To all my friends, wherever you are:

“Someday

When I’m awfully low

When the world is cold

I will get a glow just thinking of you”

And I did, tonight. (Just the way I gigged tonight). Thank you xx

And thank you, too, to whoever wrote this card tonight (well, obviously it was ‘Malik’, but whoever he is):

Speaking of staying on this little island: I’ve been asked if I’d like to come back here to perform in June and July, too.

After saying, “Blimey!”, I thought for a while, and then said no. I wouldn’t want to come back quite that soon (after all, earthquake-damaged Britain clearly needs me), but hopefully will return here another time.

And in the meantime, it appears that this little ol’ blog of mine has turned out to have a useful third purpose* in terms of filling my shoes. T has been forwarding the URL to musicians and other venues, and it seems that Lost In Transposition has become quite the hit in terms of selling this gig (and hopefully, erm, me) - and he now has people queuing up to want to come here. Who’d have thunk it?

Meawhile, in other good news: I’m going to be doing some writing and photography work for T’s agency, creating the pages for various acts.

And in other, even better news: I’m about to take delivery of a bouncing new baby black Macbook, hopefully tomorrow. The announcement of the new Macbooks this week by Apple has meant that prices of the old models have now been slashed; and Penang’s Apple reseller has a shiny new/old 2.2 black Macbook with a 160GB hard drive for less than I (or rather: my insurance company) was about to pay for a new, inferior white one. In some ways, it would be great to get one of the brand new 2.4 white Macbooks - they’re faster and the battery life is better - but they don’t know when they’ll get delivery here, and it might not be for another three weeks. So, after reading all the reviews online and weighing it all up, I’ve decided to go for the older model, and get it soon.

Here endeth the geekery.

Oh, and one more piece of happy news: I’ve found out that American vocalist and Personal Jazz Hero Kurt Elling is coming to Singapore as part of a music festival next month - and he’s giving a vocal masterclass one Sunday, my day off. Unfortunately, places have now closed in terms of taking part, but you can get tickets to watch it - so this might be the perfect time to take up that offer by the hotel owner, D, of coming to Singapore for the night. And actually, it’s probably just as well there’s no more places for students. I think I would just pee my pants if I had to sing in front of Mr E. And considering this isn’t a masterclass for three year-olds, I’m not sure that would be socially acceptable.

*The first purpose being: to keep me sane. The second being: to reassure friends and family of my sanity.

Over dinner before last night’s gig, I started to leaf through this book which I brought out with me (or rather, that V brought over with her, among other belongings that I’d requested):

It’s the sort of book which lends itself to being ‘leafed through’, too - a history of the Great American Songbook, or more specifically, of the men and women who wrote those songs.

Looking things up in the index, I started with a random song which I’m singing right now (well, not right now, obviously. They wouldn’t stand for that sort of thing in the Executive Lounge): ‘Cheek To Cheek’ by Irving Berlin. I discovered that it was nominated for the Best Original Song at the Oscars in 1935, but lost out to ‘Lullaby Of Broadway’ by Harry Warren and Al Dubin. A fact which apparently annoyed Berlin no end, as if it had been 1994, it would certainly have beaten ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight’ from The Lion King.

Learning this interesting jazz factoid, I then looked up ‘Oscars’ in the index - and decided to change my setlist for last night’s gig to make sure that it included a few songs which had won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. What with yesterday being the day of the Oscars, and all that.

It turned out to be a jolly good wheeze… I even got members of the (albeit small, Monday-night) audience to guess in which year the said songs won their Oscars. In the end, I did ‘Secret Love’ (1953), ‘Moon River’ (1961) and ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ (1936), as well as Berlin’s near-miss ‘Cheek To Cheek’.

I failed to include ‘Arthur’s Theme’ (1981), ‘Flashdance’ (1983) and ‘The Theme From Shaft‘ (1971), though all three were, naturally, tempting.

(PS. And if you’re as geeky as I am, then you might find this just as fascinating as I did.)

Very excitingly, my blog is now being linked to by the jazz website on the world wide internet, namely the American site Jazz.com.

They’ve picked me as one of their ‘Best Jazz Links Of The Week’. Right here.

I was even at the top a few days ago. Jazz fame at last!

I’m trying to get on and write this post but am being distracted by Phat Girls, which is currently showing on Star Movies, and which is as good as it sounds.

See what happens when V stays up as late as I do?

It was a really wonderful night in the bar tonight. Familiar faces and new faces, and most importantly: all of them faces who seemed to really be there because of the music.

The atmosphere was different; and the best way, the only way, I can describe it is that tonight, for the first time, it felt like a real jazz club.

Which wa s’wonderful.

What wa s’also wonderful was how confident I’m feeling about my singing. The band are sounding really good, and I’m not fire-fighting any more - which means I’m freed up to sing freely and happily.

And what s’more, I’m finding that I can sing songs which I wouldn’t normally attempt as they’re too well-known or cliched to attempt (but am doing so for the audience here) and singing them, well, erm, well. As in: I’m making them my own, and finding a freshness in them which I never thought I would.

