After all that jazz

Last week I remarked rather tentatively on FB (yes, Virginia, a social media convert is born every minute, including a near-Luddite and however belatedly):

“After all that jazz, the real stuff — intimate, sweet, funny, hilarious, divine — was shared last Tuesday or was it Wednesday, dunno anymore, was soused, only remember Agnes, Cookie, Mishka singing, Pikong and Ria playing, and a good guitarist, and Yna the dancer, and Aya making eklat by refusing to play... rainy night, in more ways than one...”

Then I posted (?), or maybe tagged several photos, taken by a CP cam on a dark rainy night in a lowlight setting. But the faces came out glowing, red eyes and all, and it didn’t seem to have much to do with chiaroscuro conditions. The company that night was clearly luminescent because it was all of family.

The Facebook reference was to Tuesday night’s (March 1, I’ve established that by checking my CP calendar) despedida for Mishka Adams, youthful jazz queen, our most promising international artist in that special genre.

The next day she’d be off to London, back in her accustomed arena, after another brief homecoming to fulfill her quota of gigs at the 6th P.I. Jazz and Arts Festival which had gone on for close to a fortnight in Metro Manila and elsewhere.

The jazz and arts fest also featured the launch of Richie Quirino’s third installment of the Pinoy Jazz story, together with a video docu, as well as Mishka Adams’ third CD collection.

P.I. is not for the archaic Philippine Islands, but for “Philippine International,” since this burgeoning affair manages to assemble quite a cast of performers from all over the world, together with our own standouts. 

Mishka had first performed in Bacolod, then in Manila Peninsula hotel’s Salon de Ning, before front-acting for Fourplay at the Rockwell Tent for the ABS-CBN Jazz Night, and finally joining the Gala Night in Ayala Museum for the ultimate offering of what has been turning out to be an excellent annual revelry among kith and kin. Okay, kindred.

And we must all thank Sandra Lim Viray, herself a formidable jazz diva, Jun Viray, himself a formidable musician, and Zeny Celdran, herself a formidable chanteuse in the Gaslight or Cabaret tradition, heh-heh (and I can rib her ‘cause we share the same birthday), for putting it all together and providing jazz enthusiasts with much to savor and remember. 

It’s been kindred spirits, after all, from the sponsors to the patrons and even the media, that always pull together for, and themselves enjoy, the jazz fest that Sandra Viray & Co. have indefatigably worked on for six years now.

It’s really been all in the family. But I guess that’s one more feature of jazz that distinguishes it from other music genres, mainstream or otherwise. It may be compared to the early days of Mac use as against all the PC prole adherents, with that sense of belonging to a small circle that appreciates a special kind of aesthetics, or okay, art and entertainment. It is a select company — of purists, in a sense, with other than crass commercialization as the premium for belonging.  

Making beautiful music together: Jazz diva Mishka Adams and saxophonist Pikong Guevarra at the Gala Night in Ayala Museum

The community that appreciates jazz remains a small one, in this country or elsewhere. But they enjoy being together, and the communion is of a red-letter stamp: We’re all in this together, we happy few.

That was how it felt, in even more intimate circumstances, that night that was Mishka’s modest farewell party at her mom Agnes Arellano’s home, which has long been a haven for musicians, and the grand music of art altogether.

A constant pitter-patter had wet the familiar lawns where Agnes and Mishka and friends had all these years sat and reclined, dined and drank and made music together, and shared in the warmth of comfort amidst extended family.

That night everyone had to repair somewhat indoors, in the small, open-sided room with an old upright, shades of a Japanese teahouse — for pizza, beer, vodka, and of course the single malt (this time Auchentoshan 12 years) I had to share with the darling daughter of my soul sis Ag, she whom I had seen grow up to be a lovely lady of such sheer talent.

