(Courtesy of Kapanlagi.com)

A woman may not always be a queen for her husband, but a daughter will always be a princess to her father.

Things may not have worked out between jazz musician Indra Lesmana and his ex-wife, actress Sophia Latjuba. Their marriage only lasted for about a year from 1992 to 1993, but the couple had a daughter, Eva Celia.

Despite everything, Indra and his daughter have a strong bond. That bond persevered when Eva moved to Los Angeles in the US in 2008 to pursue her education under the guardianship of her mother.

During Eva’s four-year stint in Los Angeles, she regularly communicated with Indra through Skype. During a session, Indra and Eva spontaneously jammed together and played the Billie Holiday song “God Bless The Child”.

Indra then uploaded the recorded Skype session on YouTube and the public for the first time could listen to their first collaboration — not only as a father and daughter, but as two musicians as well.

When Eva returned to Indonesia, she and her father performed for the public several times together. Eva usually performed as an additional player or featured vocalist for Indra’s band.

Recently, things went the other way around — with Eva’s band inviting Indra to play together with them.

The performance took place at Motion Blue in Senayan, South Jakarta, and Eva’s band, along with Indra, performed nine songs together. Some of the songs were from Eva’s upcoming debut album, including her first single, “Reason”.

“This is the first time we have played together in almost a year. The last time we played together was in Surabaya during a jazz festival in 2015,” Indra said.

“It feels kind of special because usually, Eva is the one playing or being featured in my band. Now, it is the other way around. The format is different because it is her band now and I need to adjust.”

Indra described Eva’s musical style as more heavily influenced by old school soul music and R & B instead of just pure jazz like the music he liked to play with his band.

“I can really feel the differences in style when I am playing for her band,” he said.

For Eva, she felt that although she had a different approach to music than Indra, she owed everything she had accomplished as a musician to her father.

“Father has been a huge musical influence on me because I have seen him practicing, composing and playing music since I was a child. Music has become a major part of my life even though father never forced me to like it. He really has his own way to make me fall in love with music,” she said.

Even until now, when Eva is already prepared to launch her debut album, she said Indra remained an influential mentor for her to grow as an artist and a performer.

Eva said while she no longer felt nervous to perform with her father, who is considered a legendary jazz musician in Indonesia, she still needed his input and advice.

“I always try to perform as well and as comfortably as I can so that my father can see new things that I might need to improve as a musician and give me input on them,” she said.

MAJOR STRENGTHS

Commenting on Eva as a musician, Indra said he still saw that his daughter’s biggest strengths could also be her weakness.

“Her strength is that she is very focused in what she is creating and she is committed to making her work reach its maximum potential. Being a true artist is her thing because she never does music for the sake of popularity. She is a strong idealist and this character is rare among today’s young musicians,” Indra said.

“However, due to her obsession of being a perfect and ideal musician, she often spends too much time working on a song. She is very different from me in her creative process. When I compose songs, it is like painting an abstract work but for Eva, she needs everything to be perfect. At times, her perfectionism backfires.”

Eva admitted that what Indra, 50, said about her strengths and weaknesses as a musician was spot on and it was due to his input that she had finally managed to complete her debut album, which was produced under her own independent label.

The first single from the album was released for the first time in April 2015. It took Eva at least two and a half months to compose and finish the single and she hit a brick wall for around six months because she wanted all of the songs on her album to be as perfect as possible.

“I am a perfectionist indeed and that is why the process to finish my debut album took a long time. When I worked on this album, I always felt that the material was not enough or the songs were not good enough but after hearing my father’s input, I realized that in the arts, it is impossible to create a perfect work,” Eva said.

“Since that realization, I composed songs and wrote music faster for my debut album. My mindset shifted from achieving perfection to continuously honing and developing my musicianship.”

Eva’s upcoming album, which has not yet been given a title, has a total of nine songs and all of them were composed and written by her.

Eva said all of her songs on the album were written in her own unique style, one that does not conform to the usual template. Therefore, she said she had no high expectations for the performance of her album after its release in September this year.

“I began writing songs when I was about 15 or 16,” Eva, 23, said.

“When I first started writing songs, I learned to use the regular templates for song compositions but I really fell in love with composing when I realized that I did not have to conform by the rules. I broke all those rules two years ago and I have been enjoying song-writing ever since.”