We, Jazzuality.com together with Braga CityWalk and KPH Music School have successfully held the pre event of Java Jazz Festival 2015 last February. Hundreds of jazz aficionados from Bandung, Jakarta and nearby cities gathered to enjoy the magnificent performances consisiting top artists from three countries: Indonesia, Italy and Mexico. (read the article here http://jazzuality.com/jazz-event-report/braga-jazz-walk-special-edition-pre-event-java-jazz-festival-2015-the-report/). We are proud to announce that we are linked with the upcoming big jazz festival also taking place in Jakarta, the 2nd INDONESIAN JAZZ FESTIVAL 2015 and ready to launch the one and only official pre event for Bandung, ROAD TO KITA INDONESIA! INDONESIAN JAZZ FESTIVAL 2015 as a special edition of Braga Jazz Walk. This event will come to you on August 1, 2015, totally FREE as usual.
For you who are still not that familiar with Indonesian Jazz Festival (IJF), allow us to introduce it to you. Indonesian Jazz Festival is a festival that places the spirit of nationalism up high. Unlike most of the big jazz festivals, IJF strickly let only Indonesian bands or artists to participate in. Since Indonesia has so many talents and many of them offers something fresh and different, we do need a huge platform that can accomodate as many of them as possible. IJF provides exactly that.
This festival launched its premiere two years ago in 2013. After a year without presentation, this year the fest is back again, ready to showcase hundreds of players on 5 stages for two days straight. This main event will be held on August 29 and 30 at Istora Senayan, Jakarta. What does this festival intend to accomplish? The director of ALBA Production who initiated this fest, Adrian Bramantyo Musyanif said this: “By making up this festival we have only one goal, that is to give a good ground and appreciation for Indonesian talents to bring out the best in them, also to provide a home for Indonesian jazz musicians to gather, inside a festival especially made from Indonesian musician, for Indonesian musicians.”
We arrange the lineup in accordance with the IJF’s spirit of nationalism and its vision. Therefore in this event you can see the iconic figures/legends, the creative band that has the calling to preserve our own music heritage, the emerging musicians, the groovy group and talents who are still very young and just begun. All that, plus, jam session will be up for grab too like always. Curious to see who will be there partying with you? Let’s take a look at them.
SYAHARANI, DONNY SUHENDRA and BEKTI SUDIRO
It’s surely a previlege to have these two iconic jazz figures and the rhythm master performing at Braga Jazz Walk. Syaharani, Donny Suhendra and Bekti Sudiro. Think of it. Who doesn’t know them? Syaharani has been active in the music business for over 20 years and still at the top list up until now. She has made a couple of solo albums including a psychedelic album Magma which is ahead of its time in 2002, she represented Indonesia in North Sea Jazz Festival 2001 and lately achieve big success with Syaharani and the QueenFireworks (ESQI:EF), a band that gives just about anything in delightful crossover by placing their core to the roots: blues, jazz and folk where Donny Suhendra also plays the main role. She has a prime sultry, smoky vocal that keeps better with age, something that you’d easily distinguish whenever you hear her sing. She has tried acting and writing books as well. As an artist, Syaharani is close to her fans. Often she takes requests from her social medias and sings them in her concerts. As we noticed, she cares about communities too. We haven’t got the chance to invite her to our regular community event before, but now finally she agrees to come to meet and greet the Braga Jazz Walk community. We feel happy and proud about it.
Donny Suhendra, Syaharani’s partner in ESQI:EF is undisputedly one of the most influential Indonesian musicians of this era. He has made a lot of today’s amazing guitarists, but that’s not all because he’s also established and involved with many legendary supergroups like D’Marszyo, Krakatau, Adegan, JavaJazz and he group he formed around 1997 called Big City Blues. Donny is widely famous with his sharp jazz fusion playing, but let’s not forget that he actually started with blues and rock and still passionately into these genres up until now. Today Donny also has his own group, Donny Suhendra Trio and occasionally play in many side projects and collaborations.
For the Braga Jazz Walk Special Edition: Road to Indonesian Jazz Festival 2015, Syaharani and Donny Suhendra will team up with bassist Bekti Sudiro. This formation has played at Kompas.com’s event: Feminite at the end of last April in Jakarta, now they are ready to serve one intimate party for Bandung music lovers especially their fans.