So that now my own son, her senior by a decade, Aya the jazz guitarist who can also wield a pen, and with whom Mishka had partnered in early gigs way back, now just had to laud in writing. In a two-part review of the jazz fest, Aya wrote for GMA News online, the morning after that wonderful night at Salon de Ning:

“The crown goes to Inang Bayan’s own Queen Amidala, Mishka Adams y Arellano. The Queen’s Jedi knight honor guards were: bassist Simon Tan, saxophonist/flutist Michael ‘Pikong’ Guevarra and maestro Mar Dizon on drums. On piano was princess pianist/arranger (also composer/songwriter) Ria Villena-Osorio.

“It has been asked why jazz events are played by the same names over and over. Perhaps it is because only the most intrepid need apply. Perhaps only those who would bleed gold stay the course in an Inang Bayan which seems to prefer Love ‘Tototot’ Radio’s wares to ambrosia.

Mishka and Cookie Chua in a more intimate setting

“Mishka Adams y Arellano, afflicted with a cough and a sore throat, stretched for notes even when she knew she might fall short. To our ears, she hit every note.

“She hit each note cleanly, although not every note was pristine. Picture a winning basket sunk by Kobe Bryant. The shot may not be all net but the shot still wins the game. Picture Pacquiao’s winning punch. The face may be mukhasim but the Pinoy still wears the belt.

“Perfect notes are merely pretty. Perhaps only a flawed note has earned the right to be beautiful.

“In the words of Miles Davis, ‘Don’t ever finish nuttin’. Always leave sum’tin hanging.’

“Mishka’s last song was, poetically, Madame Marcos’ trademark — Dahil Sa ‘Yo. Kudos and clinked Cerveza Negra bottles to princess Ria Villena-Osorio’s truly beautiful arrangement. It hit the vein. Jagged harmonic surprises were as diamonds in velvet consonance.

“Sung by young Queen Mishka, the song was ambrosia.

 “Mishka is Inang Bayan ‘s Great White Hope. On her wings rest the hope of Pinoy musikos of sophisticated substance. She has it all: beauty, gravitas, pathos, levity, lighthearted charm...

“... and Song.”

The beauty of the flawed note, indeed. Tita Grace Montederamos liked that. So did Tito Sawi, among many other poets who know that poetry only aspires to music. Make that the music of brethren.

After all that jazz onstage, with bright shifting lights and video screens and elegant dates sipping wine, nodding, tapping their feet to the throb of free-verse rhythms, an audience unsure of where the fluid notes will next aspire for exploration more than perfection, the memories meld in one wondrous parade of heavenly music — from drummer par excellence Alden Abaca, bassist Colby de la Calzada, guitar maestro Johnny Alegre, the LA-based Pinoy Ric Ickard on nylon-stringed guitar, Bay Area-based harmonica player and vocalist Carlos Zialcita, saxophonist Doug Little, Fil-Am sax master Jon Irabagon, Fourplay, The Tierney Sutton Band, Nyko Maca, Gong Myoung, Richard Merk, Jacqui Magno, Pat Castillo, Hubert Laws and Debra Laws, Noel Cabangon, the Japanese samisen players, et al, et wondrous al.

After all that “official” jazz, the culminating night was really played out amidst Agnes’ lush gardens of warm welcome. And Agnes herself sparked the singing with her throaty French ditties, with Ria on the ivories and Raymund de la Peña on guitar. Next sang the divine Cookie Chua, with her son Waki asleep on a mat, and Pikong Guevarra taking over the upright, and then Mishka, also seated, with a Cordillera bulol before her, listening in, then Nori Villena taking over the mic, Ria’s mom, master big band musician Mel’s good half, with Dex Osorio listening in, and dancer Yna Miranda-Dalisay, Simon Tan, Ronald Tomas, Mar Dizon, Louie Talan all streaming in and out or making palaver with the sideline orchestrator Billy Bonnevie.

It’s family, it’s intimate, it’s free, this verse of jazz seeking ludic heights, which Cookie scales with her kooky musical creations, and which Pikong tries to top by blowing on a conch shell.

It’s the old shell game of now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t, but now you hear it all the time, that earworm of golden camaraderie, the pulse of kindred souls warming up together to bid a queen goodbye, till the next time, the next gig, the next aspiration to hog heaven.