Miri Jazz Fest

MENTION jazz and I tend to go to a happy place— one filled with smooth tunes and loads of laughter. Basically, good times.
Times like this are few and far between so when there’s a chance to really immerse in this form of music, I grab it.
Which is probably why I was recently part of the thousands that made up the crowd of jazz lovers in Miri for the Miri International Jazz Festival (MIJF) 2010.
Being a city girl from the country’s capital nonetheless, the fact that Miri, of all places in Malaysia, was picked to host a event like this and better still, one that had the participation of only international artists, boggled the mind.
Thus began an internal tussle on why Miri wasn’t a better place to host such an event compared to Kuala Lumpur.
The skepticism about the city tucked on a narrow plain near the Sarawak and Brunei border on the island of Borneo that’s separated from Peninsular Malaysia by the South China Sea got slowly chipped away from the moment the plane landed at the city’s international airport. And when my travelling partners and I whizzed through the immigration checkpoints and shepherded onto the bus by friendly faces and efficient hands, we were bowled over. We were very well looked after from the very first instance and this undid any negative vibe I had earlier about Miri being a relatively “remote” place, leaving me feeling cloaked in positivity, much like in a bubble floating happily in the air.
Adding to this positive feeling was the sight of neat and tidy areas in this town built by black gold.
Such sight could be seen all the way to Parkcity Everly Hotel, the venue for MIJF 2010.

World Class Act

This five-year-old festival, coincidentally, saw its beginnings the same year that Miri obtained city status back in 2005.
Whether it was planned to start the same month that the city got awarded its status is hard to say, but the festival’s fifth edition saw one obvious change this year— it was held in the outdoors instead of indoors as was the case in previous years.
MIJF consultant Randy Raine-Reusch also did away with bringing back the previous year’s most loved performer (there’s always one performer that’s most loved by the crowd every year), as he didn’t see the need to recycle one slot when it could be filled with a new sound.
The Canadian, who’s also the co-founder of the world famous Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF) held annually in the Sarawak Cultural Village in Santubong near Kuching, got involved in organising MIJF from the very start, following an overwhelming response to RWMF, now in its 13th year.
Raine-Reusch said the MIJF organising board had received 400 applications from musicians worldwide for this year’s line-up when there was only space for eight acts.
The headliner — James Cotton Blues Band — was the piece de resistance of an impressive collection of groups that came from as far as the United States to as near as Thailand.
Oddly enough, local talents were absent from the list, which according to Raine-Reusch, was because the four that did actually apply to play in the festival were not up to standard.
“We’d like to have local acts included every year. In fact, there’s one slot reserved for Malaysian bands yearly but they need to send in an application to us,” he said.
The seven other acts that made the cut were Michael Shrieve’s Spellbinder from USA, Jeremy Tordjman from Switzerland, Ricardo Herz from Brazil, Amina Figarova Sextet from the Netherlands, Norbert Susemihl’s New Orleans All Stars from USA, SimakDialog from Indonesia and Mellow Motif from Thailand.
The event’s organisers, Sarawak Tourism Board, had also arranged for a variety of food stalls to be set up around the stage area for people to buy things to eat while relaxing to the soothing sounds of this genre.

