Theatre diva and award-winning set designer Edwin Sumun is the interior decorator for the recently opened Top Room along Jalan Kia Peng. Edwin’s magic touch had transformed what was the upper floor of a restaurant into a jazz bar. The night we were there, he was also the MC, a stand-in manager and a general-fount-of-knowledge. For instance, he informed us that the reason the Top Room took a while to be realised was because the co-owners, the Dankers, and local jazz legends David Gomes and Junji Delfino, wanted to go through the proper channels: licenses for drinks, entertainment, what-have-you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, if you like to sit down to a\ntipple and good live jazz music without worrying that you’ll be busted for\ndrinking on a Friday night, the Top Room’s the place for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had dragged along the hubby and\nJuliet (yes, our Events Editor!) and we easily found the place, no trouble. The\nrestaurant itself occupies the lower level of the colonial two-storey bungalow,\nthe ground level of which is the restaurant Top Hat. It is very impressive at\nnight, and looked like a place with a dress code. Damn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Parking wasn’t a problem, and so we\nwalked out the sandy parking lot, self-consciously wondering if our denims were\ntoo informal. The entryway itself is not a grand affair. A businesslike door\ndirectly faces the dessert refrigerator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The entry fee for a three-set show\nis RM50++ (we didn’t have to pay). Admittedly, this seems a bit steep, but as\nEdwin pointed out to us, this is a two-drink charge. Most nightspots charge\nbetween RM25-RM40 for a one-drink entry. I found that logic inherently\nreasonable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I will say now, the drinks menu is a\nlittle limited. You have shots, house-pouring whites and reds, fruit juices and\nsoft drinks. No cocktails, although Edwin welcomed us (a little huffily) to mix\nourselves a drink with whatever was available. I ended up with a lonely\nJAWl-friendly Sprite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Top Hat is very… orange. But\nthe stage is the main focal point of the Top Room. A honey of a grand piano\ntakes up a third of the stage, with a major part of what’s left occupied by the\ndrums. The bassist, singer and whoever else is performing at the time gets\nwhat’s left of the space. Which brings us to…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John Thomas and\nFriends: Full throttle<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Fri 19 – Sat 20 May 2006<\/p>\n\n\n\n John Thomas was a cutie when I first\nsaw him (albeit from a distance) at the Sunrise Jazz festival all those years\nago. His technical ability amazed me back then, and it didn’t fail to amaze me\nthat Saturday night. And hooooo, boy! He’s a cuter cutie than he was back then!<\/p>\n\n\n\n The “and Friends” portion\nof the evening comprised of a bassist, a pianoman and “diminutive”\n(it says so in the flyer) vocalist Maria Angela. They were jazzing it up for\nall it was worth on that tiny stage. I’m not into the kind of jazz where your\ninstrumentalists are on the same plane of existence physically, but in astral\nfact are probably about a few dimensions away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That being said, John Thomas’\ndriving drum beats had me bobbing my head and tapping my feet, almost totally\nagainst my own will. His drumming is like an F1 Racer at full throttle. John\nThomas fans out there will agree, this dude’s at Mach 3, and he doesn’t trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first few opening numbers\noverall, though, were a little fumbly. The bassist looked like he needed to\nkeep up, whereas the pianist was so laid back he was like “I’m an old pro,\nI’m just here to keep an eye on the young ‘uns.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n When singer Maria joined in, the\nmike seemed a little soft for her. She’s tiny, but she definitely packed a\nwallop. Now it’s hard to sing when it’s too loud to think, and with a driving\ndrum beat knocking you sideways, it’s also hard to remember what key you were\nlast in. She managed very admirably to stay on track despite the adversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, hubby loved the\ndriving beat and he too couldn’t stop bobbing his head and tapping his feet. A\nlady at the table next to us was very vocal in her approval of John Thomas’s\nperformance. Juliet was like, stoned. Not literally, but shah… you can tell\nthis one’s been working too hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m going to assume nerves and a\nsparse crowd made it hard for the performers to loosen up, but by the second\nset, we were treated to a really smooth and relaxed performance. The walls\nbetween dimensions had obviously been thinned, and all was well on the astral\nplane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The KL Hardbop Band:\nJazz was a dirty word <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Fri 26 – Sat 27 May 2006<\/p>\n\n\n\n The following weekend. Best friend\nMin got in from Oz