I was telling someone only the other day that jazz is a language. And, just as if you listen to Linguaphone tapes day in, day out, you will absorb an awful lot about a language, so it is that if you listen to jazz music day in, day out, you will absorb the structures and nuances of this language, without even realising it. You will, in short, develop what’s known in jazz as ‘big ears’ (although not literally. Fortunately).

I once had a strange - but wonderful - experience of this last year, when I sat down to play the keyboard after not having been anywhere near a keyboard for months. What I had been doing over those months, however, was listening to more jazz music than ever before.

And I swear something affected me. As I picked out tunes on the keyboard, my fingers somehow magically found the right notes. Not all the time, granted - but an awful lot more times than they had ever done in my thirtysomething years of playing piano up to that point. I didn’t have perfect pitch; but the connection between the notes I heard in my head - the notes I was searching for - and the finding of these notes on the keyboard was so much closer, so much tighter, that it was almost like looking down at someone else’s hands.

In the words of Dusty Springfield: Spooky.

But tonight on the gig, something happened that was even spookier. A correlation between listening and performing which happened much, much quicker than the one I just described (which as I said, was the result of weeks, if not months, of listening).

Earlier this afternoon, I listened to this album as I worked:

It’s a 1959 live recording of Sarah Vaughan performing at a jazz club in Chicago with a trio (Ronnell Bright, Richard Davis and Roy Haynes) and horn players (including Thad Jones). It opens with a swinging version of ‘Like Someone In Love’ and ends with Sarah messing up the lyrics several times on ‘Thanks For The Memory’. And it’s just about as great as jazz singing gets.

Other than warming up by singing along to Diana Krall or Julie London, and falling in love with Kurt Elling, I haven’t actually been listening to much vocal jazz while I’ve been out here. And this afternoon was the first time I’d listened to this Sarah Vaughan album.

And then tonight I got up on stage to sing, and…

Well, I won’t exactly say that I was ‘filled with the spirit of Sarah Vaughan’. But something strange happened.

We kicked off with a swinging version of ‘Summertime’ (it’s a good warm up, and recognisable to even the most non-jazz-loving audience member) and… I don’t know. Suddenly I felt as confident a singer as Sassy herself; and found my voice jumping around the melody and timing with the utmost of ease (and, it seemed, musicality. And hopefully taste). There was suddenly a true jazz easiness to my singing - and while of course there is no way I could sound like Sarah Vaughan, there was definitely an approach of hers in what I was doing.

Now, I could put this partly down to the fact that my cold has gone. Or I could put it down to the fact that I whipped the guys into shape again few nights ago, after some flaky gigs, and am going through the set list with them, song by song, before we start. And so as a result, they’re tighter and slicker once again; and I feel freed up once more to sing with ease and un-self-consicously.

Or I could put it down to the fact that I’d listened to Sarah Vaughan singing live just a few hours earlier.

Maybe it’s not about musical absorption, but more about a sudden and obvious confirmation that what you’re doing has a tradition, and is important and valid somehow.

Either way: I really must market this as a pre-gig warm-up idea for jazz singers…

So that’s the end of that post, then.

<Drums fingers>

It’s a very grey, very rainy day out today. Look for yourself:

So whereas I thought it might be a day for sunbathing and swimming, it’s actually going to be a day for writing - not just the blog, but also a piece for jazz.com, and the celebrity fashion flog (that’s a ‘fake blog’, fact - or indeed etymology - fans) I write silly weekend posts for. And possibly also a day for watching CNN while I walk very quickly for 15 minutes, ie. ‘hitting the gym’.

I’m entering my final week here now - my last gig is a week tonight - and so I’m mindful of what I’ve got planned for each day before I leave. I’m also very mindful of the life that awaits me back home; not least because the freelance job which was my main source of income before I left is no more. As Scooby-Doo’s Shaggy would say: Yikes (Scoob).

Still, I’m a firm believer not in fate, but in seeing such things as chances to go in different directions; and as such, very often a Good Thing In Disguise. Fear leads one to blitz for work, and as a result: I may end up doing some work for an old employer which would involve more writing; I’ve applied for a paid blogging job on a news site; I’ve pitched the idea of a feature about my time out here to a leading women’s magazine; and the endorsement of the editor of jazz.com, a heavyweight jazz writer and critic, has given me a boost in terms of writing about the music I make, and led me to offer my freelance services to a British jazz magazine. Well, pretty much the only British jazz magazine - but a jazz magazine nonetheless (and no sniggering at the back there, please). Oh, and I’ve fortuitously just heard from a London-based jazz band who are up to their eyeballs in function gigs, and need a dep for their female singer. (Who’s also called Andrea. And no, I still don’t believe in fate. )

I’ve realised only belatedly that being out here has actually been good in terms of earning money; and given the work situation back home, wonder whether I should have taken up T’s offer of extending my stay here for another month. But I have family and friends to get back to - and two brand new members of that group in the form of my best friend’s new baby, and my sister’s impending one - and, to be truthful, two months has felt like exactly the right length of time to be here.

