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utiful postcard views but not a single hornbill in sight a few hours earlier the 68 year old temuan ceremonial singer had boarded a boeing 737 jet at the cyclopean klia for the brief bumpy flight to kuching her first ever airborne experience as usual mak minah was amazingly cool about it no big deal was her verdict however she had prepared herself for the big gig overseas at sarawak s first annual rainforest world music festival by getting her hair permed a whole fortnight before the event when dr wan zawawi songwriter anthropologist who s now dean of the faculty of applied and creative arts at unimas invited akar umbi to join his anak dayung group for this two day world music festival august 29 30 1998 i didn t have a clue what he was talking about back me up on a couple of numbers and you get to perform one of mak minah s songs the affable academician had said well i d never been to sarawak and this promised to be an idyllic musical junket now we only needed to check if rafique was game for this gig miraculously he was even though the monetary stipend was modest as it turned out we were rewarded with four memorable nights in a musician s heaven joey ayala with hegalong rafique rashid i didn t know who else was on the festival bill until we received our souvenir programmes the only name familiar to me was joey ayala whom i d met 13 years ago at the first kuala lumpur arts festival it was a blast to see joey ayala again accompanied by his immensely lovable and vivacious band when i finally saw them in action joey and his dazzling group simply blew me away o mighty eagle my true king i want to fly in the sky like you joey ayala intoned lamenting the plight of latter day eagles who not finding any more tall trees to build their nests were in captivity or in hiding wings folded and flightless may there always be tall trees in the forest for us to build our nests so that like the mighty eagle we too can fly eagles hornbills emblems of freedom and nobility for an instant a small frown furrowed joey s brow then he called out to the sound booth no sound i want to play my guitar yes there were lots of problems with the sound mainly due to the understandable confusion of a technical crew who had never experienced a concert of this scale and variety and there was sound what a monstrously beautiful powerful towering ecstatically transcendental sound earthy as a filipino folk tune funky and spunky as celestial angel come no one embodied the spirit of the rainforest world music festival more musically more poetically more sincerely than joey ayala and when his band let rip everyone just soared like an eagle or a hornbill riding the joyful musical airstreams joey s line up cynthia alexander joey s baby sister on electrifying bass guitar an impish science fiction elf princess flying sorceress and a highly gifted award winning musician to boot malou matute wholesome piano teacher turned diabolical percussionist she played gamelan like tuned gongs called kulintang renato tengasantos dynamic powerhouse on a runaway drum kit it took two stagehands to hold down his bass drum alex de paz tupaz on exotic marimba tree for want of an actual name francis reyes on highly effective effects guitar and joey ayala himself switching from rhythm to lead guitar to a lizard like two stringed beast called a hegalong that spewed forth smouldering soul satisfying riffs take the down to earth folksy approachability of country joe and the fish throw in the mesmerizing messianic charisma of bob marley add a dash of frank zappa s wizardly wit and musical competence serve with a generous dollop of pink floydian rock concert theatricality and you have the joey ayala group we found ourselves swept away by the typhoon of pure musical excitement they unleashed rafique shared my view that this was the absolute high point of the festival and judging by the eager mob that swarmed around joey and his group after their performance almost everyone else thought so too true the celtic jazz quartet lammas flown in by the british council served up a stimulatingly virtuoso performance salvaging the first night from being generally lacklustre but it was joey ayala on the second night who captured the heart of puteri santubong legendary princess of the mountain whose story no one would relate to me because it was too complicated or too tragic i m sure joey s inspiring performance made the spirit of the sacred mountain smile and weep for joy lammas delivers a heady fusion of intelligent progressive jazz flavoured with irish scottish and portuguese folk melodies co founded by don paterson on guitar and bodhrán and tim garland on concert flute and saxophones the lammas sound was exquisitely augmented by karen street on accordion whose sensitive coloring turned her instrument into a synthesizer fiddle bagpipes in a performance that was both an epiphany and a revelation the husky allure of vocalist christine tobin s pitch perfect and