Fascinating riffs, intoxicating ballads

Picture yourself in a dimly-lit bar around midnight, with the thick, intoxicating scents of liquor and cigar smoke in the air. Half-drunk, you snap out of your dreamy state as the room suddenly fills with the hauntingly-beautiful pianistic chordal clusters emanating from a far corner. The mounting tension soon dissolves as a baritone voice emerges from the din, further casting its hypnotic spell upon those within earshot.

It’s a scene recreated time and again by the world’s best crooners – Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Matt Monro, Tony Bennett, and even by some of today’s reigning rock superstars eager for a stylistic overhaul. Heck, even veteran rocker Rod Stewart – raspy voice and all – sounds pretty much like Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday at first listen.

Now, if you thought that brand of "saloon singing" belongs to the Jurassic era, you’d be surprised to find out that in Manila’s highly-competitive lounge scene, there remain a few noteworthy keepers of the nostalgic torch.

If you happen to walk into Focal Café (at Connecticut St., Greenhills) on a Thursday night, you’d be surprised to feel the same nostalgic vibe as Leo "Cadio" Ferreria does his renditions of Sinatra favorites – with fleet-fingered jazz virtuoso Henry Katindig painting lush, beer-inducing timbres at the piano.

It’s a roller-coaster ride back through time as Cadio shuffles from a furiously-swinging Lou Rawls cover to a more laid-back Jobim samba. But like his idols, ballads are Cadio’s best element. From Beatles to Bacharach to ’70s and ’80s pop, with a smattering of OPM thrown in, Cadio and Henry breathe new life to a slowly-dying art form.

Judging from the way he sounds, most of his fans are surprised when they find out that singing is merely Cadio’s pastime. By day, he oversees three major car dealerships, but during his spare time, expect Cadio to be hanging on to his most cherished find: a vintage Shure SH-55 Series 2 microphone – the object of a tiring but fruitful "hunt" in Hong Kong several years back.

"It’s got that personality," he explains. "It goes well with the image I want to project." And true enough, when the lights dim as the dapper executive makes his entrance and sits on his favorite stool, looking at that microphone makes you feel as if you were in another time zone.

With that cool, suave image, it’s hard to imagine how he looked like when he first joined the Balahibo band during the early ’70s. Then a lanky teener flaunting his rockstar mien, Cadio got his first taste of the gigging life – making the rounds of such Bay Area clubs like Wells Fargo and Flames.

Looking back, Cadio says, "I joined the group for exposure but I realized I didn’t really like the jarring rock and roll."

It was much later when he got his first taste of Frank Sinatra. "The first song of his I heard was You Will Be My Music, and it was much later when I realized that he had a whole lot of albums before that," he recalls.

Cadio also dabbled in theater during the late ’70s, and worked with such luminaries as Tony Mabesa, Behn Cervantes and Chinggoy Alonso at the Metropolitan Theater.

He also considers himself privileged to have been a part of the late Raul Manglapus’ Executive Band – playing piano and singing at the same time. "When he passed away, his son asked me to play with the group."

The Focal Café gig happened by accident. Cadio usually records his own songs and gives away his CDs to close friends – one of whom owns a restaurant. "When that guy played my CD in his resto, the machine jammed and so he ended up playing nothing but my disk for two straight weeks," he narrates amusedly.

"In time, people asked about it, and to cut the story short, they ended up getting me to sing there live. But that was set back by some problems, and we ended up playing at Focal Café – upon the recommendation of another good friend," he continues.

But then came the harder task of looking for a really tasteful piano player. After a few phone calls to discerning musician friends, the choice was final. Late last October, Cadio met up with Henry Katindig, son of the popular jazz sax player Eddie K, and after a few preliminary jams, the duo was ready for launching.

The interplay is nothing short of telepathic, reminiscent of the free-flowing musical dialogues pursued by Tony Bennett and the late great jazz virtuoso Bill Evans in 1975.

Although Henry’s harmonic prowess could easily steer them through the trad jazz arena, the duo make it a point to arrange their music for a much wider audience. Hence, their creative juices come to fore when they reharmonize pop songs. Imagine, for instance, a swinging version of Rex Smith’s dreamy anthem Simply Jessie, or a more somber version of the Beatles’ Blackbird.

No matter how intoxicating it may get, one can never get too drunk with good old-fashioned, saloon-type music – the way Cadio and Henry play it.