Obviously before I leave I’ll write a final post about my experience out here - a conclusion, as it were. But in the meantime: as I think about leaving and returning to London, I’ve realised more than ever just how much I love my life there, how much I love my friends and family, and how grateful I am at the thought of seeing them all again.

But now, to writing about Britney’s latest fashion blunder…

…that if you get at least two people of any age or nationality in a room together, they will know at least one Beatles song.

I’ve just returned from a fantastically entertaining afternoon, jamming with workers at a car radio factory.

This is my life out here.

TK - a fortysomething regular at the bar, and the person who kindly loaned his driver to show me and V around the island - had told me that he had a music room at his company’s factory here in Penang. “The managers can take music lessons on work time,” he explained. “And every Friday between 4 and 7, we open a few bottles of wine, and have a jam session. We’ve got full recording facilities, guitars, a drum kit and a piano”.

He was right. Except he forgot the cello.

So there I was at their factory and offices this afternoon, which looked liked something out of a 1980s Hollywood movie (possibly Nine To Five?), ie. this:

And after a quick tour, which included seeing various cars kitted out with ridiculously impressive car stereo systems (including one with a DVD player and surround sound. Yes, full cinema surround sound as you sit in the back of a car), we made ourselves at home in the music room. Which looked like this:

Apparently not all the regular, music-making managers were around this afternoon - but there were enough of us to have a very enjoyable session. At least two of the three guys could play several instruments really well - one is even a whizz at bluegrass guitar - and together we played and sang some jazz standards that they knew.

As I sat plonking a few chords (and I was definitely plonking) while I sang, I realised that I’ve never actually played any jazz piano with other people - only alone, at home - and I loved it, even though I was utterly, utterly terrible. It’s inspired me to think of possibly taking jazz piano lessons when I get back. I’ve known for a while how good it would be for my singing; now I know how much fun it would be, too. <Grins>.

And, yes, to return to my initial, scientific fact: the jam session took an even better turn when a Japanese marketing guy picked up a guitar (and how many stories start like that, eh) and began to play and sing the first of many, many Beatles numbers. Eight Days A Week, Norwegian Wood, And I Love Her, Michelle, Blackbird, Get Back, The Long And Winding Road, Here, There And Everywhere… You name it, we played and sang our hearts out to it. It was really quite moving, to be having this much fun with total strangers (actually I can think of quite a few stories which start like that) and I even felt a rare surge of patriotic pride over this music we were making together. “You can say what you like about Britain,” I said at the end, “but it did give the world The Beatles.”

I’ve just uploaded the pictures from another afternoon excursion - this time to a great little cafe/restaurant in Georgetown called Eco Cafe; and then to the Khoo Kongsi, a Chinese clan house in the centre of town.

The Eco Cafe is run by a friend of CC’s, and with its white tiles, pink walls, and old French music being piped out of the speakers, it was a haven of simple food (pasta, sandwiches and salads) done in a nicely laidback, slightly Western, sort of way. We met an American writer who’s boarding there, and the owner - who was happy to let me snap the surroundings (such as here and here), and who proudly showed off his new wood-burning oven, which he had built out of local clay and cow dung. Fancy.

We then went to an exhibition of German photography at CC’s old university - a former army barracks up on a hill (it’s surprising how similar an army barracks is to a campus university, in fact) - and then back into town to see Khoo Kongsi.

Khoo Kongsi looks like a temple - and in fact partly is a temple - but it’s chiefly a clan house, ie. a place where people from the same clan would meet and, erm, do whatever clans do. And it looks something like this:

There are lots more photos taken in and around the Khoo Kongsi here. Most of which are of lanterns inside the hall, or of the houses you pass as you make your way to the courtyard. Such as here:

And here:

Who says that tourists are always looking up?

Tuesday 29th April.

In fact, it’s more important than the previous Very Important Date.

Mainly because it, erm, replaces it.

Yes, the date of the Oxjam gig at the EDT has now moved to the 29th of next month.

Please put it in your diaries (again!). More details coming soon…

No, really.

Over dinner with L (the drummer) the other night, I was asking him how he’d found the experience of the past two months. He told me that he would miss me - “Everyone asks me: how is it, working with Andrea? And I tell them: ‘It’s very easy! Very easy!’” - and he that he feels very sad about the idea of not being able to play “this music” any more.

In my instinctive Mary Poppins/Anna the Governess manner, I told him he could: he just had to whistle a happy tune. No, that’s not right. He just had to make it happen. That’s it.