that very evening, and I think she was just itching to get\nout of the house and into anyplace serving alcoholic beverages. So, we swung by\nher place to pick her up for an evening of jazz and booze. Sitting in the back,\nmy hubby and Min began needling each other, which made me wanna smack their\nheads together. Thank goodness for ex-colleague (and fellow Cammie Bouncer)\nJuliana, whom I managed to lure into catching that weekend’s offering by waving\nthe vague promise of a Junji Delfino appearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My irritation melted away the minute\nthe music started, though. And from my vantage point at the other end of the\nsmall room — I was sitting with Juliana — I noticed that hubby and Min had\nstopped needling each other and were paying attention to the smooth sounds from\non-stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tonight, pianist David Gomes and sax\nman Julian Chan attempted to take us back to the days of hardbop — days when\njazz was a dirty word and all the cooler for it. Sax man Julian had that aloof\nremoteness you see in a lot of sax men. They’re masculine, they’re mysterious,\nthey wail out the blues, they ripple up and down the modes and scales, and\nthey’ve got the sexiest instrument around. Julian Chan is a true sax man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m particularly sorry I didn’t get a chance to get everyone’s names, but I was very very delighted with the fact that this combo also came with a double bass (as opposed to an electric one) and a trumpet. There were some classic smooth jazz sounds with some really interesting improvs come solo time. Though that jazz format of starting together, then followed by everybody’s solo, and then coming back together, can become a little samey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, I guess with this\nparticular combo, what let me down a little was some of the orchestrated parts.\nIt made for a highly polished performance. The trumpet and sax harmonised at\nthe same points, everything was cued perfectly. But you see, I felt it was too\nperfect sometimes — there were moments when I thought it lacked the\nspontaneity and frenetic energy that I really like about live jazz\nperformances. Otherwise, the tight orchestration did impress me no end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Junji Delfino, lads and ladies, is a\npowerhouse. She scats, she jumps into the music and is herself a pure vocal\ninstrument. She’s not just a soloist, but an equal member of a jazz combo. She\nvindicated Juliana’s Saturday night out and continued to silence my hubby and\nMin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Junji corrected a particularly\nserious error in a leading daily that suggested that Top Hat was closing. The article\nclaimed that the KL Hardbop Band will be the last act of Top Room, and Junji\nassured us that the band was merely the last act of the month of May. Lots of\nother acts have been lined up as you can see from Kakiseni’s listings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I had been treated to two very\ndifferent styles of jazz at the Top Room, and while I have my personal views, I\ncan honestly say this: You’ll be paying to watch some really solid acts. There\nis no fluffy waffle on that stage. You’ll get your three-set fill of professionals\nplaying jazz as it should be, in all its forms. The ventilation is great so you\nwon’t choke on the smoke from the chain-smoker dying next to you. And the\nparking is ample ensuring you don’t have to walk three blocks in your high\nheels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the moment though, Top Room, like\nthe Hardbop Band, is clean to the point of being almost too pristine. The\nlights reminded me of those old-fashioned paraffin lamps we used back in the\nkampung before Tenaga Nasional reached the interior — they are charming and\nintimate. But as a result, the brightest source of light comes from outside. My\nattention was constantly being grabbed by the neon-bright coconut palm outside\nthe window. So I say the windowpanes can certainly afford to be murkier. Top\nRoom has great potential to be a seriously cosy jazz bar. For now, it needs all\nthe patrons, grubby hands and dirty music it can get. So what are all you dirty\njazz lovers waiting for?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Upcoming events at Top Room: Jazz & Blues with Allan Perera & Friends<\/em>. Fri 23 – Sat 24 Jun 2006 (10pm) and Eye 2 Eye Jazz Mix<\/em>. Fri 30 Jun – Sat 1 Jul 2006. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~ <\/p>\n\n\n\n Zalina Lee is the former office manager at Kakiseni; she couldn’t stand Pang’s singing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n First Published: 21.06.2006 on Kakiseni <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Theatre diva and award-winning set designer Edwin Sumun is the interior decorator for the recently opened Top Room along Jalan Kia Peng. Edwin’s magic touch had transformed what was the upper floor of a restaurant into a jazz bar. The night we were there, he was also the MC, a stand-in manager and a general-fount-of-knowledge. 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