A little night of jazz

Saipan’s glitterati and a large crowd of Japanese fans descended on Aqua Resort Club last Saturday for a night of jazz with the Shuya Sato Ando Sound Shower, a renowned group of jazz artists from Japan, for a one-night concert dubbed “Jazz One Night.”

Saxophone player Sbuya Sato, bass guitarist Michio Takanabi, drummer Akihiko Hasegawa, and pianist Peter St. Ledger dazzled jazz enthusiasts with an eclectic mix of standard covers and their own brand of musicianship that made for a swinging night at the Achugao hotel resort.

The more than 200 people that filled the Raraina Fine Dining Hall were also treated to a full-course dinner that made the experience not merely an aural treat but also a gastronomic delight. The dinner menu—prepared under the supervision of executive chef Hubert Friedle—featured smoked salmon rolls and shrimp salad for starters, corn and crabmeat soup, orange sherbet in vodka to cleanse the palate for the main entrée—tenderloin beef with chipotle salsa and saffron rissoto—finished off with lemon-lime terrine on fruit coulis.

And, like the perfect post-prandial cigar or glass of sherry, the music started right on cue as soon as everyone was well-fed and watered, signaled by the staccato beat of Hasegawa’s drumsticks lightly skimming over the cymbals and the high hat, followed almost immediately by Sato on the saxophone. The audience didn’t realize at first that the group had started playing but the light scattering of claps slowly built to a crescendo as soon as a blast of liquid music soared from Sato’s saxophone to engulf the Raraina in the evocative music of jazz. The spotlight skimmed over the tops of people’s heads and focused on the group on stage as they swung into a series of jazz standards that had everyone tapping their feet in time to the music.

And it was perfect. The Raraina didn’t have the reverb of a concert hall nor the acoustics of a sound stage but these deficiencies only served to preserve the quality of the music, ensuring that the volume of sound didn’t inundate, didn’t overwhelm the listeners. Even the sax had a restrained quality to it, easy on the ear and lacking the tinny, piercing quality that an over-enthusiastic player usually brings to such an instrument. Even the subdued lighting worked, the whole atmosphere evocative of a 1930s dance hall, when jazz was still evolving and the movement yet to go beyond its black roots.

To ensure that everyone had a good view of the performers, Aqua Resort set up two giant screens that showed the action on stage.

All in all, it was a busy night for Aqua Resort Club’s sales and marketing manager, Dorina M. Gabutero, who could be seen everywhere, making sure that people were having fun and being take cared of by the wait staff.

“We sold out all the tickets, which we kept to about 200 only as we didn’t want to have too much people as it would affect the service of the wait staff,” she said. “It was a successful event for us and we’re very happy with the turnout as most of the audience was composed of mixed nationalities.”

The feedback, she said, was that this should not be the first and last jazz concert. “They [audience] also want it again next year. The group also performed last Sunday and it was a good turnout. The ambiance was perfect for this type of concert—not too crowded, where people could easily move,” Gabutero said.

Aqua Resort is, however, not resting on its laurels as it is now planning to bring in another show with international performers, possibly in time for Valentine’s Day.

Sato, Takanabi, Hasegawa, and St. Ledger are all established jazz musicians in Japan and have regularly played in bars and concert halls in the country’s capital, Tokyo.