You should get together with CC (my friend the bassist and jazz nut), I told him; find yourselves a good pianist, and form a jazz trio here. Get together and work out some tunes, I said, and then go to T, selling yourselves as specifically a jazz trio, ready for hire for any jazz gigs that come up in Asia. Including ones here at the hotel jazz club, of course.

So there I was, just beginning my Amelie-style matchmaking - telling L that CC wants to play more jazz, too; and then the following day telling CC the same thing about L; and telling them both that they should form a trio - when, whaddya know. A jazz pianist walked into the bar.

No, really.

D2 is probably about 30, and has arrived in Penang from San Francisco. His day job (computers or engineering, I can’t remember which) has brought him here for two years - two whole years - he’s currently staying in the hotel; and he seems like a really nice guy. But most importantly (for the sake of this story, at least): he’s a brilliant jazz piano and organ player.

I know this because he emailed me tracks he’s recorded with groups back in San Fran. I told him that his timing is lousy: “Not music-wise, you understand, but arriving-in-Penang-wise”. I would have given my right arm to have had him as my pianist out here. Hopefully his right arm won’t be going anywhere soon, though.

Still, what may have been bad timing for me could prove to be brilliant timing for my friends L and CC. I’ve organised a play for the four of us next week, so that I will at least have had a chance to sing with D2 before I leave. The main reason I’m doing it, though, is that I want to bring these three like-minded guys together. Of course, they might hate each other. They may not gel at all. But somehow, I think it could work. And hopefully they’ll continue to make sweet (jazz) music together long after I’ve left.

Wednesday 30 April.

Please put it in your diaries. Especially if you live in London :-).

Finding myself a Lady Who Lunches, I’ve been thinking I should use this time to do Something Useful. Rather like those rich Manhattan women who don’t have jobs but volunteer for Worthy Causes and organise charity soirees on the Upper West Side.

And strangely enough, a reason to do just that fell into my lap last week.

I heard, via Facebook, about ‘Oxjam’ - something which Oxfam is organising in April. Basically, they’re asking people to put on live music events throughout the UK during that month, to raise money for Oxfam.

So naturally, I thought: ‘I can do that’.

And without thinking too hard or for too long (which is probably the best approach in these situations), I contacted the East Dulwich Tavern - a great local venue back home - asking them if they would be up for hosting an Oxjam gig. And they said yes. And then I contacted my singer-songwriter friend Sarah Gillespie, asking her if she would perform. And she said yes. And then I asked her if she would ask Chaz Jankel from The Blockheads if he would perform. And he said yes (as did Blockheads’ singer Derek The Draw). And then I asked my comedian/writer friend Simon Hickson if he would MC the evening. And he said yes. And so did fellow East Dulwicher and British jazz heavyweight, guitarist Dave Cliff.

It’s all coming together brilliantly, and I’m very, very excited about it all.

Yes: very.

The next week or so will be spent finalising the line-up, and creating all the publicity material. When I’m back in England, Simon and I may also trawl local shops and other business to see if we can get some prizes donated for a raffle or auction on the night.

I’ve long wanted to do something like this, marrying up my music with Doing Some Good. Sarah herself has been a big inspiration, as she’s organised several charity gigs over the past few years, and raised so much money for such good causes.

If you’re a musician in the UK reading this - or even if you’re not, and you just know some musicians - then I’d ask you to please consider doing the same, and put on a gig next month. Let me know if you do!

I had lunch yesterday with A, who collected me from the hotel (honestly, this is how every outing with everybody starts) and took us to Penang Club.

SE Asia is filled with these clubs, it seems - Clubs, Sports Clubs, Swimming Clubs, American Clubs. It’s obviously a throwback to Colonial times; Penang Club was established in 1886. A fact I know because it’s printed on their towelling bathrobes and coasters:

Penang Club has a lovely terrace with a sea view, an outdoor swimming pool and a teeny tiny private beach:

(That’s actually looking back to the area why my hotel is.)

Penang Club is also, it turns out, a wedding venue - and preparations were underway for a service that afternoon for a Dutch couple getting married there. The florist was creating a garlanded archway, and chairs and tables were being set out (see the pictures here). It was all sweetly makeshift and mismatching - blue tablecloths, yellow chairs, a burgundy rug, pink flowers and two strips of red carpet - but the best part was the fact that they were setting all of this up right next to a volleyball net:

“I now pronounce you man and wife… And request that guests please form an orderly line so that the bride and groom may choose their teams.”

Well, sort of. At least for writing about jazz, if not singing it. Or rather: writing about singing it.

The American website jazz.com has just put up a fluffy piece I wrote for them about my experience out here, from the musical side of things. It’s on their homepage today - click below or read it here.

As you will see, I’ve already been attacked for my take on the ubiquitous Michael Buble. Oops.

Papaya. Don’t worry: I didn’t know what it was, either.