Happy People @ Top Hat

The gig at The Top Room @ Top Hat for the last two nights was simply awesome!

The only difference was just having two newbies in the band - Leonard Yeap on keys/piano, and Martin Ngim on drums. Charles is in UK honeymooning (again!), and Justin is still in the US with his studies. Oh yeah, we also introduced some new tunes, which I will talk about in a while.

Martin is the latest newcomer for the band, and I believe it was quite an experience for him. To put it mildly, I think we're placed him in a slightly deeper end of the pool, and he's trying his best to stay afloat. And to say the least, he did a wonderful job of it. We only managed to do this gig with only TWO long rehearsals, very tiring for most of us, as we were rehearsing till late in the night (or rather EARLY in the morning). Although we had initially planned for three rehearsals we only could manage two, due to some technical difficulties, from scheduling to studio booking mess-ups.

Anyway, we all managed quite well in doing almost all the tunes in our list of repertoire, and I added another two tunes into it - Yams (a nice slow 12-bar blues) by Herbie Hancock and Blues In A Jiff (a minor blues with a bridge) by Jackie McLean. These two tunes are definitely more straight-ahead jazz, stylistically leaning more to hard-bop, so we're definitely introducing more mainstream jazz tunes into our repertoire. Our usual tunes that we've done were Not You Again (John Scofield), Happy People, Simply Said and Song For DiFang (Kenny Garrett), Freedomland and New Rochelle (Bob Mintzer/Yellowjackets), Quiet Afternoon (Stanley Clarke), our own arrangement of Mercy Mercy Mercy (Joe Zawinul), Work Song (Cannonball Adderley), Blue Miles (Chick Corea), and Early A.M Attitude (Dave Grusin).

Anyway, just to recount our two days of gigs at the Top Room, Friday night's show was good, but a lot of us we're a little off balance at some parts of the gig. Not to mention the fact we were pretty tired from the previous nights' rehearsal until 3.30AM! All of us, individually, have just been so busy with a whole lot of other work - some of us did the Zoom-In featuring Yasin show at RTM - and then some, so we were really just out there working. Even so, we had some good moments - especially on parts where me and Eddie were trading solos, like we were having a musical conversation with each other - and the band just builds up the dynamic along with us! There were moments that happened out of accident, that brought the song into different heights previously unexplored.. that really kicked up the whole thing a notch!

Some additional songs we did on the fly were How High The Moon (with guest singer Junji Delfino), East Of The Sun (with guest Rachel Guerzo on vocals and David Gomes on piano), and David Gomes jamming on Autumn Leaves and St. Thomas. But I think, towards half of the second set to the third set, we were definitely tiring out a little.

Saturday, on the other hand, was more relaxed - we were more fresh, and a little more accustomed to each other and the place. Ideas flowed out much more smoothly, and the band's interaction was a little better. We did most of our repertoire as well, and we had some guests to come jam with us. One of them was a friend I met and got to know at some of our earlier gigs, Mark Ho, who came up to sang Fly Me To The Moon. My best bud, sax-brother, Kevin Choo also came up to jam Cold Duck Time with us! So that definitely added to the fun factor for the third set.

One of the highlights for Saturday was our second set, where we played those two new songs, Yams and Blues In A Jiff. It was a personal tribute, on my part and with the band, to the late Jackie McLean. The whole band was just swinging that night! And there was so much of the blues that came out from each and everyone of us, we felt like we were gonna explode! And I believe, we're the FIRST band in Malaysia to play those songs! 'Cos we sure ain't hearin' no one else doin' this thang...

Well, we definitely had quite a lot of fun the last two nights. And I think we can attest to the fact we were playing our butts off (even when we were exhausted), like there was no tomorrow. But kudos to Leonard and especially Martin for a job well done, and at such a short period of time (with very little rehearsals).

We'll be performing in Alexis Bistro Ampang this weekend, so do come and check it out, if you've missed our Top Room gig. We'll definitely be back in the The Top Room in the future, so do ask for us the next time you go back to the Room for more good music!

Just a little heads-up for TTR - Michael Veerapen Trio will be performing at the Room this weekend, so you'll be in for some intense piano trio music!

For those who are reading-impaired, and don't wish to read long blogs, here are some pics to satiate your visual senses:

Happy People..... !

Eddie...blowing his horn...

Julian "the Sax Man" is on fire with his NEW Alto.....

The Groove man himself...... AJ !!!

The Replacement (female) Killer Drummer..... Martin....

Leonard...... Look at the fingers..... on fire !!!


Eddie blowing his brains out!

Julian's face is gonna explode!

Can't even see AJ's fingers move! So kau fast!

For those who came to support us at our TTR gig - THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!! Thanks for supporting us and the Malaysian jazz scene in general! We hope to see you again at our future gigs, and more.

Write-up by Julian

Pics courtesy of Eddie and Wong Pek Fui