pianomania: Photographs from DIZZYING HEIGHTS / Lion City Jazz Festival 2024

I can't say I know much about jazz music, but I know I like what jazz sounds like. The outrageous harmonies, the wild improvisation, the utter freedom with which jazz artists exhibit, and the intoxicating levels of being "in the zone" all fascinate me endlessly. Coming from the classical music world, we have the likes of Gershwin, Bernstein, Billy Mayerl, Friedrich Gulda and Nikolai Kapustin, but their music (which we informally call jazz) is almost completely scripted and rarely involves actual improvisation. However, those are an entry point to the more rarefied worlds of Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans and Jeremy Monteiro (just to name pianists), and there is so much more to real jazz to discover.

It was an absolute pleasure and privilege to have been invited to the final evening of the Lion City Jazz Festival on Saturday (2 March 2024) to attend a musical tribute to Dizzy Gillespie (1917-1993), legendary jazz trumpeter, band leader and composer. The concert was performed by the Jazz Association of Singapore Youth Orchestra (JASYO) with Jeremy Monteiro et al in collaboration with its mentor the Dizzy Gillespie Band. Listening to modern takes on Dizzy's music is a new experience for me, and I am still trying to get the vertiginous (or to put it simply, dizzying) sounds from my head.

This is not a review of music and performances that I have learnt to appreciate but an opportunity to share some photographs taken at this totally enjoyable concert.