Jeremy Monteiro tells Melissa Gail Sing about his earliest ambitions, his latest projects and his dream for Singapore’s jazz scene.  

This December, Singapore’s homegrown jazz maestro Jeremy Monteiro marks a special milestone in his musical career as he returns to The Esplanade—Theatres on the Bay for the 10th edition of his Jazzy Christmas concert, Let’s Keep Christmas in Our Hearts. The occasion comes at the end of a highly-charged year that has seen, among other things, music tours across the globe, the launch of his first Christmas album in two decades, and just before that, the launch of Jazz-Blues Brothers, a collaboration between Jeremy and Italian jazz organist Alberto Marsico, which in September became the first recording from Singapore to be released under the esteemed Verve Music Group label. The 54-year-old, whose illustrious career began at the tender age of 16, isn’t about to rest on his laurels any time soon, however. 

Jeremy Monteiro tells Melissa Gail Sing about his earliest ambitions, his latest projects and his dream for Singapore’s jazz scene.

Did you always aspire to be a musician?

When I was a child, my dad was the managing director in Sabah of Borneo Skyways, an air charter company. I had seen all the test flights, and after the plane had been certified to fly, there would always be one more test flight before it went to service, and I would always go on that flight. I fell in love with it and really wanted to become a pilot. But then I started wearing glasses when I was about 10 years old, dashing my hopes of becoming a pilot.

Meanwhile, I had enjoyed making music since I was a toddler and when I was a little older, my parents enrolled me for piano lessons. After four or five years of that, I began losing interest because it was getting too gruelling and I felt that the practice sessions were messing up my play time. So my interest began to wane and I started to hate the piano by the time I was eight or nine years old. During one period when I was learning how to press the sustain pedal on the piano, I was so frustrated that I went outside our home, started my father’s motorcycle, got the engine really hot then deliberately burnt my leg on the motorcycle. I went back into the house screaming, “Mum, I burnt my leg!” She put some butter on it (as they did back then) and when I was feeling better, she said, “Now you can go back and play on the piano, but you don’t have the press the pedal.” So my plan backfired!

Then by chance, my parents found an amazing teacher, Mr Tan Tze Tong, one of the first masters in classical piano. He rekindled my interest in the piano. He was one of the first teachers I had who could demonstrate everything he was trying to teach me. So whether it was technique, phrasing or connecting with the universe and playing with your heart, he could illustrate it. That was the turning point for me. I fell in love with music again. The rest is history.

What’s the next big musical challenge you’ve set for yourself?

For a while now, I’ve been toying with the idea of creating an album of songs that have been prominent in my life since I was a child. The working title is “The Soundtrack of My Life”, and there will be songs like Rain, Rain, Go Away and My Bonnie. I have already done a jazz arrangement of My Bonnie, which I’ve performed many times. So there will be familiar songs and not-so-familiar ones, but all of them will be songs that just stick with you as you grow up. I think it would be nice to use music to mark those periods in life before you forget them.

I am also working on a jazz Chinese New Year album. It won’t be my first Chinese album, but my first Chinese New Year album where I’ll have songs like Gong Xi, Gong Xi very nicely arranged, such that even someone who cannot identify the traditional song would listen to it and think of it as a new jazz composition.

Where is jazz headed in Singapore? Or at least, where would you like to see it headed?
People always talk about the art industry and the music industry in the same measure. At the end of the day, art is completely incongruent with commercialism but unfortunately the reality of modern life is that you have to have a commercialisation of your work so that you can earn a living from it—unless you are someone who is already wealthy, like some doctors and lawyers who are also consummate musicians who do this as a serious hobby and can operate at a level equivalent to a fulltime professional.

But as far as jazz is concerned in Singapore, I think jazz as a ratio of listeners and fans to other music genres is the same everywhere in the world. The real numbers may appear larger in America because of the large population, but the ratios are the same. So even though our numbers are smaller, in terms of ratio, it’s not different from anywhere in America. Many have sort of condemned the poster boys and poster girls of jazz in recent years, people like Kenny G, Diana Krall and Michael Bublé. People scoffed at them but I am actually very thankful to these artistes. People who listened to Kenny G 12 years ago are now listening to Ben Webster, Dexter Gordon and more meaty, mainstream jazz musicians, so they did a great job bringing people into the music. It’s the same with Diana Krall who’s not just a pretty face but a really good musician and consummate artiste. Michael Bublé is very stylish, known for wonderful phrasing and tops it off with a great personality. So, these people have expanded and increased interest in jazz. I think the trend will continue.

Your sister Claressa is a noted musician as well. Any other music talents in the family?
There’s Claressa, who is a professional musician, my other sister Sheila was a very good piano player growing up and eventually became a successful model with her own modelling school, and of course, my dad, who was semi-professional musician. My son Varian is actually very musical but he is not interested in making music. I don’t really have any expectations of him to follow it my career footsteps. When it comes to such things, you can cajole and push to a point but eventually, you’ll have to leave the young ones to decide. Varian has chosen to do production and the business side of music, so that’s good too. He is very interested in psychology, and works as a counselling therapist—this is on top of modelling and working with me.
Claressa and I work together once in a while but we never let work come between our relationship as sister and brother. But people like to see us perform together, so we do that once in a while.

What’s Christmas like for you?
Because of the intense preparations for the Jazzy Christmas concert, I usually take about a week to depressurise. One year, I really didn’t feel like celebrating Christmas until the 5th of January. It’s very, very stressful preparing for a big event. What the audience sees is all good; everything is great and you’re smiling, but they don’t always know about the kind of pressures you go through with the music arrangements, endless rehearsals and so on. So when I finished the Jazzy Christmas concert that year, I just shut my door, I spoke to very few people on Christmas Day itself, just to wish them, then I just completely withdrew. Then around the 5th of January, I said, “We haven’t had our Christmas family dinner yet.” So we organised Christmas dinner on January 5th!

I love people very much but I also love being alone. To me, solitude is one of the sweetest things in life. As much as I like people, I do need to withdraw, perhaps more than some people, into a “cave”, sometimes to the extent of the exclusion of my family members. It’s where I depressurise, let go, not think of music, and then come back from “another world” and get back to being with people.

Any unfulfilled ambitions?
Not really. I’ve played with just about every music legend that I’ve wanted to play with. I remember at 14 years old looking at album covers while listening to music—looking not so much at the star’s name, but at the intermediate names—and saying, “Oh I want to play with this guy and that”, and I have actually played with a lot of those people throughout my career. But I guess the one person I would like to play with but I haven’t played with (and he’s not a jazz musician) is James Taylor. That’s one unfulfilled ambition!

Catch A Jazzy Christmas: Let's Keep Christmas in Our Hearts with Jeremy Monteiro and friends on December 20 at The Esplanade Concert Hall 

Credits
Photography: Lionel Lai/Acepic
Grooming: Benedict Choo
Location: The Halia at Raffles Hotel