This light but tight acoustic trio will definitely steal your heart. The combination of meaningful and touching original lyrics, well known songs will go hand in hand with sharp collaboration between them. Rhythm, melody and top notch smokey vocal, who wouldn’t love it.
LANTUN ORCHESTRA
You won’t find any other band that can bring something proudly traditional yet sounds modern with high dose of fun like this. If you haven’t heard them yet, allow us to introduce to you, the one and only LANTUN Orchestra. Bassist Chaka Priambudi and vocalist Nesia Ardi established LANTUN Orchestra to (re)introduce the richness of Indonesian traditional music especially the Batavian like keroncong, tanjidor and so on. But what’s unique, in order to bring it, they use jazz elements not only in notations but also improvisations, solo runs and call & response. “We’re searching for the similiarities between jazz and Indonesian traditional music especially the Batavian, and that’s important because we need to preserve our own cultural heritage and keep deveoping it under today’s condition.” said Chaka.
This mid-size ensemble consists of skillful young talents in every corner. Other than the founder Chaka Priambudi on bass and Nesia Ardi on vocal, the band has Tiyo Alibasjah (guitar), Donny Prasetyo (keyboard), Armiya Husein (flute), Kenny Gabriel (trumpet), Dika Chasmala (violin) and Arman Chaniago (percussion), plus M Rizky (accordion). Having a lineup like this makes Lantun Orchestra able to climb up fast. Still in their second year, the band has landed on many prestigious spots including Jazz @ Kota Tua, Java Jazz Festival 2015 and a couple of appearances on TV. They have released one album (available at our store: http://store.jazzuality.com/product/lantun-orchestra/) and now has a new single titled “Si Mei-Mei”. Their performance at this event will mark their first concert in Bandung.
Lantun Orchestra – Keroncong Kemayoran
Lantun Orchestra proves that there are still many music corners to explore with limitless possibilities. They also brilliantly shows that jazz can be used to preserve our own traditional music, and for us, Lantun Orchestra is considered not only unique, but also important and urgently needed in terms of preserving our rich local cultural heritage in such creative way. Not complex but classy, rich in concept and arrangement yet really friendly at the same time, even to the common listeners. They bring the authentic sound just as the way it should be but somehow suits today’s style of music. Entertaining stage act should be added too. as one of the most interesting new concept at present time. Since Indonesian Jazz Festival is made under the spirit of nationalism, this band becomes important and relevant to participate in this pre event.
You think keroncong is old fashioned and/or outdated? Wait until you see how Lantun Orchestra does it. We’re sure you will have a different perception in no time.
WEST FUNK RHYTHM
If you think jazz regeneration is important, make sure you won’t miss this one. Starting from the weekly Rhythm Workshop by Eddy Syakroni and Arya Andiputra, in mid 2014 some young musicians decided to form a band cored in standard jazz. The name is West Funk Rhythm. After series of intensive training, they managed to get chances of appearance including Jajan Jazz, Melodia Music and Margo Friday Jazz.
Today the band consists of skillful young lions: Rio Fritz Torang Siahaan (piano), Chika Olivia (piano), Hafiz Aga Anshari (bass) and the sensational 13 year-old drummer, Bima Adhitama Suradji. More about Bima, this boy has played with big cats including with Tohpati, Indro Hardjodikoro, Franky Sadikin and a big chance to be in Dwiki Dharmawan’s formed band which played as the opening band for Dwiki Dharmawan’s album launching in Jakarta and Bandung in 2014. Currently he’s learning from Eddy Syakroni and guitar from Maurits Kansil and Yossi (Farabi).
They are young, but they can already take some famous modern jazz repertoires from John Coltrane and the likes. It’s important to support the new jazz bands. They need it in order to grow, and we need them if we want to keep jazz alive in our music scene.