All That Jazz

The first day saw Mellow Motif, Jeremy Tordjman, Norbert Susemihl's New Orleans All Star and Michael Shrieve’s Spellbinder hold court at the hotel’s Pavilion.
Mellow Motif’s petite lead singer Natasha Patamapong proved to be a surprise with her big voice and her success at scatting (a kind of vocal improvisation common in jazz).
The group were followed by Jeremy Tordjman trio who had the crowd basking in the sounds of jazz led by an electric guitar. It was interesting to listen to him strum and pick at the instrument, making it come alive in a way that only someone who’s so in tune with the music can do.
Norbert Susemihl’s group however, got the otherwise body-moving crowd really into the swing of things with the music that they played.
From the get-go, the New Orleans All Stars proved why exactly they were “All Stars”. The sharp notes of the whistle that the drummer played for the very first song caught everyone’s attention— something that was sustained throughout their set of six pieces. Every one of the average six-minute songs had a feet-moving beat and the crowd truly relished the music so much so the band had to play another two songs to satisfy the “encore” requests.
The specially-put together band proved that their version of jazz— old jazz — was the one that hit all the right notes with the crowd.
Norbert’s gravelly voice was so reminiscent of Louie Armstrong’s that if you closed your eyes, it almost seemed that the legend was the one performing live on stage and not the German native.
The energy brought on by the group, made of jazz musicians from Germany, Denmark and New Orleans, quietly ebbed when the next group, Michael Shrieve’s Spellbinder came on.
For those who may not know it, Michael Shrieve gained popularity back in the 60’s for the fact that he was the original drummer for Carlos Santana at Woodstock.
This Seattle-based group were probably somewhat of an anti-climax affair for most after listening to the the “All Stars” as the number of people hanging around the stage area did dwindle.
Truth be told, the band was quite interesting to listen to as they brought a different kind of jazz to the table but it might not have sat well with those used to associating jazz with Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald.

And More

While the weather the first night was largely dry and humid, the rains fell like the lands needed some serious refueling.
That, however, didn’t stop fans from coming in droves to catch the second night’s acts— which started with Indonesian’s SimakDialog.
Geared up with umbrellas, the crowd enjoyed the sultry sounds of the gamelan and Sundanese gendang being used as instruments in making jazz music.
The violin, however, was the instrument that took focal point when Ricardo Herz came on next.
I’ve heard country music being wheedled out of a violin but to hear Brazilian folk songs and jazz coming from this instrument was a new experience that I really enjoyed.
Instruments were obviously the message of the day as the next act, the Amina Figarova Sextet, used the piano as their main element.
Amina’s group was the only one out of the eight acts that had a saxophone incorporated into their group and were probably the best choice for that night to precede the James Cotton Blues Band.
This New Orleans group just rocked. There’s probably no better way to say it but that.
It was an out-of-the world experience to see this 75-year-old blues bigwig take the stage in a shuffling manner and then just come out kicking and lead his band into a swinging number once he was seated at the forefront of the stage. And all he needed was his harmonica.
It was just an awesome moment to be part of— or so I thought, until every single musician who played in the event trooped onstage for a jamming session.
Now, that... that was simply indescribable. To see all of them losing themselves in the music and just letting the moment carry them away, it was something you had to be there to see to really and truly appreciate.

Stepping Back

Looking around me as the event was taking place, I got the feeling that all those people, especially on the second night, who braved the rain to listen to the music had definitely checked out the festival at least once before.
Sifting back to the scene that greeted me when I first checked into the hotel a couple of days back merely cemented the suspicion.
Other media members rushed to greet friends who had also just checked in and there were loud exclamations and gentle scoldings going on for a good 10 minutes after as they caught up on their lives.
These “event veterans” had been faithfully coming up to Miri every year since MIJF’s inception and knew everything the town had to offer— so much so that it was one veteran who took us newbies around town for the “City Tour”.
When asked “Why Miri?” at a press conference, Raine-Reusch returned the query and said that the event was also a good way for people attending the event to explore everything that this town, Malaysia’s first oil town, has to offer.
Not only does it have its own attractions, but Miri is also the gateway point for attractions like Loagan Bunut National Park, Lambir National Park, Niah Caves and Gunung Mulu National Park.
The best thing about the city, whatever said and done, are its people.
Sarawak’s Chief Minister, Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud while speaking at the city’s 5th anniversary celebrations recently, was probably spot on when he said that he sees the locals as a community born in an open and positive environment.
And it’s true that it’s hard to be anything but positive when in Miri.
One experience that still gets me all warm inside is the memory of an Iban elder, well into his 80’s, doing a jig for us while we were walking the pavement of shop-lots in town.
It was something that happened out of the blue, something not to be experienced anywhere but here, by the looks of it...
So. Why not Miri?