This line from Madonna’s ‘Jump’ seems so appropriate… and rather strangely, it came on my iTunes Shuffle as I was packing yesterday. I say ‘rather strangely’ because it was exactly the tune I was listening to as I packed to come over here - and because, clearly, it resonated both times:

<Andrea grudgingly gives Madge more credit than she really wants to>

A crescent moon has just appeared above the KL skyline, and it’s just too beautiful.

I’m planning for this to be my last post on Lost In Transposition. Thank you for reading this blog. It’s been an amazing thing, to keep it up (although I think some people who have spammed me could have helped with that issue); and I’ve been so touched by the fact that people are reading it, and by your comments, and even by your lurking. Thank you, lurkers. And thank you B, for the inspiration to do something every day.

I hope you’ll forgive me if I round the whole thing off by talking about what this whole crazy Malaysian shebang has meant to me.

<The world forgives Andrea>

So…

Musically: I have learned for the first time how to truly articulate what I do. How to articulate about jazz. How to teach jazz. How to teach. How to teach men. How to teach men who are older than me. I was only half-kidding when I compared myself to the hero of Footloose: if you thought jazz was a niche market in the West, you should try it out here. Maybe there really are six degrees of Kevin Bacon after all. And I am degree one.

It’s been great to be appreciated by a venue. For the management to love what you’re doing, and to support you to the hilt. It’s so uncommon, and to have the rein and the support to do what you feel is right to do, has felt… well, wonderful. And I will desperately miss the opportunity to make music six nights a week. Because of this, I am, without a shadow of a doubt, a better singer now than when I came. My chops are better, my confidence sky-high. And I realise why yesterday’s experience at the street market, and the previous night’s on the bandstand - especially when we just jammed - meant so much to me. It’s because, feeling that way, I felt like anyone for whom music is a full-time occupation. Like all the people who I’ve seen performing who studied music and so take it for granted that it’s OK to make music like this, who stand up there with fellow musicians like it’s the most natural thing in the world. For the first time truly in my life, I feel that way about making music. And that feels incredibly liberating. It feels amazing. Thank you, thank you, T, for giving me the opportunity to feel this. It’s been a privilege. And a blast .

Culturally, I have come to a place where many values differ from mine. Where it’s taken as read that someone is religious unless you find out otherwise; where the ruling party controls the media; where dissent and protest and real analysis is lurking, and as the recent election proved, becoming ever-more powerful, but is not acknowledged nor encouraged as some sort of right. It has at once opened my eyes and made me realise how sheltered my experience has been up to now; yet also made me appreciate how lucky I am - we are - in so much of what we take for granted in the West.

I have come from a developed nation to a developing nation, and seen some of the differences which that entails. T and I talked just yesterday, for example, about how he just doesn’t have time to think about ‘big things’. He literally spends all his time thinking about his own situation, his own survival - and told me that that is very common here. People are literally trying to survive. Compare and contrast with the West - where the Roman Empire, for example, gave us infrastructure; and was later followed the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, so that Europe went on to produce Michaelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci and Voltaire and Mozart and Beethoven and so on and so on… While South-East Asia was simply trying to survive, let alone go to concerts and eat grapes. It’s really no wonder that even major capitals like Kuala Lumpur and Singapore are relative cultural deserts (and by that I mean lacking in music and arts venues, museums, galleries and such) - or why as a result, why I couldn’t live here permanently. Unlike most ex-pats, it seems, I couldn’t just choose somewhere because of the weather and the shopping.

And a brief note about music and culture: I’ve realised that the high import taxes on CDs here utterly affects the musical tastes of the nation. Malaysians buy their albums in pirated form, where stall-holders on the street sell the latest CDs for 4 Ringgit (60p); whereas in record stores like Tower Records they cost the same as in the West (ie £8). The result? Everyone listens to the pirated music. Which means that they listen to the music people think it’s worth pirating. The big sellers: Kelly Clarkson. Britney. The Eagles. Michael Sodding Buble. No-one’s going to pirate a copy of Coltrane’s Giant Steps. So nobody in Malaysia is going to get to hear it unless they have money. Result? It’s difficult to get jazz gigs and clubs going. The audience just isn’t there. Because the audience isn’t listening to the music to the first place.