soulful voice was at once earthy and heavenly everyone fell instantly in love with her or at least i did garland and paterson write or arrange much of the lammas material intricate pieces of invigorating originality and verve performable only by master class musicians as a guitarist don paterson is a worthy successor to fellow scotsman john mclaughlin while tim garland is technically on par with jan garbarek the great norwegian blower he so admires b tutta a sydney based conservatorium trained highly cerebral percussion combo consisting of graham hilgendorf david hewitt cameron gregory and leigh giles put on a pyrotechnic display of precision teamwork on an impressive array of tuned and untuned instruments e g marimba xylophone handsaw open plastic canister in a tub of water and so on the boys energy and enthusiasm were infectious but as the set wore on and the music stayed strictly above the waist never venturing into the visceral and scrotal zones even when they were impersonating a caribbean steel drum band their cleverness began to irk a little at times b tutta meaning to strike in italian came across as a somewhat beatle ish bunch of factory workers banging about on idle machinery just to amuse themselves in the absence of the supervisor there might have been some serious dancing in the aisles or on the lawn under that hot sultry starry night sky if only b tutta had loosened up and let fly the first night s program also featured safar ghaffar a singing dancing pop shaman from kuching with the fashion designer s flair for style over substance the fresh faced chirpy toned and utterly innocuous bm boys a best selling chinese vocal group presumably from bukit mertajam near penang who struck a resonant chord with the mandarin speaking section of the crowd andrewson ngalai a big time iban pop crooner with fourteen albums to his credit who really captivated mak minah s romantic rustic soul electro acoustic group unimas comprising students and lecturers from the universiti malaysia sarawak s faculty of applied and creative arts a bidayuh group sape ulu and voice of the usun apau representing sarawak s bidayuh kenyah and penan tribes much as i would have liked to sample the tribal offerings slotted early in the evening s schedule they were over and done with by the time we arrived at the sarawak cultural village venue of the rainforest world music festival whose patron the sarawak tourism board organizing committee and consultant randy raine reusch deserve a huge round of applause for a job very well done no mike fright for minah w tarman excitement fairly crackled on the second night from my perspective not least because akar umbi was scheduled to perform with dr wan zawawi s anak dayung group but around noon that same day rafique and i had been roped into backing zuriani with approximately 44 minutes to learn and rehearse two of her songs alhamdulillah and candle dance and we d only just met at dinner two evenings ago well we had two other last minute recruits anak dayung s trusty gambus and tabla player yahya ibrahim on loan from the army band orkes tentera darat and johari morshidi a spirited gendang player with tuku kame the sarawak cultural village s resident ethnic fusion orchestra led by flautist narawi hj rashidi tuku kame s star asset however appears to be jerry kamit jeff beck of the electrified sape and a thoroughly urbane young iban wait make that three daredevil recruits adorable ainal johari s nine year old true blue trooper son was game enough to back us up on auxiliary percussion and what a natural born show stopper young ainal turned out to be now you may ask who is zuriani khalid and rightly so for this enchanting and talented singer songwriter record producer and multi instrumentalist has been living and working in the u s for the last 16 years within months of her return to malaysia zuriani was busy producing big name local artists like siti nurhaliza ella ziana zain fauziah latiff farra and kool it s been two years since my last public performance zuriani confessed and i don t want to make a complete fool of myself the symphonic orchestral backing she had earlier envisaged for her songs wasn t working out zuriani felt that a smaller tighter back up group might just about pull through if she did only two numbers instead of six i guess we all need anecdotes that can be passed on to our grandchildren the night of dangerous living we got on stage checked out the mikes zuriani glided confidently to stage centre as the emcee introduced her and it went down like ice cream on a hot day the audience loved zuriani we all loved zuriani the queen of malaysia s nascent world music scene minah angong belting it out wayne tarman this little incident precipitated a two day sulk from another queen mak minah was somewhat miffed that her two musical knights errant were publicly championing another diva and refused to talk with rafique and me until we were airborne on the flight home as it turned out mak minah stole the show as