‘Fever’ sounds like I was made to sing it, and it’s a brilliant challenge to take a song like that which is so famous (and what’s more: a recording that’s so famous) and try to deliver it in a new - and sincere - way. Ditto ‘Cheek To Cheek’, which we start and end with just me and bass (on the ‘Heaven, I’m in heaven…’ parts) and which sounds so nice arranged like that.

My voice is going from strength to strength (as well as down from octave to octave), and tonight I truly felt entitled to be there on the stage.

And it’s a fantastic feeling - nay, wonderful, and marvellous - that the audience should care for me.   

It’s 0200 hours. What does the ‘O’ stand for? O my god, it’s late.

So I’ll keep this one brief.

After invitations to sing in Guangzhou (China) and Jakarta (Indonesia), there’s now another Asian location apparently crying out for the dulcet tones of Andrea Mann.

Hanoi.

In particular: a posh hotel in Hanoi. And I know it’s posh because it’s ranked fourth out of 196 hotels in Hanoi on TripAdvisor.com.

I think from now on I may make it my new policy never to play at any hotel rated lower than fifth on TripAdvisor. Especially if there’s only five hotels in said town. But I digress.

This hotel in Hanoi would like me to play there for two months - and soon.

I’ve told T that I don’t really want to go away again for that length of time so quickly after my time here. But I don’t get off that easily, ohhh no. Hanoi is calling, and if I can’t do it soon, then apparently they want me there in November and December.

I’m seriously thinking of going.

At this rate, I may end up the British jazz equivalent of the Fun Lovin’ Criminals, ie. famous in Asia but unheard of back home (no one in America knows the FLC, although no one in Britain would know that). Maybe I’ll become Asian Famous. Which, like being Jazz Famous, isn’t that famous at all. Or maybe, better still, I’ll become Asian Jazz Famous, which is less famous than both Asian Famous and Jazz Famous.

Actually, I took another step to becoming Asian (Jazz) Famous in the bar tonight, when I was interviewed in my break by a journalist from the New Straits Times, a national newspaper described to me as “the Malaysian Daily Telegraph“. It was fun. He asked me questions, I plugged T’s agency, he didn’t make many notes, I told him how to spell ‘Brad Mehldau’… And so on.

Who knows. Maybe I’ll become so Asian (Jazz) Famous that I will actually, one day, be Big In Japan. Now that would be fantastic.

So, my blog told me today that another blog is linking to me. 

Here.

How lovely of him.

Another post to follow… 

The beach was lovely today. Exactly like a Bounty/Bacardi advert - even down to the reggae playing in the bar, as we sat with our toes in the sand - but I’ll write about it properly tomorrow, when I’ve uploaded the photos. In the meantime, as Vic tries to get some sleep behind me (eye mask and ear plugs intact), I’ll write about tonight in the bar.

It was a very mixed crowd. Quiet at the beginning; then suddenly busier as a huge group of twentysomething locals (as in: that was their age. Not their group size) arrived; and then more punters after that. Some of whom were listening, some of whom were chatting, but all of whom were dominated by the huge group, who shrieked with laughter and clapped each other at random moments. Well, random as far as we were concerned  - but probably somehow linked to the drinking games they were playing. One of which seemed to involve dares; and one dare of which seemed to involve kissing a member of the band. Because some girl, after unsuccessfully attempting to plant a smacker on Y, moved on to me (as I was offstage), politely explaining that she had to kiss me. To which I proffered a cheek; and after kissing it, she said thank you, told me her name, and said that it was nice to meet me. As you do.

The effect of having this raucous crowd present was that a) it felt like a restaurant gig, where you’re background music (not always a bad thing); and b) I was up for singing whatever, whenever. So I found myself doing ‘Close To You’ (or as it was written on the song request card: ‘Closed To You’) at the end of the night, and the following:

Which is quite possibly my second favourite song dedication card of the trip so far, after ‘Diana Ross’.

Obviously, they meant ‘Smooth Operator’ - so in my break, I popped to the business centre, Googled the lyrics, printed them off and hey presto! At the start of the third set, performed ‘Smoke Operator’ in a perfectly, erm, adequate fashion. At least I could do ‘Your Love Is King’ (a number I do sing) as a follow-up, in a crazy Sade Double Bill.

In the first break I also got talking to an American chap who was propping up the bar. I’ve had this sort of radar on me ever since I first arrived: the ability to spot the lone Westerner (not that that’s too tricky) and to go up and talk to them at the first opportunity. J is part of the Ohio contingency here - they’re building a solar panel plant out in Penang - and he clearly was delighted to have someone new to talk to.

And similarly, at the end of the night, I ended up having a drink with a guy from California who’s traveling around Asia on holiday, and who, it turns out, is a professional hacker. According to him, he’s one of the best. I said: “So is someone who’s not very good at hacking a ‘hack’?”. But he didn’t quite get it.