And finally, on the music and culture tip : this experience and this blog has led me to write for the first time about jazz, about the music I make, and as a result write for www.jazz.com. It’s led a heavyweight jazz critic and writer to praise my writing to the skies, and thats’wonderful. As some dead guy once said.

And finally, finally… The personal stuff.

Well. Erm….

I’m glad I came here alone. I think it’s led to all kinds of meetings and experiences that might not have happened otherwise. I’ve said ‘yes’ to just about everything and met all kinds of people I would never meet in London. And I will miss them terribly.

As I’ve explained recently to several people here: my life here isn’t just my life back home but with nice weather. It’s utterly, utterly different. I don’t meet CEOs. I don’t walk downstairs to a swimming pool. I don’t leave my towels on the bathroom floor, only to find them replaced by new ones on my towel rail (not unless some miraculous deal has been struck between my letting agent and my landlady).

I have, I think, managed the depression I’ve been going through. I have come here. I have jumped. I have made friends, made music, met wonderful people, had the utter privilege of doing something I love, night after night. I have realised how much I love my friends and family (and the musicians I work with!). And I have been myself throughout. And in the words of the song: That’s all.

So, this afternoon, I sang at the Penang Street Market - sort of the monthly village fete, in which a street in Georgetown is taken over by stalls selling all manner of wonderful local arts and crafts, and there’s a marquee with live performances from local bands.

R had asked me to join him and his sons during their set; and it was a lot of fun, doing ‘Little Sunflower’ and ‘Route 66′ with the three of them, and then singing more songs with just R.

It was increeeeeeedibly hot and humid, and I was sweating buckets - always attractive, I find - but it was great to end my time in Penang this way. (Performing in Georgetown that is, not sweating buckets). And as I sang, and chatted to the crowd in between songs, it also made me realise how far I’ve come. Because I think I did a good job. Singing in the daytime, to a crowd of ‘regular’ people, suddenly seemed a little scary - it felt like I was performing at a festival - but I didn’t let my nerves get in the way. Instead, I let my inner, secretly confident performer persona come out (as I write that, I realise that it sounds strange: don’t most people have a secretly unconfident persona inside them?), and this persona is at once happy and secure in her ability to sing, and to communicate with people. She talks confidently, and sings well, and most importantly: cracks gags which people laugh at. It’s a strange mixture of being utterly, truly myself and yet simultaneously standing outside of myself, almost watching myself half-incredulously at how I’m being… and yet knowing that I’m being my true self. If that makes any sense. Maybe I’m just surprised at seeing myself being able to do that. Hmm.

After the market, T, C and I returned to the hotel, where I packed up my final bits and bobs, settled my bill (approximately 25% of which consisted, alarmingly, of one single phone call), and popped back into the jazz club to give E a few things which otherwise would have been thrown out, such as mosquito spray, suncream and honey (which pretty much sums up my time here). She was there rehearsing with one of her two (count ‘em!) trios; and so that involved me saying goodbye all over again to a few people, who were surprised to see me again after last night. I walked in shouting, “I’ve changed my mind!”.

And then, T and C drove us to Ipoh - and I sit here in their family home writing this at silly o’clock, when I really should be in bed. T is a nightowl too, so after dinner at an Indian restaurant tonight we sat at his computer talking about life, the universe and everything (or at least: life, the universe and geniuses) and he talked me through the agency work which he wants me to get involved in when I’m back in London. All good stuff.

Earlier in the evening, I spent a fair amount of time hangin’ - and we were definitely hangin’ - with T and C’s seven-year-old daughter, H (they also have a very cute, very smiley, one year-something son). H is fantastic, and I may try to instigate a penpal-ship between her and my eight-year-old niece. Well, they both do ballet, and they’re both fans of High School Musical, so I think it could work out…

I did take some final photographs of Penang, and of T and C and co, today - but as it’s now half-past silly o’clock, I’ll wait til tomorrow to upload and link to them. Well, a secretly confident performer persona needs her inner beauty sleep, you know. Nighty night.

What a fantastic night.

A night of goodbyes and thank yous and hugs and real emotion; a night of life-enhancing music-making; a night which touched me so much, and which made me realise that I had touched others.

