JEREMY MONTEIRO AT 65: THE STATE OF MY ART / Review

 

JEREMY MONTEIRO AT 65: 

THE STATE OF MY ART 

Esplanade Concert Hall 

Friday (14 March 2025)

This review published in The Straits Times on 17 March 2025 with the title "Jazz maestro Jeremy Monteiro's rousing gig for 65th birthday".

Since its inception in 1980, the Cultural Medallion has been awarded to only two pianists. The latest was avantgardeist Margaret Leng Tan (2015), but the first was Singapore’s “King of Swing” Jeremy Monteiro in 2002. Making his 65th birthday this year, a three-hour concert was the summation of 49 years of professional performance, 50 albums and over 700 original compositions behind him. 

Photo: Ken Cheong

With the typical candour and self-deprecating humour of a stand-up comic, he spoke about every work on the programme. The evening opened with a trio, just Monteiro on piano, Jay Anderson (bass) and Hong Chanutr Techatananan (drums). This was how jazz groups began, playing in smoke-filled lounges and clubs of yesteryear, where performances were improvised in the most free-wheeling way possible. 

In Dave Brubeck’s In Your Own Sweet Way, Monteiro’s mastery with dizzying runs on the right hand over left hand chords led the way, and thereafter almost every piece that came was an original work of his. Despite its title, Blues For Capt Hans was an upbeat fast number, contrasted with the true moody blues of Always In Love with its reflective melody transcribed on bass. 

Three became five, when they were joined by Frenchman Nicolas Folmer (trumpet/flugelhorn) and Sean Hong Wei (tenor sax) for Jazzybelle’s Shuffle, a casual saunter down Orchard Road which turned out to be more of a parade. Monteiro’s warm crooning voice was heard in Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s My Romance, accompanied by Sean, closing the first half in contemplation. 

Photo: Ken Cheong

The stage got more crowded when the Jazz Association Singapore Orchestra (JASSO) came aboard with Elephant In The Room, a busily brassy number co-written with Briton Alan Barnes. Then came a sequence of what might be Monteiro’s “greatest hits”, possibly his most memorable and catchiest numbers. Carousel in a Child’s Mind, written for his son Varian, was an ear worm of a fast waltz, while Brothers highlighted the solo of Taiwanese flautist Jenni Tsai. 

More guest performers including former Singapore Symphony Orchestra co-leader Lynnette Seah (violin) and vocalist Sneha Menon, who starred in Seul a Paris (Alone In Paris), composed during Monteiro’s lowest ebb while walking through the Jardin du Luxembourg. To heighten its French sense of melancholy, further commentary was provided by him on an accordion. 

Photo: Ken Cheong

Far more cheerful was From Paris to Segres, co-written with Eugene Pao, a classic train piece with with chugging rhythms and far-reaching sense of optimism. Monteiro’s longtime mentor 83-year-old Louis Soliano was also given the spotlight in Artie Butler’s Here’s To Life, where his vocals rose above the drumming to touch hearts. 

Photo: Ken Cheong

The concert proper closed with the lively beats of Mount Olive, after which the orchestra broke out with Happy Birthday To You and a birthday cake wheeled in for good measure. 

There was time for two encores, George Gershwin’s Love Is Here To Stay (with Menon’s soul-infused vocals) and Monteiro’s most heard and best-selling hit, One People, One Nation, One Singapore in a rousing blues-gospel version. Monteiro 65 thus becomes the perfect prelude to SG 60.