Jazz at 9 p.m.

Jazz has always been one of my favorite genres of music. There is in jazz a certain freedom, at least a desire for freedom, a certain spirit which answers to an obscure need in everyone to chill out ( cool West coast jazz), sometimes to cry out and dance in joy (Latin jazz), sometimes to hide away somewhere to nurse one's wounds (blues)  sometimes to work out one's emotions of sadness, melancholy, regrets, nostalgia etc in a small cosy bar or nightclub to the clink of wine or beer glasses, sometimes to experiment with sound (Eruopean jazz) and sometimes just simply to relax (lounge jazz). In a certain sense, jazz is the "classical" music for the ordinary blackmen and workers. Perhaps there is a bit of the black man and the worker in all of us. Hence its almost universal appeal.Last Saturday, we had a sample of that, but not in all categories of course. It was Jazz @9 p.m.

Instead of the players of the HKPO in their usual bow ties, winged collars black suit, bow ties, and black nightgowns or pant suits, they were out in jeans and T-shirts in blue, red, white or black. We had a total of 13 numbers and save for a few brief improvisations by individual guitar, double bass, trumpet, sax, piano and drum players, all in big band style:.

We had not in order: Lalo Schifrin's Enter the Dragon and Mission Impossible, Jerry Herman's Hello Dolly, Duke Ellington's It Don't Mean a Thing If it Aint' Got that Swing, Don't Get Around Much Anymore,Mood Indigo, C Jam Blues,Herb Alpert's Tijuna Taxi and Spanish Flea, Hoagy Carmichael & Sidney Arodin's Up a Lazy River, Billy Strayhorn's Take the "A" Train, Cat Anderson's El Gato, Ellington, Strayhorn & John Mercer's Satin Doll 

It was a wonderful concert. The songs were all classics in jazz. We had a good selection from Duke Ellington that legendary pianist and band leader and the famous Tijuana Brass Band the sound of whose golden trumpet mesmerized genertions of afficionados. The HKPO under Benjamin Northey was simply superb: they sure got the swing! . One of the best is that we got two excellent locals on the podium Eugene Pao on the electric guitar and Anthony Fernandes on the drums. The concert started and ended with works by Lalo Schifrin. The mood was easy and for those who were not familiar with this genre of music, the multi-wind instrument player James Morrison was a godsend. Before each piece he would give the audience a brief background introduction generously laced with good humor jokes one of which is this: if you got to ask what jazz is, it ain't no use telling you. Jazz is for enjoying, not understanding. It's meant for our ears and our heart, not our mind!  If you ain't got it in you, you ain't got it in you. So enjoy.