The Bangkok City of Jazz festival hosted its International Jazz night last Friday Oct. 12 Bangkok Arts and Culture Center. Regardless of the fact that there were more than 300 guests in attendance, the concert felt cozy and informal with artists actively engaging with the audience.
After a brief talk about the history of the festival by co-organizer Alexander Beets and some comments by the Dutch ambassador to Thailand Joan Boer, jazz pianist Peter Beets kicked off the night with some snazzy instrumental jazz tunes accompanied by his brother Marius Beets on the double bass and Gijs Dijkhuizen on the drums.
The concert was kicked up a notch when Koh Mr. Saxman and Alexander Beets joined on stage to battle it out on their saxophones, blending the night’s pre-planned repertoire with some impressive improvised and more neurotic jazz.
Paulette McWilliams was the cherry on top of this evening’s cake, adding her sensual voice and some bodacious shakes of the hips to the second half of the concert. Thanks to her vocals, the room quickly filled with the power and passion of vocal jazz. The perfect ending of a jazzhead’s dream evening. It definitely made this 14-hour workday-laden reporter’s heart beat faster.
Supported by the Dutch Embassy, this year’s International Night of Jazz event ended up being mostly directed towards the Dutch expat community of Bangkok and definitely set the standard for a more exclusive concert. “Supporting these kinds of great cultural initiatives is never a lot of effort for us,” said Dutch ambassador of Thailand Joan Boer. “We always save a fund to support great cultural activities in Bangkok. The Netherlands has a very good jazz culture, so we’ve always supported that as well. We have been listening to the Beets Brother’s and Koh Mr. Saxman’s King of Jazz CD in our embassy’s cars for more than a year now.”
“But this event is also rather important for the image of the Netherlands,” added the ambassador. “It’s great to be able to show our positive, collaborative and creative side through this event. This festival once again proves that the Dutch are very exportable. It’s a great initiative.”
Though the future of the festival seems to have just gotten even brighter thanks to this well-organized edition, it wasn’t hard for anyone to notice that the International Night of Jazz’s audience mostly consisted of Dutch expats. Though the rather expensive ticket prices of THB1200 were well worth the evening’s content and intimate musical experience, the organizers did reveal that they planned to broaden both the appeal and access of the Bangkok City of Jazz in its future editions.
“I want to make Thailand into a saxophone country in the near future,” said Saxman.
