Bands
Still in the end-of-year mood, I feel like listing the bands I’ve been with throughout my life. Without further ado, here they are:
Harmony, 1993. Genres: contemporary jazz, pop. Line-up: yours truly (keys) and Febry Hariyannugraha (keys). Honestly, I don’t remember the exact name of the band. If you happen to attend our only gig in 1993, please remind me. Trivia: we performed my composition Jakarta at Night 1.
KKE Band, 1995. Genre: pop. Line-up: Arief Awaluddin (voice), yours truly (key), Hendry Darto (electric guitar), Amir Aliakbar (electric bass), Oryza Sativa (drums). One gig only in 1995.
Ensemble Band, 1996–1998. Genres: jazz, pop. Line-up: Gupta Mahendra (guitars, 1996, 1997), yours truly (piano and keys, all line-ups), Arianto Surojo (electric bass, percussion, all line-ups), Bowie Djati (drums, percussion, all line-ups), Andre Maulana (keys, 1996–1997), Arief Awaluddin (voice, 1997), Ade Binarko (voice, 1998; enlisted, but never performed). Trivia #1: 3rd runner-up of the First Java-Bali Jazz Festival (Festival Jazz Jawa-Bali), 1996. Trivia #2: ARH Radio (Jakarta, Indonesia) Jamz Session, 6 July 1997. Trivia #3: On our first gig, the bill advertised us as “Enfemble Band”.
Duet with Sakty Rajasa, 1997–1998. Genre: pop. Line-up: Sakty Rajasa (voice), yours truly (key), various other supporting musicians. Did a few gigs together.
AB Trio, 1997–1998. Genres: jazz, pop. Line-up: yours truly (piano and keys), Arianto Surojo (electric bass), Bowie Djati (drums). We did gigs around the Depok campus of University of Indonesia. Trivia: On our first gig, I was playing an electronic keyboard, and in the first five seconds, it lost power. The power cable was accidentally unplugged.
No (known) name, ca. 2000. Genres: jazz, pop. Line-up: Ade (voice), Aldi (voice), Arif Dharma (voice), Imada Hutagalung (acoustic guitar), yours truly (key). (My apologies, Ade, Aldi, I don’t know your full names.) With me, we just did private function gigs. Without me, they had residency gigs at the (now closed down) Prefere café in Depok, West Java, Indonesia.
Mixed Up, 2002–2003. Genres: jazz, classical. Line-up: yours truly (piano, keys, voice), Sandra Bogerd (voice, kazoo), Yugo Isal (electric bass). Trivia #1: The first band to perform my composition A Wish for the Better. Trivia #2: All of us have done PhD.
Dexter and the Band, 2003–2004. Genres: jazz, latin, ethnic, and pop. The band is still active, but I no longer play there. The line-up for this band kept changing. As far as I remember, it (almost?) always had a distinct line-up for every public gig. The last line-up I played in was really great: Dexter Pradi (keys), Steve Pranaditha (drums), Dung Nguyen (guitar), yours truly (keys, cowbell), Armand Muljadi (bass), Adinda Marita (voice), Henry Sullivan (voice), Aldi Simatupang (voice).
Gadsby, 2006–present. Genre: contemporary jazz. This band was really mostly Ensemble Band. Line-up: Gupta Mahendra (guitars, 2006–2010), yours truly (keys, 2006, 2010), Bowie Djati (drums, all 2006–present), Yugo Isal (basses, harmonica, 2006–present), Shuhud Tjia (guitars, 2007–present), Andre Maulana (keyboards, 2007), Arianto Surojo (bass, percussion, 2010–present). Trivia: the first band (2006 line-up) to record my composition A Wish for the Better.
Tim Hadrah Melbourne, 2011–present. Genre: traditional. Well, I’m not really sure that it’s the agreed name for the band, but anyway… Line-up: Nur Kholis, Honest Molasy, yours truly, Mustofa Fahmi. Everyone’s on rebana.
MOU Quartet, 2011–present. Genre: jazz. Line-up: Mihoko Abe (saxophone), yours truly (piano and key), Daigo Nakai (acoustic bass), Jularaj Suthibutr (drums). This is mostly a contemporary jazz cover band.
I was in other bands (if not mistaken, mostly one-off ones), but my memory of them is hazy.
Factual corrections are welcome.
