Jazz Maestro Jeremy Monteiro Reflects on 45 Years of His Music Career

Almost 50 years in the music business, Monteiro’s passion for his craft remains steadfast, even though it has not been smooth sailing all the way. “Music has never let me down,” he says. “As a professional musician, whenever I had difficult times, it’s always been because of my aggressive entrepreneurial spirit, sometimes taking a big fall and then going through a few years of trying to recover from it. Now I’m a bit more prudent, not because I’ve become less adventurous, but I’m more selective about opportunities.”

Take Simply Jazz, for example. An old friend Adrian Leong started the Tinbox Group, which runs live music venues Simply Live and Simply Retro, and asked if Monteiro wanted to partner him in Simply Jazz and grow the brand. While there were Covid-19 restrictions to live and music performances at F&B venues when they first opened, many people came and supported them because of the “good food that’s catered to the Singaporean palette”—hot favourites include seafood ceviche served in kueh pie tee cups and Sichuan chicken “with just the right amount of mala”—until live music resumed in March.

You can say that Monteiro has done well for himself as a professional musician and is an inspiration to younger musicians, including Nathan Hartono. “He’s made a good living for himself in the arts here in Singapore, that alone is worth admiring,” says Hartono. “But I also know it doesn’t just come because of his talent, he works so obsessively hard on everything he puts his heart into. That inner drive has always been inspiring to me.”

Read also: Nathan Hartono: 5 Things To Know About The Singer-Songwriter

In a chapter of Late-Night Thoughts of a Jazz Musician (2018), Monteiro’s award-winning book of essays published by Marshall-Cavendish, he highlights that you don’t have to be a professional musician to play at a professional level. “If you depend on it for a living in this day and age, you get a big heartache. Music has been extremely devalued over the past few years with streaming platforms, but it’s a double-edged sword. Before streaming, you were listened to in 12 to 15 countries, now you are listened to in more than 100 countries. And you can go and earn a living touring and performing at shows, concerts and festivals because people know you in more places.”

But that was before the pandemic.

This is why support from private corporations and individuals are important. Monteiro himself has been fortunate to have been supported by Swiss bank EFG International for the past 15 years. And he is extending the same support to young talented musician with Jass, through its scholarships and grants. So far, the organisation has awarded nine scholarships since 2018. In July 2020, it added a new pillar to its work—that of supporting eligible local jazz musicians impacted by crisis with short-term financial aid.

“I said this on stage the other day, and it’s an arguable point: we have more high-level jazz musicians of all ages today than we’ve had in our entire history,” Monteiro expounds. “There was a period when it was just my mentor Louis Soliano and I, then pianists Mei Mei Sheum and Joshua Wan emerged in the 1990s, before the gang of three, as I call them: pianist and composer Chok Kerong, guitarist Andrew Lim, and Weixiang Tan, Jass associate music director, emerged in the noughties. The next wave is led by flautist Rit Xu and saxophonist Sean Hong Wei, who are two of our Jass scholars.”

Read also: Young Jazz Singapore: Saxophonist Sean Hong Wei Puts His Soul into Playing Music

The upcoming Jass Gala 2022: Swing It! fundraiser held on July 31 at the Island Ballroom of Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore is a celebration of Jass’s 6th anniversary and Monteiro’s 45th career-anniversary. Dong and Hartono, will be joining Monteiro and the Jazz Association Singapore Orchestra (Jasso), to perform a repertoire including favourites from Louis Armstrong, in celebration of the 121st birthday of the jazz legend and father of modern jazz.

Highlights includes When the Saints Go Marching In, When You're Smiling and Hello Dolly, alongside other classic such as Frank Sinatra’s Come Fly with Me and It Had to Be You and the Chinese evergreen song, Wo Yao Ni (I Want You).

“I think this is definitely one of the few times we get to go back to our jazz roots because both Nathan and I have kind of departed from the very traditional jazz standards; I’ve gone into more pop jazz and Nathan’s gone into his own electropop kind of vibe with his latest album,” says Dong. “So this is like a homecoming for us. I think it’s a celebration of how wonderful this genre of music is, and pay homage to how great a foundation it is for us in our careers. And, of course, we are raising funds so that more young people can enjoy that same exposure and education in jazz.”