The trio played brilliantly; the set list was adapted as people requested songs; I introduced E to the audience as she joined me to sing harmonies on ‘Sentimental Journey’; and vocally, I sounded possibly the best I’ve ever sounded while I’ve been here (which might be: ever).

It was so much fun, and was made all the more special by the presence of friends who had come down for my last night, and by the sentiments I exchanged with them, and the people working in the club - the staff who have shared these nights here with me, night after night, for two months.

I brought them a ginormous chocolate cake to share, and they, very sweetly, gave me this:

- which is both funny, and touching.

I also gave L, D and Y a thank you present of two CDs each: one of a jazz musician who plays their instrument (Roy Haynes, Charlie Haden and Ruben Gonzalez - although the latter isn’t really jazz, admittedly), and the other a jazz vocal album I thought they’d like (Sarah Vaughan for D, Ella & Louis for Y and Cassandra Wilson for L). They all told me at various points in the evening how much they had enjoyed the past few months, and that they would miss me. I of course returned the compliment. And it was particularly heartfelt between L and me; we made a connection about what we were trying to achieve on these gigs, and I know how much he’s enjoyed it.

I took pictures of everyone - see on the right and here - although only realised at the end of the night that I omitted to get any photos of myself with the trio. Which makes me very sad; although in fact it was simply a case of this at work. Which is perhaps no bad thing . And that said, earlier in the day CC had dropped off a photo album he’d made of pictures he took of me and the trio on a gig this week - so heartfelt thanks again, CC. My other leaving present was from T2 and HH, who brought me some Chinese tea from their favourite tea shop on the island. “Do not drink with milk and sugar!” instructed HH, with a wag of her finger.

I had spread the word amongst the musicians I’ve met here that at the end of my set, it it would be fun to carry on the music-making, and turn it into a jazz jam; and sure enough, that’s what we did. D2 (San Francisco guy), CC, S and others got up to play, and I joined them for a few numbers. So much fun, and they sounded so great. I’m envious of E, working with these guys over the next few months.

As I said my goodbyes to everyone, so many sweet things were said. That I would be missed; that I was leaving Penang as a friend; that I’d done a great job - or as HH put it: “You did it. Mission accomplished!”. And there were so many thank yous, both from me and them. The people here have been remarkable; I’ve been shown such warmth and generosity and care, and of course it’s slightly heartbreaking to leave them just as really great friendships were beginning.

On stage, before my last number, I did my Oscars speech and thanked everyone; and said finally how important it was, what T and the hotel are trying to achieve here in setting up this jazz club, and how exciting it is that this great music now has a venue in Penang. And as the guys jammed at the end of the night, T2 - the music-loving American who lives here - said perhaps the most touching thing of anyone. I thanked him for everything, and he said: “No, thank you. Thank you for what you’ve brought to this place. I mean, just look,” he said, waving his hand towards the musicians playing on stage. “All this is happening because of you.”

Which is quite a thought. Thank you, Penang, for everything. It’s been an honour, and a true privilege, to have played here.

A load of crowd-pleasers, a few numbers which they don’t know here (but do now! ha!) and, yes, A MICHAEL BUBLE SONG. (No, wait. It’s not just ‘a Michael Buble song’. See what I’ve done? I’ve fallen into the same trap as everyone over here! Imagine!) Mind you, the following is bound to change anyway, if requests start coming in:

Set 1
Summertime
And I Love Him
Softly As In A Morning Sunrise
Georgia
Agua De Beber
You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To

Set 2
Night And Day
Fever
Cry Me A River
It Might As Well Be Spring
Call Me
Sunny

Set 3
Autumn Leaves
Besame Mucho
Cheek To Cheek
Sway
Unforgettable
Bye Bye Blackbird

(The other two being this one and this one).

I was handed this last night while I was on stage:

Is this a request for a Norah Jones song, or an invitation?

There was no phone number, so unfortunately I can only assume the former.

As I was here - take a look at this video of Ella Fitzgerald performing at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1969:

Ella was a precursor to Crazy Frog! Who knew?!

Actually, at around 3:26 Ella is also a precursor to Rolf Harris. But stick with it, because it gets even better. And there’s not a duff note in all amazing 6 minutes and 35 seconds of it.

