USM Jazzband Junior: The Shenanigans

The Shenanigans

Vic,Fiqa,Betty,Zaifi,prof. Razif,Nasrul,Hafiz

          First of all I would like to introduce The Shenanigans members, you can see the picture above. The Shenanigans is a small group of the first year student and they're representative of USMJAZZBAND. We are free style musician and wanted to try different style of jazz.

Starting the jazz band is definitely an exciting experience in our life,  

"I can't stop this music travelling round with me 

wherever I go, it's playing for you"

we never stop getting whirl

*JAZZBAND PERFORMANCE: EVERY THURSDAY, 12.30PM-1.30PM AT ANJUNG SEMARAK USM.

The Shenanigans hit all the right notes!!

On March 14, 2013, The Shenanigans’ Jazz Ensemble had their first concert of the second semester with special guest guitarist, Helsheila Julis at Anjung Semarak. The Shenanigans collectively performed seven pieces during the  concert.  “My Girl ”, “Kiss Me” and “ Valerie" were three stylistically different pieces that allowed the audience to experience the various sounds of jazz music.  Jazz music, like all music, tells us a story - and here are some of my reviews of this jazz performance.

     “My Girl”, originally by The Temptations,was sung by our vocalist, Nasrul. It is an upbeat jazz standard made famous by The Temptations.  In the instrumental version of this song, a Latin-inspired consonance set a romantic mood at the beginning of this song.  A keyboard and guitar then alternately played the melody of the song - as though they were step-dancing, or like two lovers flying to the moon. 

"Somebody That I Used To Know" is a well-known piece originally performed by Gotye. As the performance heated up, the atmosphere changed as saxophonists Zaifi Mokhtar and Shafiqah Shujairi started to play the melody line, while the keyboard and Cajon players within the ensemble played the  accompaniment.  The rhythm, which started off steady, seemed to get faster and faster - just like quickening heartbeats – towards the climax of the song.  It was also at this point that the dynamics of the song were progressively synchronized until all instruments met at the top with a bang and then resolved the dynamics again to a moderate level until the song ended.

    “Use Somebody”, is a song by the American alternative rock group Kings of Leon. It was sung by our vocalist, Nasrul.  The texture of this piece remained the same throughout and the ‘’1,2,3‘’ pattern was also used very noticeably throughout the piece as well.  The saxophone, congas and the guitar took turns playing the melody and did so through this performance in the form of solos.  The dynamics in this song started soft and then increased to a moderate level before a ‘’decrescendo’’ to a softer level once again. The ensemble did a fabulous job of keeping up with the rhythm of the song.

     “She's The One”, originally written by Wallinger, was sung by our vocalist Anis Azman and the musicians played in a swing style and also played romantic melodies.  This piece began by having very dissonant tones within the harmony with the introduction of a keyboard, saxophone, conga, cabasa and tambourine.  The song then changed into a more consonant harmony, which remained throughout the rest of the song. The melody of this song was bright and happy in some places within the song, and cool and relaxing in other parts as the tempo changed. There were many dynamics used within this song.  The song began with a crescendo from very soft to very loud and then remained in this pattern until the end when the pattern was reversed. Anis Azman’s voice made an amazing combination with the other instruments to make a special jazz performance.

     “Kiss Me”, originally by Sixpence None The Richer, as well as Amy Wine house’s "Valerie"were also performed by our vocalist, Anis Azman. For me, these songs depict the passion of romance since the first notes were played. The songs were passionate and sexy.I find listening to these songs a worthwhile experience and it was a fantastic beginning to the jazz concert, in the sense that the songs were familiar to the audience. Besides that, these songs create a very lively feeling and made me appreciate the beauty of real jazz. Starting with slow intros and slow beats, these songs changed into reggae beats, making members of the audience curious at first - but excited nevertheless.

                                     

            At the end of the performance, our guest guitarist, Helsheila Julis really “screwed up madly” by playing solo through her original, "Live Away", as well as covers of "Payphone” and “Wings". Her finger picking style on acoustic guitar coupled with Cain’s beats on the cajon creates a cool syncopated,groovy effect while the beats on the cajon really made the audience move to them.I found listening to these songs a worthwhile experience and it was a fantastic ending to the jazz performance – as they were also familiar to the audience.

     The Shenanigans’ performance at Anjung Semarak was an enjoyable one, filled with great pieces of music. As I sit back, I reflect on what menial words I would use to describe this past performance- an extraordinary experience that I had with The Shenanigans.  I wondered whether I should use these words,“an experience extremely extraordinary and out of this world” to describe it because this experience changed me and my perception of what it truly meant to see the world. I remembered how I was before, having a narrow tunnel vision on how I perceived the world.  I'm not going to pretend that I loved every minute of it, but I believed that sometimes musical expeditions like these really inspire me to find out what is happening in the world around us. The Shenanigans did an awesome job and I would like to thank everyone for their support.

 i'm pretending as saxophonists, actually i'm covering percussion.