In case you missed it: Singapore’s First Virtual Jazz Gala Raises $650,000

Meanwhile, Monteiro has new ambitions: to catalyse symphonic jazz in Singapore. “So basically, what I’m doing with this effort is for jazz musicians as well as classical and orchestral musicians to come together musically. With this, we can also bring together the community and the lovers of both orchestral and jazz music within this new enlarged space. We might not dwell in it all the time because we still want to concentrate on jazz or classical music, but from time to time.”

Monteiro worked with the professional chamber orchestra re:Sound Collective for his recent for 45th-anniversary concert. “They are the most hardworking group of musicians that I’ve ever come across. We had five rehearsals and they were already nailing everything at the first. I think I’ve fallen in love with this group, and I hope it’s a lifetime musical affair with them.”

This orchestral love affair has also extended into his personal work. Since he started recording his first full vocal album three years ago, Monteiro has decided to add in an orchestra to the 10-track album, featuring songs from the Great American Songbook, which he hopes to release in November. The album also includes an original song he wrote for his wife Josephine, which he has performed in various iterations, but not yet featured in an album.

Even though it may seem that Monteiro has a lot on his plate, he is not staying still. He has already written the first drafts of his two upcoming books: a semi-fictional novel and an autobiography. 

Most significant performance …

Monteiro counts playing the main stage of the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1988 as one of the important performance of his career because “I was no longer a stranger to the international scene”. He was the first Southeast Asian musician to lead a band of established performers, and this was widely covered in the Singapore and regional press—and also when the Japanese press started calling him the “King of Swing”.

“They were the first to give me that mantle, which I kind of chuckle about because I wouldn’t dream of calling myself the king of anything,” he says. “After that, the Malaysian press picked up on it, and then the local press, and it helped me move along [in my career].” That and making it as one of the highlights, sandwiched between American musicians Spyro Gyra and George Benson, in the Best of Montreux video disc, which chronicled the first 25 years of the festival in Switzerland.

Most notable albums …
While he released his first album in 1986, Monteiro considers Always in Love (1990), featuring Charlie Haden, one of the world’s top bass players at the time, a highlight of the first 10 years of his recording career. The title song was written in memory of Nesuhi Ertegun, one of the executives of Atlantic Records, whom he became friends with in the last few years of Ertegun’s life. “I asked him, ‘Why are you always so happy and joyful?’ His reply: ‘Because I’m always in love … with humanity, with nature.’”

Meanwhile, the album that has been getting a lot of rpms in recent years is Brazilian Dreams (2016), featuring the bossa nova tunes of Brazilian great Antonio Carlos Jobim, including some of Monteiro’s originals. “It gives me a lot of validation that the album is well received in Brazil, and other Portuguese speaking countries.”

In case you missed it: Behind The Byline: Life Lessons With Jeremy Monteiro

Favourite music collaborators …
Throughout his career, Monteiro has made firm friends among his fellow musicians and contemporaries, and many have become his collaborators in music. One frequent collaborator was the late Grammy award-winning bass player and vocalist Eldee Young. “We were very, very close friends. He helped me understand that when you play jazz, or music, the operative word is ‘play’. He really taught me to put the play into my work.”

Another musician he has collaborated with since 1988 is the two-time Grammy award-winning saxophonist Ernie Waltz. “I produced one of his albums, which is really amazing because he had people like Quincy Jones and Don Grusin produce for him before. So to be in the alumni of Ernie Watts producers is very, very special,” Monteiro enthuses.

And then there is Louis Soliano, the godfather of Singapore jazz. “He was my bandleader in the early eighties and has been a wonderful inspiration to me and many musicians for many generations in Singapore,” shares Monteiro. “He was on my 45th-anniversary show, and I’ll be producing his 80th-birthday concert on October 21, at Capitol Theatre. I was planning to go for a three-week holiday but when your mentor says, ‘Please produce my 80th-birthday concert’, you can’t refuse.”

Read also: Singapore International Festival of Arts 2021: Making Music with Jazz Icon Louis Soliano

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