From Bollywood music to songs sung in Kristang to samba and joget; Malaysia is a melting pot of music.

Realising this, members of the WVC – Malaysian Jazz Ensemble have embarked on a mission to document the Southeast Asian nation’s musical inheritance and celebrate it through jazz.

Eksentrika recently spoke to Tay Cher Siang, one of the founders of the ensemble, on how the band’s seventh and latest album, Purnama, chronicles the extraordinary musical history journey of Malaysia over the years.

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WVC – Malaysian Jazz Ensemble was formed in 2006. That said, few know the story behind its formation. Care to share how the ensemble got formed?

I started the band with my University classmates, Adam Osmianski on Drums and Jon Cavendish on bass, both Americans who came to Malaysia to visit me, and play music. WVC meant West Virginia Connection (we went to West Virginia University). While they were here in 2006, we recorded our first album, playing music that all of us dug. We toured Malaysia, Singapore, and China during their one-month stay.

I carried on with the WVC label, recruiting Malaysian musicians, composed our own music, recorded new albums, etc. Thus the band now morphed into WVC- Malaysian Jazz Ensemble. We have had bassist Vincent Ong, Drummer Charles Wong, and Kj Wong (even Thai drummer Hong Chanutr Techatananan joining one of our tours), Saxophonist Julian Chan, and Benjamin Lee on board at one time or the other. The latest members of WVC now consists of myself on Piano, Aj Popshuvit on Bass, and Adriel Wong on Drums.

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What about you, Cher Siang. Can you share with our readers how you got started with music and what led you to fall head over heels for jazz?

Jazz was something foreign in the environment I grew up with. Maybe some commercial jingles that caught my ears (like the McDonald’s Moon face singing Mack The Knife: well if you think about it, a song about a killer to sell hamburgers), or maybe some unavoidable Kenny G. It was Bossa Nova that got me hooked on jazz: I literally bumped into this music. When walking down the street in Melaka (Jalan Bunga Raya) I passed by this old record store which was playing the song Corcovado sung by Astrud Gilberto. Instantly I was attracted to the sound. The imperfect voice, not-impeccable pitch and tone, and kind of off pronunciation of English lyrics by Astrud. The nylon strings guitar rhythm, the double bass, and the velvety tone of Stan Getz all hit me on my head.

I went into the store and told the aunty to keep that CD for me (it was Verve Jazz Masters No. 53: Stan Getz Bossa Nova). This CD pretty much led me into the world of jazz, Brazilian music, improvisation, rhythm, etc.

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You also embarked on a personal journey in 2016 to get to know Malaysia’s musical inheritance. Purnama is in a way a continuation of this journey. What is one interesting insight you’ve discovered since you embarked on this journey that you can share with us?

Is it embarrassing to admit that I used to know way more about John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Bill Evans, or the Beatles, Björk and Radiohead, than I knew of Malaysia’s own music and its most important musicians? I didn’t know much about our own heritage, our traditional music. The problem stemmed from the lack of information, the kind of environment I grew up in, and perhaps the lack of interest from Malaysians.

The concerts Seketika Sebelum Merdeka were my attempt to educate myself about our cultural heritage, thanks to Eddin Khoo’s input and guidance. I have planned to turn some of the music we performed at the concert into recorded material, and the album is slated to be released in 2020 (the Wawasan year. Well, the year 2020 has been this glorified vision my generation grew up with), but has to be delayed due to the pandemic.

I guess I am still the old-fashioned type of musician, to document the growth of the WVC Jazz Ensemble with physical albums. Over the years we have had several album outputs, to document the music that we performed/created with albums. Thus, the transition of Seketika Sebelum Merdeka (concerts) to Purnama (album) is only a natural path.

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Looking at Purnama‘s tracklist, there are many popular tunes that Malaysians are familiar with. In a sense, it celebrates the diverse sounds and music that Malaysians know and love. Was it hard deciding which ones to include in the album?

Yeah man, it was hard; but then it was simple too. Back to that 2016 project, Seketika Sebelum Merdeka, Eddin Khoo, my co-conspirator gave me a list of 50 songs (that guy knows his stuff) for me to pick from. I didn’t know much about the songs, thus I had to spend time going through each and every song, transcribing the songs, and trimming down the numbers, giving each selection a new voice, new approach. That’s the hard part. Deciding which songs to be included in the album was relatively easy because as a band, we played the tunes for a couple of years on the road or during our club dates, we knew the music quite well already.

How did you guys determine which song to include in the album? What was the selection process like?

The criteria are: Musically stimulating, satisfactory arrangements, storytelling, and good flow in the album.

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Out of all the tracks, which ones are the ensemble members’ personal favorite? Why?

I like Purnama (Track 12), as I used it to embark on a different journey. The original song Purnama is from the 1940s sang by Nona Asiah. The song is about young people having fun, partying, and dancing under the full moon. For me, I used this song as the vehicle to think about our lives, how we live in the moment, how Moon is this observer through the ages, observing Humans’ wars, love, life, and deaths. I also put in Debussy’s art song Beau Soir, performed on Theremin by Ng Chor Guan, the song is about life and death.

Surprisingly, the theme song from the Bollywood movie Bobby from the 1970s: Main Shayar to Nahin (Track 4) became one of my favorites from this selection. This is not a Malaysian song, rather it speaks to us Malaysian of that era. The memories of the time I spent with my great grandmother when I was very young, watching the early evening broadcast of many classic Bollywood movies. My great-grandmother who was in her 80s at that time didn’t understand any other language other than her mother tongue, enjoyed the Bollywood movies very much, she could tell who is the bad guy and who is the good guy. This seems to be a similar experience for many Malaysians, watching Bollywood movies in the sleepy early evenings. Another reason why I enjoyed this tune was, the band (with Aj on Double Bass, and Adriel on Drums) played this tune the first time during the recording, and nailed it on the first take, and it turned out to be really enjoyable and great.

Song of Crossing at Dawn (Track 11) is also quite special. The language conservator Chong Keat Aun (who also just won the best director for the Golden Horse Award in 2020 for his first film The Story of Southern Islet) has spent many years going around Malaysia documenting and recording songs performed by our forefathers and foremothers in various Chinese languages. It was thanks to him that I discovered the wistful Hakka tune ‘Song of Crossing at Dawn’. In this arrangement, I made use of jazz trio with Shakuhachi (performed by Tan Jie) and vocal performance by Chong to paint epic poetry about the stories of our forefathers who left their homes to dive into the unknown and later on built the country together with others.

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Another curious thing I’ve noticed, Cher Siang, is that the album is also available for purchase on Bandcamp. It’s contrary to what many Malaysian musicians who frequently release their tracks and albums on Spotify. Why Bandcamp?

Well, I am a bloody stubborn guy, maybe ignorant as well. I bloody hate Spotify. I can imagine myself inside my crinkling armor and sitting on top of my donkey, facing the windmill and thinking that I am going to fight the dragon or giant. Spending all the money, all the effort making an album, and putting it on Spotify is pretty much like giving out your effort for free. Maybe it has to do with an article about Spotify in its early days when they promised to support musicians but instead spent five figures each month on rental in an office in Manhattan. I bloody hate all these so-called innovators and disruptors. Bloody bloodsuckers. But, I guess I am stubborn and ignorant. Also, people can also listen to my music for free on Bandcamp mah, you might ask. Yeah true, but they can also buy the music there, which I managed to sell some digital copies of my albums there. Well. I am stubborn, I admit it.

All images in this feature were supplied by WVC – Malaysian Jazz Ensemble. 

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