The Unofficial Traxx.FM Jazz Selecta!

November 6th was SAXOPHONE day but since the 6th fell on a Sunday, we decided we’d pay homage to the man who invented the Sax on Jazz Selecta (Nov.

A little bit on the Adolphe Sax: He was born in 1814 in Brussels where he grew up studying the clarinet and the flute. In 1840 he decided he wanted to construct an instrument that would sound like the middle range of a military band. It would have the sound of the woodwind tone of the clarinet and the brass sound of the trumpet and voila - the saxophone was born. It was soon taken up by many French orchestral composers in the 1800s and grew popular in military bands as well. It gained greater popularity in the 1920’s because of jazz music.

So there you have it my friend - a brief history of how the saxophone was invented! Did you know that Adolphe Sax invented 14 different sax’s?

Naturally, during the last hour of our show we played a couple tunes by local and international famed saxophonists starting with Greg Lyons and the track Out From the Shadows followed by Charlie Parker with Embraceable You. With a name like Justo Almario you’d think we’d be cranking some cool bossa tunes but think something a little more pop-jazz with There’s Another Way. John Coltrane’s son, Ravi was also featured with the track Coincide, not forgetting the original Coltrane with “Like Sonny“. “Straight to the Point” by Art Porter also played that hour and our very own saxophonist Edy Kismilardy (’own’ meaning he’s also an RTM-er) on sax jamming with his band Eye 2 Eye Jazz Mix rounding off the hour with Gruv Avenue and High Life - and of course, the saxophonist in Gruv Avenue is none other than Shazzy.

Don’t forget to tune in to Jazz Selecta this Tuesday, November 15th for more great jazz. Don’t want to give it away just yet, but we have a very special guest set to be on our show soon (not tomorrow though) and we’ll be announcing it on the show. I’ll give you a hint: Jezza will have one less thing to complain about. He he he….

Spread the word about the only free to air jazz show in Malaysia….JAZZ SELECTA Tuesdays, 9 - Midnight on TRAXX FM - Experience the Excitement.

90.3 in the Klang Valley and click here for frequencies around the country. If you’re outside the country, stream live online

Also, one more thing. A couple weeks back I interviewed “jazz-fusion” band from Sweden: Funk Service International Check me interviewing 3 of them:

click on the picture to lead you to the source

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Selamat Hari Raya everyone! My apologies for delaying the last promised update up till now. I got caught up in the Raya festivities

Anyway, for those of you interested, last week was our Jazz Selecta Deepavali show. We tried featuring Indian influenced Jazz and although there is quite a number out there, we managed to feature only a couple. See, this is what I gather about Indian influenced jazz - it’s basically world music. I’m not an expert at this but the way I see world music is traditional music from around the world blending with one another. Previously we talked about playing “Indian jazz” on Deepavali but the wording for it is wrong, it should be Indian influenced jazz.

Of the few artists we could get our hands on for our special show was George Brooks. He’s a saxophonist from New York City and he maintains quite a ‘high profile’ in the Jazz and Blues world. He’s performed with such musicians as Etta James, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Kronos Quartet, Anthony Braxton, Zakir Hussain, and Terry Riley. He writes original compositions that combine modern jazz and rhythms from North India.

We played a couple tracks off George Brooks’ Lasting Impression album. You have George Brooks on sax and bass clarinet, Zakir Hussain on tabla and Krishna Bhatt (who was one of the key players that sparked his interest in combining the two mediums of music) on sitar . By far, the best track on there was Taj Express. Check it out sometime.

Another artist we featured was Mynta, another example of two cultures meeting. This group is made of Swedish and Indian personnel, including Shankar Mahadevan and Fazal Qureshi. The tracks we played were off their 1994 album Nandu’s Dance. Mynta is Max Ahman (guitar), Jan Radesjo (keyboards), Anders Hagberg (flute, sax), Fazal Qureshi (tabla), Nandkishor Muley (santoor), Christian Paulin (bass, tanpura, percussion), Michael Hedenquist (percussion).

Jazz Selecta last week was special simply because MAESTRO was sitting in with us in the studios. For those of you wondering who Maestro is, brace yourself for his web debut… *drum roll*:

Maestro comes on every Tuesday at 10:45 with JAZZ FACTS. But of course last week on our very special Deepavali Jazz Selecta, he gave us JAZZ FACTS live from the studios!!! Here’s a little fact from last weeks installment, jazz pianist Herbie Hancock is one of the people responsible for techno and industrial music! Not only did he give us JAZZ FACTS, he brought in a couple CD’s for us to ‘oooh and awww’ over. Notably Dave Weckl Band and their album Multiplicity (Jezza’s new best friend) and the Dave Holland Big Band with their album Overtime (my new best friend)…so thank you Maestro for that!

Also, Maestro informed us Malaysia’s very own Eye 2 Eye Jazz Mix (they happen to be good friends!) will be playing at the Bali Jazz Festival on the 19th of November. The festival itself is from the 18th-20th. Check it out if you’re going to be in Bali. We heard security has been hyped up to the max.

Be sure to tune in tomorrow (well technically later on today) for JAZZ SELECTA on TRAXX FM! The only free to air jazz show in the country! You can hear us stream LIVE on-line - http://202.71.100.84/ramgen/broadcast/radio4.rm….what’s in store for November 8th’s Jazz Selecta? Tune in to find out silly!

C’ya then!

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Happy Deepavali everyone! And how fortunate for us it lands on the night Jazz Selecta is on!

As usual, we got some great jazz in store for you and we’re also going to have a feature on Indian influenced jazz.

Keep checking back for updates….

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