All that jazz - pop and rock too

Hua Hin’s annual jazz festival has been through a variety of locations and organisers in recent years and this year was no exception, with newcomers Boffo joining up with the municipality and moving the show from the beach to the city’s Queen Park.

The new venue with its tall shady trees and well-planned pathways seemed to delight local music fans who flocked in their thousands to the park and settled in for a night of music, gourmet food and drinks. The shopping scene was brisk too with many tourists spotted snapping up chic hand-made products from booths lining the street entrance.

Applause rang out as the festival kicked off with the unbilled trio Yamin featuring Yamin on vocals and lead guitar, Kob on bass and Note on drums. They delighted with crowd not with jazz but a tight set of blues rock. 

The jazz came a little later with an exciting, high-energy performance by several saxophonists of such classics Duke Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing”, Josef Zawinul’s “Birdland” and Thai traditional tune “Nok Khamin” before leaving the stage to veteran sax player Tewan Sapsanyakorn for a solo show that included the traditional Thai song, “Lao Krathop Mai”.

Steve Cannon also delighted with a set that included original songs “Perky” and “With You” from the band’s “Nowhere Man” album in addition to several covers, among them Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature”.

The stage was then cleared for the official opening ceremony but the music soon resumed, this time with alumni of reality shows and talent contests strutting their stuff. Both the All Stars Jazz Singers and The Voice Jazz Singers performed sets that had little to do with jazz despite slightly jazzy arrangements, covering such pop standards as Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love” and The Stylistics’ “You Make Me Feel Brand New”. However, not all the rearrangements worked well, with Yinglee Srijumphon’s rousing luk thung hit “Khor Jai Ther Lak Ber Tho” sounding more like the soundtrack to a ghost movie that the upbeat number all Thais love.

Japanese outfit The Travellers played a great set of jazz numbers with a strong rock feel, among them “Sausage Rock”, “Your Cash Ain’t Nothin’ But Trash” and “Let Me Jump Again” and The Infinity also delighted with fusion jazz, playing a series of original numbers from their repertoire that included “On the Way”, “Impressive Phi Phi Island”, and “Life in Bangkok” as well as new track “Heritage”.

Soul After Six complete with a brass section closed out the event with plenty of soul-infused numbers including “Thing Chan Wai” and “Khon La Thang Diew Kan.”