soon as she began belting out hutan manao a big hit when she first performed it four years ago at the shah alam stadium and when she did the joget with wan zawawi during the instrumental breaks the crowd went wild young men rushed the stage showering her with flowers plucked from nearby shrubbery cameras flashed and whirred furiously throughout the akar umbi number antares on balinese flute wayne tarman fortunately wan zawawi s two songs from his debut dayung album were very warmly received including the spontaneous hologram video clip i inserted in the middle of mencari amerika when after prancing sweatily around for a couple of minutes i was inspired to sniff my armpits and announce the new world odor the nuradee brothers kuching fan club let out a roar of appreciation when wan gave over the stage to these phenomenal singing siblings from singapore their hit diam silence met with noisy applause after the set everyone was grinning broadly especially ken linang a soulful blues guitarist unearthed in kuching by our anthropologist friend and concert facilitator good old dr wan earlier i had been absolutely enthralled by badan budaya melanau and the powerful ritual trance dance performed by their shaman i was told by some locals that this was indeed a rare treat to be witnessing an authentic melanau ritual on a concert stage as the ancient sounding court orchestra played i was transported back a thousand years to angkor wat in cambodia bali in indonesia pagan in burma and palenque in central america then the shaman entered deeper into his trance and began stomping on bits of broken ceramic the musicians seemed really charged by the ritual the badan budaya melanau troupe even had special helpers on standby just in case the shaman failed to emerge from his trance in the time allotted the mia traditional orchestra in this instance mia stands for malaysian institute of art not missing in action performed a scientific synthesis of asian and european chamber music arranged by ace flautist yii kah hoe adventurously combining the sounds of the sarawakian sape with the malay rebana and serunai and the chinese pipa and dize with the more familiar cello saxophone violin and piano the hardworking ensemble impressed with their meticulous discipline even a 3 minute blackout in the middle of their set failed to deter them from completing their performance with a flourish the mia contingent was extremely diligent in recording audio samples and making detailed notes all throughout the afternoon workshops held in conjunction with the festival so the outing for them was also a field research expedition while waiting to go on i was able to catch only snatches of various other performances like the unimas gamelan group and the kumpulan gendang melayu asli the sarawak cultural village seems to have become the unnatural habitat of traditional groups who now earn their keep playing to tourist audiences while their musicianship remains at a high level one cannot help but sense that for many of these players music is now essentially just a job qiu xia he pipa virtuoso wayne tarman asza a crafty and inventive vancouver based acoustic quartet was the last featured act on the festival bill with qiu xia he pronounced chu sha a chinese pipa virtuoso lending her oriental charm and grace and consummate skill uruguayan percussionist extraordinaire joseph pepe danza contributing his wild latin exuberance and wonderful rhythm quebecois flamenco jazz ace guitarist andre thibault adding a stylish dash of gallic flair passion and humor and master musician and multi instrumentalist randy raine reusch who claims aristocratic flemish descent providing the musical navigation and networking asza is the quintessential multi ethnic embodiment of world music which randy defines as the music of or resulting from traditional or indigenous cultures which means that world music is not a new musical genre randy points out in his program notes as festival consultant but one as old as humanity itself yet world music cds have been outselling rock classical and jazz cds in the west for a number of years and this trend is now starting to appear in asia randy is an old hand in the music business with heavy duty connections to a wide selection of top players around the world as a musician he has been there done that and now delights in his precious collection of weird musical instruments between pepe and me we have over 700 instruments in our warehouse randy says matter of factly his collection of personal anecdotes is equally impressive john cage cooked lunch for me two days before he died pepe danza ace percussionist rafique rashid what about asza s music well i thought they were a perfect music festival item the group offers a very palatable mix of musical innovation with occasional displays of superb musicianship a mature theatrical sense an easygoing humorous rapport with their audience and the asza sound is guaranteed to stimulate the most stultified musical imagination it was ...