Lunch today was with M, the pianist/singer who I was put in touch with before I came out here. As I told him today, planning to meet up with someone, only to do it two months later, is very ‘London’. Who knew that life in sleepy Penang could be so similar?

M took me to a place in Georgetown which is a sort of souped-up (as it were) hawkers’ foodstall gathering. A cross between this place and a food court, I guess:

I ate great veggie curry, a pancake with peanuts, syrup and sweetcorn inside it - which tasted not unlike like Snickers, with sweetcorn - and ice kachang (sp?), a dessert which seems to consist of water, ice, milk and kidney beans (no, really) and which tastes of bubblegum. And which looks like this.

My favourite dish’s name - by which I mean favourite name, as opposed to favourite dish - in Malaysia remains this, however:

Although this comes a close second:

So that was lunch.

The gig tonight was… surprisingly low-key, in many ways. The band has an energy about them, and tonight it was… well, yes, low-key. Nothing very wrong with that; but I think I’ll do a different setlist for tomorrow night and make sure it’s pretty uptempo all the way.

The bar was half-full (as opposed to half-empty: that’s the kind of gal I am) and CC turned up with R, the jazz singer he performs with at another restaurant - who’s probably sixtysomething, and very glamorous, and sounds like Nancy Wilson. Not to talk to, you understand, but to hear sing (CC once played me a live recording of her at the Penang Jazz Festival). It was lovely to meet her, and a discussion on the Great American Songbook writers led to me lending her my book on the subject.

T2 and HH also came along tonight; as did T and C and E. As with me, they had picked E up at KL (OK, now this initial thing is getting *really* silly) and had driven her up here. It was really good to meet her, and she seems very nice. She quizzed me about how things were, and I filled her in, before she retired to bed; she’d barely slept on the flight. I told her about the benefits of remaining in jetlag, because it seamlessly becomes musicians’ hours, but she didn’t seem very convinced. And she also told me that she (and her boyfriend) had been reading my blog every day. So if you’re reading this back in Austria: gruess Gott! Sie ist sicher angekommen. (Can you tell my degree is in German?)

(The funny thing is, E even looks like me. Someone pointed her out, and there she was, a pale-skinned, dark pony-tailed, sweeping-fringed woman in the bar.)

As you can tell by the time this will be posted, I stayed up late after the gig. T had brought a couple of guys with him to do some filming; so they were shooting during the gig and afterwards interviewing me (on film) downstairs in the lobby. This ultimately led to being the place where we night owls hung out; and ultimately led to a big argument-slash-discussion on morals and rights and wrongs and, well… I won’t bore you with it here. Suffice it to say: I wish I’d had you with me, Peter or B or Rachel or Sarah, to back up my views against a vociferous Malaysian male ;-).

So now it’s 6am, I’ve just heard a Muslim prayer calling outside my window, and that must surely mean it’s time for bed. Not that I think that’s what they’re praying about… but hey, it works for me. Once again: night night, all.

JazzChantoozieitsJazzChantoozieturningthefinalbendandapproachingthefinish
line…yesitsJazzChantoozieJazzChantoozieleadingthefield…butwaitaminute…
whatsthis?…comingupbehindJazzChantoozieitsReplacementAustrianJazzFilly!
ReplacementAustrianJazzFillyisapproachingJazzChantoozie…shescatchingup
…butJazzChantoozieisstillinthelead…JazzChantoozieisleadingthefieldwith
ReplacementAustrianJazzFillyaclosesecond…myworditsalmostneckandneck…
willJazzChantooziefallatthefinalhurdle?

Hopefully not.

Actually, a better analogy than a horse-race would have been a relay, with me handing over the baton. But then I don’t think athletics commentators talk quite as fast as horse-racing commentators. So it would have been a bit boring, to write that commentary.

So, hey ho. Here I am, coming into the final straight, indeed.

I have a final rehearsal with the guys in a few hours - I want to make sure our final two performances are as good as they can be - and in the meantime, may start packing. Or more likely: do some gift-shopping. On Sunday I go back to Ipoh, where T and C live (funny, that looks like ‘Clive’. Her name isn’t Clive, though); and then on Monday I go to Kuala Lumpur - or KL as everyone calls it here - to spend my final night at the Hilton (the Hilton, I tell you!), before flying back on Tuesday, and landing in the UK on Wednesday.

