Colours of Life: Jak Jazz Festival 2007 Saga: Chapter Six - Main-Course: Bill Sharpe & Geography

Nine was approaching, and we had arrived at Dji Sam Soe Super Premium Stage around 10 minutes to nine. Well, this show enlisted in my "main-course" list because I wanted to see Tetsuo Sakurai. I amazed with Tetsuo style in playing bass guitar. He shows that a bass guitar is not only played as the rhythm section, but also can be played as a melodic bass and becoming like a lead guitar. Other than Tetsuo, I also had known Shakatak, Bill Sharpe's old band, but just learnt that Bills Sharpe was one of Shakatak personnel.

In the Jak Jazz 2007 schedule, it was just stated that there would be Bill Sharpe (keybard and piano) & Geography, band from Japan, consist of Tetsuo Sakurai (bass), Masato Honda (saxophone and flute), and Hiroyuki Noritake (drum). But there were still two more musicians, they are Don Grusin (keyboard and piano) and Carlos Rios (guitar)

Bill Sharpe from Jak Jazz 2007 Official Program Book

Bill Sharpe is widely known as one of the Shakatak personnel. He formed Shakatak in 1980, along with Keith and Roger and Producer Nigel Wright. They toured the UK extensively during the early eighties. In 1982 they had their first top 20 hit with Easier Said Than Done. Others include Night Birds, Invitations, Dark in the Night, Down on the Street, and Sister Cool. In 1983, international success began for the band where Night Birds became one of the biggest selling international albums of all time.

As the band's success continued through the 80's, Sharpe released his first solo album Famous People in 1985. One song in the album featured Gary Numan called Change your Mind, became a top 20 hit and also heralded the start of a successful collaboration with Gary under the name of Sharpe and Numan.

In 1997, he had the time and opportunity to record his second solo album. This enabled him to work with some of his favourite American musicians including Alex Acuna, Paulinho da Costa, as well the great soul singer Jeffrey Osborne.

Don Grusin from Jak Jazz 2007 Official Program Book

Don Grusin (born April 22, 1941, in Denver, Colorado), is an American songwriter, producer, and keyboardist. He holds a Master Degree in Economics from the University of Colorado and for a period of his life taught at the National Autonomous University of Mexico as well as at Foothill College, California before deciding to enter the music business full-time.

The younger brother of producer/composer Dave Grusin, Don Grusin is an excellent keyboardist who has had his own solo career. He originally avoided music (not wanting to be in his brother's shadow), becoming an economics professor and not becoming full-time musician untui 1975. At that time, he put together a band to tour Japan with Quincy Jones, freelanced in Los Angeles, and headed the group Friendship which recorded for Elektra 1978.

Grusin recorded a few albums for JVC in the early '80s; and in 1988, with Sticks and Stones (a collaboration with brother Dave), Don Grusin began recording regularly for GRP, playing music that (although influenced by pop) is also somewhat adventurous within the crossover genre.

Tetsuo Sakurai from Jak Jazz 2007 Official Program Book

Tetsuo Sakurai (born November 13, 1957 in Tokyo) is a Japanese bassist. He started playing bass when he was 13 years old.

He was a member of the jazz fusion band Casiopea in 1976-1989 and Jimsaku with Akira Jimbo in 1990-1998. He has released a total 37 albums as members of Casiopea and Jimsaku as well as solo. He also made 3 instructional videos. Now, he is composing and playing his own music as solo artist with domestic and foreign musicians. The 3rd solo album TLM20, released in 2000, was recorded live concert with Casiopea members, Issei Noro and Minoru Mukaiya. Akira Jimbo also performed on drums. Kazuki Katsuta of Dimension was the lead on sax. The 4th solo album Gentle Hearts released in 2001, was recorded with Greg Howe & Dennis Chambers. The 5th solo albums Cartas do Brasil, released in 2003, as the self cover vocal ballad album recorded in Rio de Janeiro with Djavan, Ivan Lins, Rosa Passos, and so on. In 2004, Tetsuo toured with Greg & Dennis. The following year, the tour live performances was released on DVD titled Gentle Hearts Tour 2004.

First Experience with Bill Sharpe & Geography

As I stated above I had known Bill Sharpe music through Shakatak before Jak Jazz 2007. As for Tetsuo Sakurai, I know him at the Java Jazz 2006 warm-up event, and since then I love his bass playing. After Java Jazz 2006, I browse YouTube to find some of Tetsuo's video clip, and then I saw Masato Honda performance in collaboration with Tetsuo. For the rest three musicians, I've only known them in Jak Jazz 2007

More Experiences with Bill Sharpe & Geography

More experiences with Bill Sharpe were done through Shakatak, but only a few songs. And for Tetsuo Sakurai and Masato Honda, I've heard and watched some more of their performances in YouTube. Anyway, I had heard some of Casiopea tracks, but before Jak Jazz 2007, I hadn't known that Tetsuo was the former bassist.

Bill Sharpe & Geography's Jak Jazz Show

It was a really awesome performance. During the show, Don Grusin and Bill Sharpe, that sometime changed their position on piano or keyboard, the lefty guitarist Carlos Rios, Hiroyuki Noritake, the virtuoso Masato Honda, and the most popular in the stage Tetsuo Sakurai brought song one by one magnificently and then lead to big applause from the audience. Along the show, they perform improvisation one by one very smoothly, and it was done very well and not too much (sometime in a jazz show, the musicians perform improvisations too much, in my opinion resulting in too long and boring show). I really like how they communicated with the audience. And for Tetsuo Sakurai as the most popular musician on the stage, he sure really know how to satisfy the audience with his skill and improvisation on the 6-strings bass.

The first song I knew in this show was "My Funny Valentine". They invited vocalist from Indonesia, Anna Andrea, to sing this song. The next one was "Fire Water", a piece for bass and drum. Tetsuo and Hiroyuki play this piece amazingly. Tetsuo showed various skills with the bass, and Hiroyuki also play the solo drum energetically. And then the most familiar song and maybe most awaited by the audience, "Night Bird" from Shakatak played. Near the end of the show, one string of Carlos' guitar was snapped, I guessed it was the 6th string. But it didn't matter anymore, because the show was going to end soon. And when the show ended, the applause echoed really hard and long.

Photos

All these photos taken at Jak Jazz 2007 festival, 24th November 2007