Notturno debut at Au Lait

Er Audy Zandri ,  THE JAKARTA POST   |  Thu, 04/23/2009 2:01 PM  |  Supplement

For those complaining of having missed all the reviewed jazz concerts and gigs in your beloved paper, put a smile on your face, as we're going to have a regular column dedicated solely to feeding your hunger for mind-boggling local gigs, not to mention free concerts, excellent art exhibitions and all that jazz.

The first free jazz concert to check out this Friday is the one by Notturno, a rising trio infl uenced by the likes of the Bad Plus, Esbjorn Svensson Trio (respectively) and Medeski Martin and Wood. "After being asked to do a track for the soundtrack of the movie Pintu Terlarang (Forbidden Door) -- and actually getting paid for it -- we felt the urge to seriously record of our safer stuff and release it on an offi cial album. The concert will be our offi cial gig to release it," explained Cak Hend, the drummer.

Notturno, Italian for Nocturne, consists of Masmo on piano and Hammond B3, Joshua Arifi n on double bass and Cak Hend. The three started out in early 2005 as sidemen for Beben Quartet, playing gigs on local TV during jazz appreciation shows. There will also be a vocalist for two of the songs on Friday night.

"Like most musicians, we got tired of playing the same swings, doing the same covers and wanted to do our own thing," Masmo told The Jakarta Post. And this Friday, Volume 1: Akoustika Adventure is taking off.

Popular on MySpace among locals, Notturno previously released an EP for downloads.

"It contains our craziest - if not the ugliest -- materials we could come up with, dominated by a borrowed Hammond B3 and recorded on cheap Chinese MP3 players. Each track is terrible sounding, yet somehow liberating for us. We weren't planning on releasing these materials for mass consumption, but seeing the response. And you never know," said Masmo.

And the band's music - in Masmo's words - is the result of great "envy".

"Call it stupid, but the scene of the world's jazz fusion has grown beyond imagination, yet the scene in Jakarta alone continues to degrade. Everything has turned to the *easy' with people opting to release easy listening stuff for the masses. Our mission is to change that. We're going *mainstream' with our new CD, but mainstream is just a word. Our kind of music exists and if people are listening closely, there's no reason not to like it - except, of course, if the music sucks," he laughed. So what are the tips for this Friday, April 24 at 8 p.m.? First, don't get lost. Caf* Au Lait is located just a short walk from Taman Ismail Marzuki. Do order something to drink or a plate of fried rice, although even without any of that you will still get to watch them live.

As Notturno, the three have played at major festivals, like Java Jazz Festival in 2008, and with just a handful of the nation's prominent jazz icons, played at the Malacca Strait Jazz Festival 2008 in Riau and at last year's Ngayogjazz in Yogyakarta.

The album sells for Rp 35,000. "And if you fi nally decide that our music sucks, then the artwork on our CD is great," said Cak Hend.

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