It really hasn’t hit me that this time next week, I will be back home.

Partly because I’ve been hearing about the snow; and that makes it all the harder to imagine. How on earth am I going to top up my tan?! Tell me that!!

I’m already expecting it to feel very dream-like, this experience. That I will be sitting back home, in my little (probably cold) flat, and be thinking: “Did that really happen?”. I know what it’s like flitting between New York and London seeing B, having two lives; with each place, and the life lived in it, suddenly and abruptly seeming like a dim and distant memory - even though it may only have been 24 hours previously that I was there. And yet conversely, each time I’d return to the place, whether London or NY, it would feel like only five minutes since I was last there, even if many months had passed between visits.*

Clearly, man wasn’t meant to travel quite such distances quite so quickly. But then man also engineered planes, so go figure, evolution fans.

As for the Austrian Jazz Filly - yes, the new singer arrives (with T) today to pick up the microphone-shaped baton. Or rather, to pick it up on Tuesday, after I’ve gone. Although you never know, I may call her up on stage to do a duet tomorrow night.

E (for that is her initial) won’t be performing with the same trio as me; and I don’t know whether it was my suggestion or what T had planned anyway, but she’ll be singing with two different, alternating bands. This is a much better way to work it, as it’s hard to secure players for a six nights a week (they normally have other regular residencies which, understandably, they don’t want to give up for a two-month booking); and also, perhaps most importantly, it means that he can book the guys who are already playing, and know and love, jazz.

So… off to the shopping mall for final, final-gift buying. There just wasn’t enough utter tat and Michael Buble CDs at the street market, y’know?

*I called this phenomenon TARDIBAR: ‘Time And Relative Dimension In B And Andrea’s Relationship’.

To scat, or not to scat? That is the question. Well, at least the question I posed on jazz.com, which has just published another article (well, more a ’short opinion piece’ than an ‘article’) by me on its blog and homepage. Hurrah! Click below to read it:

And yes, it’s official: I am a ’singer/writer/blogger’. It must be true, because jazz.com says so. I’m not sure whether I’m prouder of the fact that I’ve achieved this status, or the fact that my name has appeared on a website alongside Wayne Shorter’s. Either way, it feels good .

Another strange day today.

Well, strange evening. The daytime wasn’t too strange. I went over to R’s and did that planned recording with him. This included a voice and piano version of ‘Love Is A Losing Game’ - possibly the first cover version of that song to be put to vinyl, or whatever medium people use nowadays* - and ‘Little Sunflower’ and ‘Route 66′ sung over pre-recorded sessions already laid down (as they say in the biz that is show) by his two kids earlier in the week.

The evening then started strangely when L was very upset about an incident at the hotel. His reaction was possibly, probably, exaggerated - but I’ve realised that he’s a very sensitive man, and feels things very deeply. And I admire him for those qualities.

But then I got upset (honestly, we musicians! Tcha!). Over the fact that the horrible incident - I can’t even bring myself to hyperlink it - hasn’t quite resolved itself in the way that I guess I’d expected, or at least wanted, it to.

I suppose I wanted closure, or even justice, about what happened to me, before I left. No, correction: any time. But ideally before I left.

But now it looks like it’s not to be; not just before I left, but at all. The perpetrator has, in short, got away with it.

I suppose that finding that out this evening not only led me to feel more hurt and wronged than I did before, but also brought back all the other feelings which I’d felt about That Incident at the time. Feelings which I had managed to overcome - or at least suppress - until now.

But again, as before, I don’t want these feelings to marr my time here - especially now that I am in my final week.

And getting on stage tonight and making music did wonders for that. I’ve said often that I’m never sad when I sing - and it’s true. Sure, I might get emotional during a sad song, and absolutely feel what I am singing at that moment. But earlier this evening, after I cried down the phone to T, I genuinely thought to myself: ‘Thank goodness I’m going to make music tonight’.

Because as anyone who’s ever done karaoke knows: music really is wonderful therapy. (Insert exception here).

*since Doris Stokes died.