something experimental, so as long as you gave something they wanted. It’s something like two for them and one for me.
Looking at the Sing Jazz line-up for this year, there are a lot of acts you wouldn’t usually consider jazz. For example, there’s MAS1A, the rapper and hip-hop artist, and Weish, who uses a lot of electronic loops.
I’m not going to question the artistic direction of the festival, because I actually ran the Singapore Jazz Festival in 2001, and I was the first Artistic Director for Kuala Lumpur International Jazz Festival. And like how past presidents don’t criticise current presidents, I’m not going to make a judgement. But looking at the response of the audience at the last edition, it was really well done, from the balancing of the repertoire to the lights and set. I thought to myself, “they have arrived”. And if they can maintain this structure in which the content appears, then I think it’s something we can definitely look forward to.
Of course, could it be just to draw a larger audience?
If we go to a city like London or New York, the kind of jazz that’s played is very much mainstream jazz. Jazz festivals nowadays programme a combination of jazz acts and popular R&B acts to varying degrees – whatever they think the demographic or audience would be happy with. This is something that programmers have to watch, to make sure that there is enough jazz content in all its forms, from mainstream jazz to fusion jazz and Latin jazz. But they must make sure that there is enough classics, like George Benson or the late Al Jarreau. Those rock performances are just a programming choice to draw certain segments of the audience.
On another note, I did a Beatles jazz tribute concert at the Esplanade last year, and I was surprised to see that 30 percent of the audience were not jazz fans, but Beatles fans. And at the end of the day, now that they’ve heard the jazz tunes of Beatles stuff, they were interested to learn more.
Any particular acts you’re looking forward to?
I know there’s going to be some interesting acts. Bluey from Incognito is bringing together some top acid jazz artists with him on stage, and I’m on the Sunday night performance before Incognito. Lalah Hathaway is amazing as well.
Who are some young jazz musicians in Singapore you can vouch for?
There’s a very talented young saxophone player by the name of Sean Hong Wei, and he’ll be playing at the festival. At his age, during my time, even those up to 30 years old – nobody at 18 years old could play like that. Aaron James Lee as well. He sort of had all the tools and things he needed, but he didn’t put it all together until about a year ago, and now he’s one of the best drummers in the region, at 21 or 22.
Catch Jeremy Monteiro live at the 5th Singapore International Jazz Festival, happening from 6 to 8 March 2018 at the Marina Bay Sands Event Plaza. Tickets are priced from $138, available here.