So, anyway: the reason for the title of this post is the encounters like those I had tonight; and the situation which is bringing these meetings about.

In the bar alone, I’ve met: a millionaire hotel owner, a computer hacker, several engineers from Ohio, a Swede who lives in Bangkok, the wife of a high court judge, the managing director of a car radio company, a retired palm oil plantation owner… and probably many more who I can’t think of right now. And I can meet several of these people in one night.

I don’t normally meet this people in one month in England.

Coming to this place has engineered these encounters. And it’s compounded by the fact that I’m here alone, so open to talking to strangers; and by the fact that hotels are obviously going to attract people who are alone - whether that’s travellers on business or pleasure - and who are, therefore, open to talking to me in return.

And I guess, too, that it’s happening because I like people. It doesn’t go without saying that a musician should also be a people person - but finding myself as I am in this situation, I’m glad that I’m naturally drawn to, and interested in, other people. Otherwise it would be a very lonely time of it indeed. And, hey: I wouldn’t have found myself propping up a bar with a professional computer hacker from California. As you do. Or at least, as I do. When I’m alone in a hotel in Penang.

It was something of a rollercoaster night again last night.

We’d done a good gig - and I’d got C and N up on stage again to do a number each, it being C’s last night - but P, the bar manager, took the band and myself to one side at the end of the evening. He wasn’t happy; and I won’t go into all the reasons why here, but the conversation which ensued included: the concept of people (guest vocalists, saxophonists) sitting in - to him/people over here that’s “karaoke”; to me it’s what happens at a jazz gig - the idea of not being able to please all of the people all of the time; and talk of how we can make the night more successful. It also included a request for me to “maybe be more like a diva”.

In short, it was slightly painful; but I think I did an OK job of standing my ground over certain points while also making it clear that we as a band want to do our best. I won’t change who or how I am as a performer and be fake in anyway (as D said: “She is she”); but of course I will learn more standards that they know and love over here, if that makes the rest of my repertoire more accessible.

After all, we’re all on the same page here: everyone - me, the band, the hotel, the agent - wants this place to be a successful jazz club. And as I told P, for me, that means putting on great jazz music every night of the week, and creating a welcoming atmosphere. If you build it, they will come, and all that. Or, rather: if you build it, you may lose some of your old punters due to the new music policy, but then hopefully other people come. (Not sure that would have worked in Field Of Dreams, but still). And in the meantime, you market the hell out of the place to get those fresh faces in there.

But enough of all that… Because - just as on the night when I felt like a failure, only to be invited to China - a similar thing happened last night; when after the above conversation, I got back to my room, chatted to V about what had happened (thank goodness she was here!) and checked my emails.

I’d received one from a Malaysian drummer, inviting me to perform at a new jazz club he’s setting up in Jakarta, Indonesia, for a week after I’ve finished in Penang. It turns out from speaking to T that this guy is very famous and well-connected in Asia; but regardless of who he was, I was absolutely up for doing the gig.

And so it goes: after Penang, I’ll probably be going to Jakarta for a week.

And after that: T has asked me if I’m interested in taking over the jazz section of his agency in London.

I’ve said “Yes”.

Both of these events - and the China invitation - have made me think again about a quotation by the Scottish mountaineer WH Murray, which I stumbled across some months ago. At the time, I immediately forwarded it to B - The One Who I Shouldn’t Be Speaking To Right Now - because he set himself an amazing project to do last year, and from it, all kinds of incredible meetings and opportunities arose.

It comes from the beginning of Murray’s book The Scottish Himalayan Expedition, from 1951:

“… but when I said that nothing had been done I erred in one important matter. We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts. We had put down our passage money— booked a sailing to Bombay. This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:

‘Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!’”

Turns out the Goethe quotation is actually something of a misquotation; but you get the idea. And in fact, it’s not so much about the Goethe quote as about Murray’s earlier point: that from one step, making one commitment, so many other, unforeseen things flow. It really is quite magical.

My voice is getting lower.

My singing voice, that is. My speaking voice hasn’t broken, or anything.

It’s been lower than when I first started singing seriously (as opposed to silly-ly) for a while now; but it’s got even lower. I knew that on Valentine’s Day I would be pretty much obliged to sing ‘My Funny Valentine’ at least once during the night; so double-checked my key.

I took it down from F minor to D minor.

To those of you to whom that means nothing: in short, I now have the voice of a tenor. Not even an alto. A tenor.

A fact which was thrown even more into the spotlight on Saturday, when a young, local saxophonist, J, sat in for the final set. (To those of you to whom that means nothing: he joined in).

J plays tenor sax - beautifully, with a tone like Ben Webster’s - and it was a joy to have him perform with us. It was also slightly alarming, though not unpleasant, to realise that my range is so low that it’s practically the same as his; and so we found ourselves singing/playing similar notes  - sometimes in a similar swooping, breathy, way.

Who’d have thunk it?

I already have a trumpet impression pretty much perfected. Perhaps I should now work on a sax one?