MOTIONVIBE
Motionvibe reminds us of young, modern Kahitna with beatbox. That’s what our first impression when we heard them and saw their performance for the very first time. The band is considerably still new, but they surely move fast. They are soulful, groovy when needed, got the flavor of RnB but also has jazzpression. They are energetic and know how to have fun together with the crowds. They clearly show how happy they are on stage and spread that positive vibe throughout the venue. The personnels of Motionvibe are Agung and Boang (vocals), Farhan (bass), Raka (drums), Edho (keyboard) and Wahyu (guitar). This show will also feature a young female singer on her way to the top, Rizka Adlina.
THE TEENS
It’s become a tradition for us to feature very young talents in a special edition. Meet the kids from a church at Maulana Yusuf street in Bandung. Formerly known as My Kids, as they grow more mature, they now change the name to The Teens. They are still young, but they have shown the spirit to be brave and equipped with more than enough skills. We have invited them before and liked their presentation. As we want to have a good synergy with the vision of Indonesian Jazz Festival and focus on our mission in suppoting the jazz regeneration in local area, we believe it’s important to push the young talents to appear on the same stage with those who have successfully done it. This will make them hatch early, they can gain valuable experience and learn from their seniors as well. The Teens consists of boys and girls from 12-16 years old. They are Luis Anastasia (vocal), Adam Gassor, Korin Werlina, Miguel Thomas (guitars), Yugo Junianto (guitar/percussion), Panji Saptadesta (bass), Brilliant Yosef (drums), Ferdiant Joshua (keyboard).
The main show will start at 6:30 pm, but this event will start early, as early as 4:00 pm in the afternoon. More bands are going to participate in this pre-show side, including GFRtrio ft Erick Gabe and ApelManis. GFRtrio has just suffered for losing its leader, Guntur Satria who passed away a couple of months ago at the age of 21. Most of the band will collapse and stop their journey, but amazingly GFRtrio decided to move on. The new chapter of GFRtrio is right here. The original members Farhan Faikar (bass) and Raka Rizkyandi (drums) are still inside, but now two more players are added. Replacing the late Guntur is bluesman Ijay Irawan, and they now collaborate with vocalist Erick Gabe. They need many hours to find a solid grip, so we believe this event could be one of the platforms for them to build the new chapter. As for ApelManis, this band has been running since 2012. The name (in English: sweet apple) was taken based on the personnels’ healthy habit to eat fruit especially apple, plus they think it suits the philosophy of the band. Ayub (vocal), Debby vocal) Adi (guitar), M. Yusuf (guitar), Dony (keyboard) and Haidar (drum) have already made four original songs. Their music is rooted in pop fusion which is friendly to everyone’s ear. These two bands will start in the afternoon, come early if you want to catch them.
Mark your calendar on saturday Night, August 1st, 2015. The pre show will start earlier since 4 pm, providing you chance to get jazzy much longer. The main event itself will start at 6:30 pm all the way to 10:00 pm. The open jam session is available after all performances. If you wish to join in, just bring your gear and jump right in. The second Indonesian Jazz Festival 2015 is ready to present great local talents ranging from living legends, today’s frontrunners, experienced musicians, band of youngsters and the potential new groups under the thick spirit of nationalism. We make the Special Edition of Braga Jazz Walk: Road to Kita Indonesia! Indonesian Jazz Festivval 2015 to be the miniature where you can enjoy artists from the same range. The iconic Syaharani, the legendary Donny Suhendra, the unique, creative LANTUN Orchestra, the modern jazz band West Funk Rhythm, the soulful MotionVibe and pop jazz band The Teens, all will jazztertain you to the max and speak loud about the upcoming main event which will come on 29,30 August 2015. Once again this special event is COMPLETELY FREE! All you have to do is come and have fun with us. Alright then, see you!
BRAGA JAZZ WALK Special Edition: Road to Kita Indonesia! INDONESIAN JAZZ FESTIVAL 2015
Date: Saturday, August 1, 2015
Time: 4:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Location: Atrium Braga CityWalk
Jl. Braga 99-101 Bandung
FREE EVENT!
Supported by: ESQI:EF, KlabJazz, Venche Music School, Infinity
Media Partner: InfoBdg, UCS, Dokter Desain, Ardan 105.9 FM, Ardan Group Digital Communication, K-Lite 107.1 FM, 99ers 100 FM, OZ 103.1 FM, PRFM 107.5, Radio B 95.6, Rase 102.3 FM